I spent 30 minutes in a Black Friday queue in Game just to pick up an amiibo. I purchased Smash the day before on impulse at Tesco and thought I'd grab an amiibo to see just what they would do. I finally got to the till and opted for a Yoshi cos his amiibo is probably the coolest looking one out so far and took him home.
I then had to try and explain to my wife and mother in law what the hell it was. The mother in law was very confused, "What is it? What does it do? Does it light up? Do its arms move?" "It does stuff in my games when I put it on the controller (now sod off and let me try it)" Wife - "£12? You say the babies toys are a rip off and you paid £12 for that? It's arms don't even move! The box says its for Smash Bros, you don't even have Smash Bros? Me - (lie) "No I don't but it works with Mario Kart and other games too".
So I managed to lie about not owning Smash and then went on to rip it from it's packaging. Screw packaging it looks better out the box and my now 6 month old son will no doubt destroy it in time when I'm not looking anyway. To those of you who are annoyed that it won't work when it's still in the box, be fair, Nintendo had to make it that way. Otherwise people would be buying them, unlocking in game features at home, then returning them to the store.
I stealthily swapped Smash out of the disc drive and put Mario Kart in and went to the amiiibo section. I placed my Yoshi on the gamepad and got a new Yoshi skin. Oh no wait, no I didnt, I got a Yoshi racing suit for my Mii, who the hell wants to race as their Mii, Yoshi suit or not? Meh
Then I went back to Smash, here it's more worthwhile I think. You can train you amiibo to fight alongside you or against you or something like that. I still don't really get why. So I made my custom amiibo Yoshi. He's a red Yoshi, I called him Roshi (I know I'm a frigging genius) and now I have him fight in Smash. Only problem is to select him I have to tap the amiibo on the gamepad on the character select screen, which I'm sure will get tedious soon and I have to tap him on again to save his progress after the smashing is over. Then you can upgrade his stats, I had him eat all the upgrades, but (I may be wrong here) they didn't seem to accumulate on top of each other, I think each one just replace the last, if so how on earth can I max out those stat bars?
I've yet to try it in Hyrule Warriors, but I expect I'll just get some rupees added and I'm done with that game anyway. The Mario Kart feature was beyond pointless and like most things in Smash it's use in there was just confusing. Still he does look cool on my shelf and I'm sure I'll be getting some more for Christmas, not from my wife she doesn't buy me things I actually want, but I think my sister bought me a couple already.
I'd be really shocked if a skylanders-esqe game doesn't come out in the next year or so, or at least I would be if this wasn't a Nintendo product, but I do hope one does. Part of me is also kind of tempted to buy Wii Fit trainer, despite me not liking the "character" or the figurine, just because it may become rare, but it's pointless because I'll take it out of its packaging anyway!
I'm hooked already though, this is going to get expensive I'm sure!