YMMV / amiibo

• Americans Hate Tingle:
  • A variation across fandoms rather than nationalities. Mario is generally a universally-loved character, but for a long time he saw notable hate from the amiibo collecting community for being an overly common figure in most of his variations and for him and other amiibo from his franchise being very heavily prioritized over other characters regardless of relative fame or popularity; it didn't help that his series was experiencing massive oversaturation thanks to the New Super Mario Bros. series at the time. This cooled down eventually, when his Smash variant stopped being so common and his well-liked 8-bit variants were released.
  • The normal definition of the trope also applies to Mario. In Japan, the Super Mario series Mario is the best-selling amiibo figure of all, and the second best-selling amiibo product behind the Animal Crossing cards. In the West, he (and the rest of the Super Mario series) aren't even in the Top 10, and Smash Mario is second to Link in sales in both North America and Europe.
• Awesome Art: Even with all the "Merth" memes and the like, a point of praise for amiibo right from the very beginning has been their great amount of detail compared to other Nintendo toylines. In particular, the early Super Mario characters in the Smash line mark the first time their more detailed Smash designs have been available in physical form and, aside from the slightly more realistic characters like Peach which were prone to face defects, still stand out among the greatest Super Mario collectibles of all time. As time went on, amiibo started becoming more intricate and detailed and less prone to derpy faces (justified by the higher price tag); some of the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate amiibo, such as Pokémon Trainer and King K. Rool, are essentially considered to be masterpieces.
• Fan Art: A "custom amiibo" scene has sprung up, which involves repainting or adding accessories to the preexisting figures. The results can be rather◊ impressive.◊
• Fan Nickname:
  • Marth, Wii Fit Trainer, and the Villager are known as the "Holy Trinity" of Wave 1 as they are all very hard to find normal price, although people have resorted to importing them to avoid scalpers. With reprints happening, some people don't associate the "new" Villager with the original Holy Trinity.
  • "Diddy Kong" is an unofficial nickname to amiibo that are said to be very rare, but end up being somewhat common in stores later. The name came from Diddy Kong's amiibo, as when he came out, people feared for the worst and felt like he was going to end up in a similar fate to the Holy Trinity. However, as a few weeks passed, Diddy Kong started to become a somewhat common amiibo (not as common as Mario and Peach though). Sheik, Toon Link, and Jigglypuff are other amiibo that are given this nickname.
  • Lucario, Rosalina, Shulk, and Meta Knight from Wave 3 are known as the "Four Store Exclusives/Horsemen of the Apocalypse", as they were all very rare and similar to the "Holy Trinity", many people have resorted to importing them as well. They were also store exclusives and typically came in very low stock in their initial releases.
  • "Unicorn" for any extremely rare amiibo that are impossible to find in stores and online for MSRP prices. Examples include the Holy Trinity, Little Mac, and the Store Exclusives (especially pre-reprint Meta Knight). The community stopped using that word (alongside the "rarity chart") as the craze for amiibo died off around 2016/2017 (and once common amiibo started getting simply sold out), even when there are still hard-to-find amiibo to this day.
  • The retro three-pack consisting of NES R.O.B., Mr. Game & Watch, and Duck Hunt is often referred to as the "Retrio."
  • Hammer Slam Bowser & Turbo Charge Donkey Kong are collectively referred to as the "Skymiibo" due to their dual functionality as both Skylanders & amiibo figures.
  • Cloud, Corrin, and Bayonetta are often referred as "The Final Three" by the community, as they were the last three Smash figures to be announced for the Wii U and 3DS games, and it was well over a year before they were finally released.
  • Silver Mario has been sometimes called "Metal Mario" due to the amiibo itself strikingly looking like the form Mario takes upon collecting the Metal Cap in Super Mario 64.
• First Installment Wins: The Super Smash Bros. line was the first amiibo line to be announced and released, and continues to be the largest one. Thanks to this, it's the most famous and popular line, and Smash almost always comes to mind when one mentions amiibo in general.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Depending on the popularity of their series in certain regions, some amiibo can be common in some regions and rare in others. For example, as Fire Emblem is more popular in Europe than in North America, Ike is notoriously rare in North America but common in Europe. Similarly, Zelda and Pac-Man are common in North America but very rare in Europe. The Super Mario series is very common in America, having effectively replaced the Smash counterparts of characters shared by the two lines, but in Europe, two of the most common ones are "uncommon" at best and the rest are much harder to find. Smash Bros Mario is one of the rarest and most difficulty to obtain Amiibo in Australia, while in the US, see Americans Hate Tingle above.
  • In an inverse of Mario's Americans Hate Tingle analogue, some characters that get a lot of hate in the Smash community (particularly Dark Pit and Lucina, who typically attract bile due to their derivative movesets) are popular in the amiibo community for having sought-after and well-designed figures, and generally being merchandise-scarce otherwise (although both of the aforementioned characters also have rather pricey Japanese action figures).
  • Link sells well in Japan, but is the best-selling amiibo figure of all in both North America and Europe, in keeping with how his home series adheres to this trope.
