It feels like something is missing at the festival.
I’ve loved Animal Crossing since I first picked up the game on my Nintendo GameCube and committed the entire included memory card for my town. I still remember sitting on the train and talking to Blanca and getting arriving at my new town. Towns have come and gone since then and the series has finally arrived on the Wii U in a spinoff title which looks a lot like Mario Party set in an Animal Crossing town.
But where there is a lot to do in a Mario Party there isn’t that much to do in the amiibo Festival. And that makes me sad. I’m going to compare this game a lot to Mario Party because that’s the standard for video board games in my opinion.
The core of the game, and the only thing you can do at the start of the game anyway, is the actual board game itself. You’ll need an amiibo figure to start the game. Luckily the game comes with both Isabelle and Digby. Just tap them on the Wii U gamepad and you’re set to go. You can play up to four players with player one using an amiibo. The remaining three players can either choose another amiibo or can select a villager.
If you’re playing by yourself you’ll have three computer opponents to face off against. And I say face off in a very loose way because once you’re in the board game itself the game is pretty much on auto pilot.
The game is played during one calendar month of the game. You’ll start on the 1st of the month and finish at the end of the month with each round taking up one day. Each player tosses their dice, moves their appropriate number of spaces and lands on either a positive or negative space. Just like Mario Party. Like in Mario Party when you gain or lose coins depending on the space, in amiibo Festival you’ll either gain or lose “Happy Points” or “Bells.” The happy points are what you’ll need to collect to win the game.
At the end of each day you will progress to the next day and continue until the end of the month. That’s it. There is no minigame between rounds or nothing else to do. That’s it.
Now to be fair there is a bit more to the game than that, but not by much.
After the first week ends you will get to spend your bells to invest in the Stalk Market by buying turnips from Joan, just like the parent games. Each day the spaces will have a fluctuating amount of Bells for which you can sell your stash. So on good days you can sell them and make a profit while on not so good days you may lose your shirt. And you’ll have to sell them by the end of the week before they spoil. So there is this little bit of strategy, but that usually amounts to “buy everything you can afford and sell them at the first decent profit number you happen upon.”
Now there’s a reason for earning Bells. Because you’re judged on gaining Happy Points to win the game, you will get 1 point for every 1,000 Bells you have at the end of the month. So if you’re trailing you have a shot at taking home first place. Oh, and you’ll also get a happy point with each roll of the dice. As long as you’re using an amiibo to play. Villager characters don’t get this so you’re almost assured to win if you’re using an amiibo.
But while the game is a little stale. It’s still kinda fun.
At the start of various days you’ll get the chance to land on special event spaces, which are based on the town visitors from Animal Crossing. Dr. Shrunk, Crazy Redd, Katrina, and Katie are just a few that will come. If you land on their space you’ll get a chance to get (or buy) a card. These cards are dice cards and can be used in place of rolling the dice. Despite this idea the cards are somewhat hard to come by.
My only real problem with these special event spaces is length the time they take. If you’ve played any Animal Crossing game you’ll know that some NPC characters like to talk. A lot. That happens here too. Imagine having to wade through 20 seconds of text in order to get to the point in your turn where you can make a move to win or lose a card. And it’s the same text you’ve seen every time you’ve landed on that space in every game you’ve played since you started playing the game. And then you’re also seeing this text up to four times in one round when multiple players land on the event space.
It. Gets. Daunting. To. Read. It. Every. Time!
This gabbiness is part of the charm of Animal Crossing. But in this context where the is such a chance for repetitiveness the game could really use a setting menu where this could be skipped.
One thing that the developers had in mind is a warning at the start of each game. This warning gives you an idea as to how long the game might take with an average four player game capping out at 75 minutes. Luckily you can set a time limit to truncate the game at as little as 30 minutes. Also at that point you’ll get another chance to change your mind and continue longer.
So you finish the game and collect your happy points. Now what?
You can save your progress to your amiibo so that they can level up in the game, which unlocks some new outfits they can play the game with. It’s small but neat. You’ll also earn points which you can use to unlock mini game levels within the plaza which use Animal Crossing amiibo cards to play.
These games are hit or miss in my opinion.
By far the best game of the bunch is Desert Island Escape. For this game you’ll need three amiibo cards. Luckily the game comes packed with three cards. At the start of this game your three villagers will be marooned on a desert island. To escape they’ll need to collect three logs and a sail to build a raft to get off the island. You have a limited number of days to fulfill this goal, will have to collect food to eat, avoid wild animals, and pitfalls.
This minigame is surprisingly deep, especially if you have a variety of cards at your disposal.
You see each character has their own traits, abilities and tendencies. Some characters like Isabelle can detect items in adjacent spaces. Other characters can catch fish without the use of a fishing rod, or dig to a far out point on the island. Some can move five spaces per day while others can only move two or three. Some can see a good distance while some can’t see far at all. Some characters will ignore items and not pick them up. Some will only move in a straight line and won’t join the camp at the end of the day. And so on.
At the end of each day the trio will make camp together at a point you choose. If you’ve found any items which can be combined into a tool, this is the time to do it. You can craft things like a fishing rod, shovel, slingshot, etc. And these do come in handy.
If you fall into a pitfall it can be the end of your turn and you’ll have to spin a wheel of chance to determine if you get out or not. The shovel will fix this issue for you. If you come across a fish you can’t collect it for food, unless you have the fishing rod. If you come across a creature and try to fight passed it you’re chances are slim. Lose to the beast and you’ll miss your next turn. The slingshot greatly increases your odds. And there are more.
I actually had more fun playing this mini game than I did the main game.
The other minigames however are a mixed bag.
To me my cards are not something that I “play” with. I don’t mind tapping the card to choose a character to play in the game but I don’t want to have to actively use them to actually play a game. Having three friends tapping their cards onto the game pad to whack Resettis in a whack-a-mole fashion or quickly tapping on the gamepad to “buzz in” on the trivia game isn’t my idea of fun. That is just asking for my cards to get bent or otherwise damaged.
To me Animal Crossing amiibo Festival feels very much like a game that isn’t going to be receiving any DLC or updates. It feels like this is what the game is and that’s it. I’m really hoping that isn’t the case. I’m really hoping that there is something planned for the game in the future.
As it stands now Animal Crossing amiibo Festival feels like it’s lacking a lot of the charm and depth that I’m accustomed to with just about every Nintendo game I’ve played. Skippable NPS dialogue would be a huge change to the actual board game. Maybe randomized board layouts? How about more than one board to play on.
Something else to do in the games would also be nice.
