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Were we dumb to buy as many Animal Crossing amiibo cards as Nintendo would let us? Let’s find out

SoraNews24 Nov 2, 2020
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We show no restraint, and perhaps no intelligence, trying to bring some new friends to our New Horizons island.

Nintendo’s Animal Crossing franchise is getting close to its 20th birthday, but thanks to the release of smash hit Animal Crossing: New Horizons earlier this year, the series is more popular than ever. Demand for everything Animal Crossing-related has been so high that Nintendo recently did a reissue of the game’s amiibo cards, after a long period where getting your hands on them required paying a premium to resellers.

The cards are split up into five groups: Series 1, 2, 3, 4, and New Leaf Plus Plus. Each pack contains three cards and costs 330 yen (US$3.15). They’re only available by direct order, and individual customers are limited to ordering five packs from each group, so we of course maxed out our allowance and ordered a total of 25.

We then showed an equal lack of restraint by sitting down to tear them all open as soon as our order arrived. Still, looking at them laid out on our desk, we couldn’t help wondering if maybe we’d gone just a little bit overboard here. The characters you get inside each pack are random, and while the three in each pack are unique, having bought 25 packs we probably were going to have some duplicates, each of which would represent a waste of money.

So what was inside?

● New Leaf Plus

These are actually a reissue of amiibo cards that originally came out in 2016 for Animal Crossing: New Leaf but are now compatible with New Horizons. Visually, they’ve got a cute theme with each showing a villager driving a customized motorhome, and they’re also the only cards with their artwork horizontally arranged.

With 50 cards in the series and 15 in our order, we figured we’d get a few duplicates. Our assumption turned out to be wrong, though, as we found 15 different characters inside our packs.

▼ We were especially happy to see Plucky.

● Series 1

Series 1-4 each have 100 different designs. You’re also guaranteed at least one prominent character card with an SP mark, like Joan in this pack.

Once again, we were in luck, with no duplicates between our packs!

● Series 2

Moving on to Series 2, we felt our hearts fill with the spirit of Halloween when we encountered pumpkin-headed Jack right away.

Also showing up was crowd-pleaser Kid Cat, who regularly takes a high-ranking spot in Animal Crossing popularity polls among Japanese fans.

Opening our fifth Series 2 pack, our good luck continued as we were now 45 cards deep without so much as a single duplicate.

● Series 3

Our Series 3 haul included Wolfgang and more holiday appeal with happy reindeer Jingle.

And, to our happy surprise, still no duplicates!

● Series 4

By this point, we were just as curious to see if we could keep our no-doubles streak going as we were to see what was in our last group of packs.

▼ Not that we weren’t excited to snag a shiny SP Katrina, of course.

Amazingly, after opening the final pack and looking at our 75th card, there were still no doubles!

Granted, our total outlay in amiibo cards, 8,250 yen, is more than the cost of New Horizons itself, but considering the diverse boost to our village’s population, it’s money we’re happy to have spent.

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[ Read in Japanese ]