History of amiibo Support

After looking at the History of Hero Mode, let's study another recurring feature of modern Zelda titles: amiibo. These NFC-powered figurines are for the most part a collectible, but also can be scanned to obtain goodies or access certain features.

amiibo have their origin in 2014 with the release of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, where they are used for so called "Figure Players", which can be trained and go way beyond the difficulty of a Level 9 CPU fighter. But it didn't take long for other Nintendo games to support these toys and even come up with their own amiibo lines, which is also true for the Zelda series.

The whole topic has always been one of controversy. The amiibo figurines aren't always easy to come by, where they are often sold out very quickly, and some people might just simply not want to collect them for different reasons. At the same time Nintendo wants to offer an incentive to use the figurines you have, which can lead to problems, where either using the amiibo isn't really worthwhile, because they don't offer enough, or they are locking valuable content that should have been available to all players.

So, let's take a look at how the Zelda series has utilized the amiibo figurines and find out what solutions work the best and what should be avoided.

amiibo in Hyrule Warriors

The first Zelda-related title to support amiibo was actually Hyrule Warriors on the Wii U, which came out the same year as Super Smash Bros. 4. It uses amiibo in a very simple way, where you can scan up to five of them on the title screen per day to receive random materials and weapons. If you scan an amiibo related to a character playable in the game, you may also get weapons specifically for that character.

It's an easy way of obtaining some free stuff, but you can get this stuff by playing the game just fine, so the incentive to use the amiibo is probably rather low and you might just ignore this feature altogether. It's still a good way of collecting more weapons for a certain character, for example if you're looking for some special weapon skills.

This functionality has been carried over the whole series, where it's the same for Hyrule Warriors: Legends, Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition and even the new Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. If it's not broken, then don't fix it.

However, the original Hyrule Warriors on the Wii U had an outlier, because here scanning an amiibo of Link was the only way to unlock the Spinner weapon type for him. This did receive quite some criticism, because it effectively locked an entire moveset behind a figurine, where in the later versions the Spinner got moved to the Adventure Mode.

Majora's Mask 3D and Tri Force Heroes

Much like with Hero Mode, the 2015 releases for the Zelda series on the Nintendo 3DS refused to follow any modern trends and didn't offer any amiibo support whatsoever. This is of note, because both games would have the perfect insertion point with their masks and outfits. There could have been a series of exclusive masks and costumes that can only be unlocked via the figurines, but GREZZO didn't implement anything like this.

That's not a complaint, quite the opposite, because it's nice to still have some Zelda games that don't require an extensive amiibo collection to unlock everything. For completionists, who want to collect all masks and outfits, it's much nicer if you can do it all on your own without the need of external items.

And that's not taken for granted, as proven by Metroid Prime: Federation Force later on. If you want to unlock all the "Paint Jobs" for the mech suits in this game, where some of them even offer unique abilities, you not only need all Metroid amiibo, but a whole bunch of Super Mario amiibo as well. And something like Super Mario outfits or masks could have easily been a thing for Tri Force Heroes and Majora's Mask.

amiibo in Twilight Princess HD

We have arrived in 2016 and Twilight Princess HD just found its way on the Wii U, where it got released and even bundled together with an amiibo of Wolf Link and Midna. This amiibo is quite special in many ways. It's the first amiibo that got made for the Zelda series and it also comes with some very unique functionalities. If there's one amiibo that you want to own as a Zelda fan, then it's this one.

In Twilight Princess HD itself, this amiibo is the only way of accessing the "Cave of Shadows". This new dungeon is similar to the Cave of Ordeals from the same game, but it's a new series of challenge rooms, which can only be taken on as Wolf Link. At the end of certain checkpoints and the dungeon itself, it saves onto the amiibo how many hearts you still got left. This can be used to heal yourself in the dungeon, but you can also carry this data over to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Locking an entire dungeon behind an amiibo is rather questionable and it's by far the biggest content that you can out of these figurines in the Zelda series. It probably would have been a better idea to let all players access this dungeon and use the amiibo only for saving your record, should you want to use it in Breath of the Wild.

The Zelda characters from the Super Smash Bros. amiibo series also got supported by Twilight Princess HD, but most of them simply function as cheats. The Links let you refill your arrows, while Zelda and Sheik will fully heal you. Together with the Wolf Link amiibo, they are the only way of healing yourself in the Cave of Shadows (other than the rare hearts that you may be able to dig up).

The only other special functionality comes with the Ganondorf amiibo, which turns your hearts blue, now causing the double the damage and making the game harder. It's similar to the "Hero Mode", where you can even combine it with the game's actual Hero Mode for quadruple damage. It's an optional challenge that the player can activate at any time and which is nice to have.

