Warning! Mild Spoilers! Super Mario Odyssey is an awesome game. People really love it. I love it too. It has been receiving excellent reviews all over the place. This, however, is not a standard review of the game. What is discussed below are the 3 new amiibo in the Super Mario series and the amiibo support for Super Mario Odyssey. As an avid amiibo collector I am always looking for the next game that can used with my collection. Like most major Nintendo made games these days there is amiibo support for Super Mario Odyssey. What follows are my thoughts on the 3 new specific tie-in amiibo, Wedding Mario, Wedding Peach, and Wedding Bowser, and how amiibo are used and impact Super Mario Odyssey itself.
amiibo: Wedding Mario, Wedding Peach, and Wedding Bowser
Nintendo has been making amazing amiibo for a while now and the 3 Odyssey specific amiibo, Wedding Mario, Wedding Peach, and Wedding Bowser, continue this trend. The level of detail that has been put into these amiibo is excellent. Both Mario and Peach have some fantastic little details. Mario’s hat has some very nice raised texture and Peach’s veil and dress have some sparkly bits that add a really nice touch. But it is the Bowser amiibo that stands out the most. Like Mario, Bowser’s hat also has raised texture, but there is additional detail on his bowtie, vest, and jacket. Even his hands, tail, and shell all have additional detail on them. All these elements could have been smooth without any additional texture, like on Mario’s suit, and the amiibo would have still looked great. But the fact that Nintendo went the extra mile with Bowser is so cool. His shoes even have little divot holes on the soles.
The wedding amiibo function the same with Super Mario Odyssey as all the other compatible amiibo. This means that they unlock a costume for Mario to wear in-game. I will not spoil the costumes but you can look at the back of the amiibo packaging to find out what is unlocked. The 3 amiibo can also unlock additional in-game help too. Wedding Mario can make you invincible for a short time, Wedding Peach will give you heath, and Wedding Bowser will help you find any purple coins that have not been collected. PLEASE NOTE: all other Mario, Peach, and Bowser amiibo (with the possible acceptation of the Bowser Skylander amiibo) will also unlock the in-game help too.
Like all the other amiibos in the Super Mario series, these 3 all have the checkered red base. When grouped with the other regularly dressed Super Mario amiibo these 3 do stick out a little because of the wedding outfits. But as considered a sub-series within the Super Mario series they do look great together and are a worthy addition to anyone’s amiibo collection.
amiibo support:
I love getting new items/weapons/gear/costumes in games. I try to keep one of everything when playing an RPG, an action game (looking at you Castlevania games for the DS) or shooters like Splatoon 2. I love all the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild amiibo only costumes and weapons that can be unlocked in that game. For Super Mario Odyssey, in what is a first for amiibo content, the items are not ‘locked’ to an amiibo. What this means is that you don’t have to buy the required amiibo to unlock the content. You can buy all of the same content in-game. In each world in Super Mario Odyssey there is a shop, Crazy Cap, where you can buy additional health, costumes, and souvenirs. The amiibo costumes can be bought with the standard yellow coins that can be found throughout the game. The purple coin items in the shop are specific to the game and cannot be unlocked by amiibo.
If you have access to all of the necessary amiibo, and you choose to unlock the costumes, there is a somewhat negative side effect caused by this. You are basically rendering the yellow coins to be mostly useless for the remainder of the game. The yellow coins will no longer be needed to unlock these specific costumes. That is not to say they have become completely useless. After the costumes have been unlocked the yellow coins can still be used to buy health upgrades and power moons at Crazy Cap. Also, the yellow coins now replace 1-ups (you lose 10 coins if you die as a penalty) but that is it. It is very easy to have hundreds, if not thousands, of coins and very little to do with them. At the time of this writing I have not reached the end of the game/post end game content so there still could be some surprises left for the yellow coins. But if you want to use the coins as originally intended, and to find out how these costumes become available in Super Mario Odyssey, you may want to hold off on taping your amiibo.
How to use the amiibo:
Unlocking the costumes is a little bit of a hassle. Unlike Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, an easy to use amiibo game where you go to one screen and tap all of your amiibo very quickly one after another to unlock all of the Mii costumes, in Super Mario Odyssey you have to return to a world you have previously been to and talk to Uncle Amiibo. Uncle Amiibo, who is a friendly little robot located next to the Odyssey ship at the start of each previously visited world, will allow you to tap up to 3 amiibos at a time. Once an amiibo has been tapped it will be sent out into the world to find a hint for a power moon that has not been previously found and the costume is unlocked. It takes 5 real world minutes between the time you tap your amiibo and when it returns with the hint. If you have more than 3 amiibo to tap you are waiting 5 minutes until you can tap more. Sure 5 minutes is not long, and you could play the game while you wait, but the amount of things/goals to do in each world can keep you very busy for way more than 5 minutes. And you can find yourself very far away from Uncle Amiibo too while you play. Luckily there are flags in each world that act as warp points so you can fast travel back to the Odyssey very quickly. Also if you travel to another world before talking to Uncle Amiibo again the time limit transfers over to the new world allowing you to tap 3 more amiibo. The only negative for this is that the hints transfer to the new world and are not provided for the world you originally requested them for.
Final thoughts:
It is really nice that Nintendo included amiibo support, for those who collect them as a bonus, as well as providing the ability to unlock the same in-game content to gamers who do not but still want to unlock everything. Either way you play, Super Mario Odyssey is an amazing game and well worth your time.
UPDATE:
I have been playing a lot more Super Mario Odyssey and I was very wrong about not really needing or using yellow coins. I have finished the main story and I am currently enjoying all the post end-game content that Super Mario Odyssey has to offer. Yellow coins are still very important and very worth your time collecting them. They are still used to purchase additional items in Crazy Cap, there are mini-games that require yellow coins to be able to play them, and as previously mentioned you use them instead of 1-Ups. After playing more I have changed my initial thought on needing to collect yellow coins. Some friendly advice for those trying to 100% Super Mario Odyssey: collect every last yellow coin that you see. You will need them all. Oh yes, you will need them…
Originally released on: Nintendo Switch
Reviewed on: Nintendo Switch
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Matt Cudney is a gamer Dad who likes to write about video games and draw things from time to time. He can be found online here:
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