A Concise Guide to the Different amiibo Functions in Animal Crossing: New Leaf

Animal Crossing: New Leaf received a big update that added amiibo support and overhauled a few of the game’s systems. There’s a bunch of different compatible amiibo that all do different things so it can all be a bit confusing, so the aim of this guide is to serve as a sort of primer to this new feature. We’ll hopefully have some more detailed videos on the way, but with new amiibo releasing this week I thought it’d be best to get something out ASAP to clear up a lot of confusion I’ve been seeing.

Getting Started

In order to access the new amiibo features you’ll first need to find Wisp in your town. After you’ve first played the game with the update applied, Wisp will begin appearing from the next day onwards. When walking around you’re town you’ll eventually be spoken to by a voice. Follow his instructions and you’ll find his lamp. You can put this in your house as a piece of furniture and interact with it to summon an amiibo character, but different amiibo do different things. You can make one request of Wisp per day.

amiibo Figures

Good news, your Animal Crossing amiibo have become much more useful! If you tap any of them then Wisp will bring them into the new campground area of your town. They’ll park their RV at the camp, and you can go inside to visit them. When inside, you can talk to them like a normal villager and purchase their furniture using MEOW tokens. Some of this furniture is exclusive and can’t be obtained elsewhere, but you can only order three pieces of furniture from RVs per day. Be warned though, as any character you call in won’t be available at their place of work for the whole day – so if you call in Isabelle, for instance, you won’t be able to use any of the town hall’s functions. You can also use the Villager’s Smash Bros. amiibo, but it will bring Wisp’s RV to the campground.

Select non-Animal Crossing amiibo are also compatible with the game, which bring some crossover characters into your campground. Any of the Inkling amiibo will summon Inkwell the Octopus and his Splatoon-themed RV. The Squid Sisters’ amiibo will bring in a villager who has clothing and furniture themed after the respective sister. Zelda fans will be excited by all the different Zelda characters you can meet- Wolf Link, Link, and Zelda amiibo will bring in Wolf Link from Twilight Princess as a villager, Ganondorf’s amiibo will bring in Ganon, Sheik’s will summon Epona, and you can also call Medli with the Toon Link amiibo. If you imported any of the Monster Hunter Stories amiibo (that will hopefully be given a Western release) then you can use any of those to bring a Felyne into the campground. Each of these visitors has furniture themed after their respective games, but it gets even better – you can ask them to move into your village! If your village is already full then you can pick someone to move out in order to bring the new villager in.

Series 1-4 Animal Crossing amiibo Cards

Those hundreds of Animal Crossing amiibo cards you’ve collected won’t go to waste either, as each of them is compatible with New Leaf. Special Cards and normal villager cards function differently. If you tap a Special Card (the shiny ones with a non-villager NPC on them like K.K. or Tom Nook) then you’ll be able to receive an item from them, which is normally a picture of them that you can display in your house. The Special Cards function differently to figures of the same character – Isabelle’s figure will let you visit her RV, but her Special Cards will not. If you want to see a special NPC’s RV then you’ll need their amiibo figurine if they have one, however a different special NPC that doesn’t have a figure of their own will appear in your campground each day in addition to any RV you summon yourself. This includes characters like Booker, Jingle and Newt.

If you tap the card of a regular villager then you can ask them for an item too, or get them to move into your town. If your town is currently full then you can select a villager to move out in order for the new one to move in. None of the standard villagers in Series 1-4 of the amiibo cards has an RV that you can visit, which makes their interactions a bit more limited. But now I can bring Boone back and never lose him again!

New Animal Crossing amiibo Cards

From today (November 10th 2016) there are also a bunch of new amiibo cards you can purchase and use with the game. The main new series comes in red booster packs with different Welcome amiibo themed artwork that the previous series don’t have. This set contains 50 cards and each pack will give you 3 at random. Most Aussie retailers don’t seem to be advertising these cards for sale – only EB is showing them on their site at the time of writing, with a price of $4.95 a pack. Beat the Bomb had a full display box of cards for just under $100 but they appear to be sold out currently. It’s worth keeping an eye on their site because this can save you a bit of time and money, and past experiences with display boxes have been positive due to them giving a complete set most of the time. I bought boxes for all four of the previous series and I’m only missing a single card.

These new cards have expanded functionality compared to the previous series due to being designed with the Welcome amiibo update in mind. They function like the Animal Crossing figures, bringing a villager and their RV into your campground where you can meet them and order their furniture (with the same 3 orders per day limit). However, as these characters are actual villagers you can also ask them to move into your town. If your town is full then you can select another villager to move out to make room for the new character. None of the characters on these new cards has appeared in New Leaf previously, so you might find some old favourites from previous games in this set.

There’s also one very special pack of cards that can only be obtained through the Nintendo AUNZ eBay Store. This pack contains six Sanrio crossover cards, each of which features a villager with clothing and furniture themed after different Sanrio characters like Hello Kitty. You get all the cards in a single pack, so you only need to order one (and in fact, can only order one!). The pack costs $9.95 + $6.95 shipping. It’s unknown how limited these are, so you may want to be quick. These cards function just like the other Welcome amiibo cards – bring the villagers to your campground in an RV, then you can order their furniture or invite them to stay in your town.

amiibo Camera Mode

There’s one final amiibo feature added by the new update, called amiibo Camera. This lets you pose and position characters from the game in your photos. You can alter their size and rotation to make them better fit into a scene, and then select from different poses and any emotions that you’ve unlocked through playing the game. Only Animal Crossing amiibo figures and cards can be used in this mode, which will add them to the picture ready to be manipulated. However you can also add any of the characters currently in your village to the photo as well. I rushed this one this morning, showing my character and Isabelle meeting some of their Toys to Life friends:

Minigames

It turns out there was one aspect I was unaware of when I originally published the guide – minigames! There’s two minigames added with this update: Animal Crossing Puzzle League and Desert Island Escape. These can be played with the new 3DS and Wii U furniture items, respectively. They have different uses of amiibo that I’m in the process of documenting, and will update the guide when I’m comfortable in the information.

Hopefully that clears a few things up! If you have any questions then pop them in the comments below or head over to our Twitter account.

Thanks Lila for helping with screenshots!