Still, this is also true for the Hero Mode in The Wind Waker HD and this one didn't require you to own any additional figurine. It was simply an option on the game file and there is no good reason that Twilight Princess couldn't have done the same for its blue hearts, other than adding special support for this one amiibo.

The Legend of Zelda amiibo Series

For the 30th Anniversary of the franchises in 2016, Nintendo decided to release four more amiibo as part of the Zelda series, following Wolf Link from earlier that year. Three more then followed in summer 2017, where all of them are based on the major installments of the series.

From left to right, there's 8-Bit Link from The Legend of Zelda, adult Link from Ocarina of Time, young Link from Majora's Mask, Link and Zelda from The Wind Waker, Link from Twilight Princess and finally Link from Skyward Sword. That's a lot of Links, with Toon Zelda being the odd one out.

However, for the most part these amiibo will simply function as "Link", "Toon Link" and "Zelda" for the games that support the respective figurines from the Super Smash Bros. line. And the only game to truly use them all individually so far has been Breath of the Wild. Speaking of...

amiibo in Breath of the Wild

After the build-up from Twilight Princess HD and introducing the Zelda amiibo series, the new big The Legend of Zelda game really had to deliver when it comes to amiibo support. On top of it, Breath of the Wild even got its own amiibo series with five new amiibo available at launch in March 2017:

Zelda, Archer Link, a Guardian, Rider Link and a Bokoblin got eternalized as figurines, where the highlight is by all means the Guardian with its bendable legs. Together with the Zelda characters from the Super Smash Bros. amiibo line, there were a total of 16 different figurines to support (Smash Link and Toon Link work the same as the Link from Twilight Princess and The Wind Waker respectively).

And Breath of the Wild employs a simple, but effective system for using all of your amiibo: with the amiibo Rune on the Sheikah Slate you can use each amiibo once per day to summon materials and a treasure chest. This is somewhat similar to Hyrule Warriors, but not limited to five amiibo, so you can scan your entire collection every day, which can be fun and become a small ritual. The materials and the content of the chest are based on the amiibo, where there is a series of unique items that can only be obtained with the respective figurines via their amiibo chests.

Well, out of the new Breath of the Wild amiibo, only Rider Link gives you the Traveler's Bridle and Saddle as unique items. But the Smash Bros. and Zelda amiibo all offer something that you cannot get otherwise, which includes Epona as a horse and a variety of weapons and armor pieces based on earlier Zelda titles, e.g. Link's shield and tunic from The Wind Waker or a Fierce Deity set.

Most of these are purely cosmetic, so their functionality is also covered by other armor pieces and weapons that you can find in Breath of the Wild. The biggest exception is probably the Twilight Bow, which you get from the Super Smash Bros. Zelda amiibo based on Twilight Princess. This one shoots a weak Light Arrow in a straight line, making target shooting games much easier.

So, overall these amiibo have a cheating nature to them, where they let you get powerful items quite early in the game. Together with the fact that these items are all from another era and shouldn't really be a thing in the game, it probably makes this more acceptable to have them as amiibo exclusives.

Later in 2017 Nintendo released four more amiibo for Breath of the Wild, the four Champions – Mipha, Urbosa, Daruk and Revali –, which were even sold in one package. They all offer "Divine Helms" based on their respective Divine Beasts, which can be used in combination with the Ancient Soldier Gear, where they offer some additional perks over the Ancient Helmet.

Now, the most interesting amiibo functionality in Breath of the Wild comes with Wolf Link, however, as already mentioned. You can use it to summon Wolf Link to your side, which perfectly captures the "toys-to-life" aspect of amiibo, without locking anything essential behind the feature. Well, ideally you would also be able to pet normal dogs in the game to make them follow and help you, where Wolf Link is just a special one, similar to horses and Epona. But it's not like you're missing anything crucial if you don't have this figurine.

Wolf Link will follow you around and even teleport to you, should you get out of range. He will hunt down any enemies and animals that you come across. And he will eat meat or fish to heal himself. That's really it, but it generally feels great to have him around, even though the Twilight Princess sound effects really make him feel a little strange.

You can keep summoning Wolf Link until his hearts run out. And the number of hearts is based on your record in the Cave of Shadows from Twilight Princess HD, where this is a nice connectivity between these two Zelda games, making good use of the amiibo's ability to save some data onto their NFC chips. The only other Zelda title to do this is the following one...

