Saturday, May 6, 2017

Breath of the Wild: Champion amiibo?

Breath of the Wild is with all certainty the biggest game that Nintendo has ever produced and naturally the company will see to its profitability in many ways. Other than being a very successful launch title to the Nintendo Switch and selling somewhat lackluster DLC (at least so far), there are also amiibo being sold out on their release day. And you can be sure that there will be more of the latter.

At the last Nintendo Direct there were even three new Link amiibo announced for June 23rd: Majora's Mask, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, which all are already supported by the game with costumes and other goodies (the Twilight Princess Link amiibo is identical to the one from Smash Bros. in function, though).

And this probably won't be all of it. The current five amiibo for Breath of the Wild are all based on a series of nine character artworks for the game:

  • Link (Archer)
  • Link (Rider)
  • Zelda
  • Bokoblin
  • Guardian

  • Mipha
  • Daruk
  • Revali
  • Urbosa

The first half was already released as amiibo and it shouldn't be a big surprise, if the four Champions will also make it into figurine form later this year, probably around the time, when the first or second DLC gets released. If you look at the corresponding artworks, you can see, how those were made with figurines in mind:





It's almost too obvious. And it makes sense to wait with these figurines until later, because before the game was released, the characters didn't mean much to the Zelda fans, because nothing was really known about them. This has changed with the game now and especially Mipha has become a quick fan favorite alongside her brother (no artwork for him, though). These characters now mean something to the audience, where Nintendo can expect the usual demands for potential amiibo.

So, what will they do in the game?

With the exception of Rider Link, where Nintendo probably wanted to ensure its sales despite the figurine's quality, all of the Breath of the Wild amiibo don't feature any exclusive items. And it will most likely be the same, if Nintendo released amiibo for the Champions.

The most obvious goodie will be the different Champion weapons, which are all prominently featured on all the artworks: the Lightscale Trident, the Boulder Breaker, the Great Eagle Bow, the Scimitar of the Seven and the Daybreaker.

Only problem with this is that it probably would have to follow the limitations in the game. You shouldn't be able to receive them, before you've finished the corresponding Divine Beasts (where the current amiibo already have similar restrictions), and you can't have more than one. Basically the same limitations as to crafting these weapons. But this could be tricky. For example you could spawn a chest with the Lightscale Trident at Zora's Domain and then have one crafted. Will the game recognize the one in the chest? Or will the one in the chest go away?

To be honest, they don't even need these limitations to begin with and Nintendo might just remove them in the same update that will support the new amiibo. Why shouldn't you have more than one duplicate? From an endgame perspective these weapons are all rather mediocre and not really worth the cost of one diamond. But getting them as "free" gifts from amiibo could be nice.

Other than the Champion weapons the Champion amiibo could offer the different tribal weapons, similar to how the Sheik amiibo gives you weapons from the Sheikah tribe. For example you could get a Falcon Bow or a Kite Shield from Revali. Or Mipha could give you a Silver Shield or the Zora Spear. There's lots of different stuff here, where some of it can't even be gotten from the current amiibo yet.

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