 

amiibo in Link's Awakening

In the 2019 remake of the GameBoy classic the usage of amiibo is entirely confined to the Chamber Dungeon, a new feature that lets you build a labyrinth using predefined tiles, so called "chambers", which you normally obtain from beating the main game's dungeons. Here you put dungeons together on a grid to solve Dampé's challenges or to freely build whatever you want.

First and foremost, you can use your amiibo to save your creations onto them, where this is the only real way of sharing them between save files and consoles. It's probably best not to use Wolf Link for this, but it works with every other amiibo from the Zelda series. You could for example use this to create a Rupee farming dungeon, which you then can use in a second playthrough to get a lot of Rupees in the early game. It also saves a time record, where you can use this to compete with friends.

Otherwise the Zelda amiibo are used to unlock up to five special chambers, which can only be gotten this way. You need five different Zelda amiibo for this, but the chambers have no real connection to the amiibo themselves, unlike the special armor items and weapons in Breath of the Wild. The amiibo are just used as keys here for a one-time unlock, which is by far the most uninspired usage for these figurines. Ideally, you would be able to get these special chambers via other means, e.g. by clearing challenges or from collecting Chamber Stones.

Link's Awakening also released alongside a new amiibo of Link in the art style of the remake, which is the only way of unlocking the "+ Shadow Link" effect for your Chamber Dungeons. Using it will spawn Shadow Link in the respective chamber, who then keeps chasing you until you defeat him, but also let's you earn some additional Rupees.

Unlike the Shadow Link battles in A Link Between Worlds and Tri Force Heroes, this doesn't utilize items in any way, so fighting Shadow Link doesn't really feel as dynamic or interesting as it used to be. So, getting the amiibo for this feature is probably not worth it, but in the least this feature does fit the figurine somewhat.

amiibo in Skyward Sword HD

From what we know about the upcoming HD remaster of Skyward Sword, you can now use amiibo via the interactions with Fi. However, the only amiibo truly supported by this is a new one, which again gets released alongside the game.

It's the Zelda from Skyward Sword with her Loftwing, which is quite the beautiful figurine, but its functionality in the game has sparked quite some controversy. Scanning this amiibo lets you use a new fast travel feature, where you can return to the sky from any location (even inside dungeons) and then return to this location by scanning it a second time. Not only is it quite cumbersome to use a figurine for this, such "quality of life" improvements shouldn't be locked behind a figurine, especially since they are not always easy to come by.

Otherwise Skyward Sword HD doesn't seem to support any other amiibo, not even the amiibo of Link from Skyward Sword, which was released in 2017. This makes it seem like the developers didn't know what to do with amiibo for this game, but had to come up with at least something for the new figurine.

Zelda amiibo in Other Games

While the Zelda amiibo are primarily made for Super Smash Bros. and the Zelda games, there are other titles where they can be used to unlock things. For the most part this is just costumes. There is a Link Mii outfit in Mario Kart 8 and a Link outfit for Bayonetta in Bayonetta 2, as well as a Link costume for Zoro in One Piece: Super Grand Battle! X. Both Miitopia and Yoshi's Crafted World offer costumes for Link, Zelda, Sheik and Ganondorf. Even New Style Boutique 2 has special items for Zelda and Sheik...

Arguably the biggest usage of Zelda amiibo outside of the series is in Animal Crossing: New Leaf, however, where you can unlock a bunch of Zelda items and even four special villagers: Ganon, Epona, Medli, and Wolf Link.

It's of note that so far this hasn't been going the other way around, meaning that Zelda games only really make use of Zelda amiibo and not amiibo from other series. You can use any amiibo in Breath of the Wild, but the ones from Super Mario, Animal Crossing, and so on will only give you some random materials.

The Future of amiibo

It's safe to say that amiibo will accompany us for a while longer. The remasters and remakes of the past five years all came together with one new Zelda amiibo, while Breath of the Wild had an entire collection dedicated to it... And with that we can only hope that Nintendo will follow practices that are fun and fair for utilizing these figurines.

Luckily, the Zelda game that did it best so far was arguably Breath of the Wild, where this should be used as a template in the future. Summoning Wolf Link just felt like the perfect "toys-to-life" usage and using the other amiibo to obtain (special) items felt more like cheating, where none of the exclusive items should be part of the world of Breath of the Wild anyway. This way using amiibo was fun, offers something special based on the figurine, all without taking away anything of importance from the main game.

The Zelda remakes and remasters on the other hand used amiibo to lock game features, collectibles (with no connection to the figurines) and even an entire dungeon behind them, which is simply not okay. This type of amiibo usage should be avoided at all costs in the future.