• Growing the Beard: In general, the quality of the figures has improved immensely since the first wave of the Smash Bros. line was released. Compare the first Link amiibo◊ to one of the more recent Link figures.◊
• Harsher in Hindsight: On July 10, 2015 the Ness and Smash Bros. King Dedede amiibo were both restocked at Gamestop. These characters came from EarthBound and Kirby respectively which both franchises's second games Satoru Iwata were personally involved in. The very next day, Iwata died with a public announcement not too long after. This restocking is like an unintentional way of giving another chance to obtain Iwata's remembrances before he died. There also might been a chance that this restocking was that last Nintendo news he knew about before his passing.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • This scene from Kirby: Right Back at Ya! is scarily accurate regarding Meta Knight's Smash Bros. amiibo (or any exclusive amiibo, really).
    • In the same episode, King Dedede whines about not being able to find a Meta Knight. Funny how rare they seem to be compared to other amiibo.
  • Similarly, the original Mario vs. Donkey Kong game involves DK going on a rampage because he wants a Mario toy but can't get one because they're sold out.
  • There's also this conversation in Fire Emblem: Awakening that's pretty much right on point. Especially humorous given that it involves Lucina and Robin, who both have their own amiibo figures.^note It's female Robin while the amiibo is of a male Robin, but still.
  • This Nintendo Direct parody by Maximilian from Yo Videogames shows a fictional game called "Wii Fuck U", which requires special figurines costing 49.99 each. This video was made before Amiibo were announced.
  • Someone on /r/amiibo made a joke about a Donkey Kong plush being stuffed in an amiibo box back in March of 2015, labeling it as a "defect". Then, in early April, Nintendo announced Yoshi's Woolly World plush amiibo.
  • People accusing Nintendo of copying Skylanders became this when, at E3 2015, Nintendo announced a partnership with Activision to create two hybrid amiibo/Skylanders: Bowser and Donkey Kong.
    • The partnership with Activision to produce the Skymiibo becomes even funnier when you realize that Activision originally approached Nintendo to produce toys-to-life NFC figures, before they started making Skylanders on their own.
  • The "ridiculous store exclusives" joke, like saying Dark Pit would be exclusive to Hot Topic or Duck Hunt to Petsmart, became funnier when Dr. Mario and Bowser Jr. did end up being exclusive to retailers that sort of fit: Dr. Mario at Target, which includes a pharmacy; and Bowser Jr. at Toys R Us, which often shares space with its sister store Babies R Us, then the Walmart website accidentally put the Shovel Knight amiibo under the "Gardening Tools" category.
  • This comic was made way before Nintendo announced the Squid Sisters amiibo.
  • Custom-made Squid Sisters amiibo were around before it became a real thing.
  • This YouTube Poop short by EmperorLemon depicts Nintendo introducing a Waluigi amiibo, to mass approval. Later, Nintendo did announce a Waluigi amiibo (alongside other new Mario amiibo), to mass approval. YouTube commentators were quick to point this out.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!:
  • Many people feel like the restocks make amiibo collecting "not as fun as it used to be", while some people even talk about missing the days of camping. Still averted in some cases as some amiibo are still harder to find than others depending on the region, and that particular amiibo like King Dedede (Smash series) are still very hard to find.
  • Averted with the "Player 2" variations of the Smash amiibo and the Majora's Mask/Skyward Sword/Twilight Princess Link amiibo in terms of pre-orders. Compared to how easy it was (and still currently is) to buy amiibo released after Lucas, many people are fearing that the "dark days" are returning.
• Junk Rare: In general, any newly-released amiibo can be one due to not being widely available (yet) and not having many games that support it. This especially came through in the first six months or so, when certain Smash Bros. amiibo were nearly impossible to find and Smash was the only game that identified those characters. Thankfully, this is generally not a permanent situation, as more stock eventually comes out and more games are made to support them.
  • Ike, being notoriously rare, when aside from Super Smash Bros. and Fire Emblem Fates, his most prominent use is in Code Name: S.T.E.A.M - a game where he is considered, due to his absurdly steam-expensive, weak and impractical primary weapon and his melee-range (with knockback so you have to keep moving to use it) subweapon, to be by far the absolute worst character in the game.
  • The Gold Mario amiibo. Despite being highly sought after (with even pre-orders of Gold Mario going upwards of $1,000), it is functionally almost identical to regular Mario amiibo (The only differences being that Gold Mario also comes with a free item to be used in Mario Party 10 and unlocks a different costume in Super Mario Maker that you can already get in game anyways). Silver Mario is meant to be this but comparatively low demand prevents it from being that sought after. Still just as junky, though both figures got a little less so when Mario Maker supported them.
  • Surprisingly enough, the Pokémon amiibo are generally under this category as well; likely due to The Pokémon Company being strict with their IPs when it comes to crossover appearances (Smash Bros. being the main exception). They're even missing from Yoshi's Woolly World, which otherwise supports every amiibo that had been released to date ^note However, their absence here was actually due to Good Feel finding their skins didn't gel with Yarn Yoshi. At least Mario Maker does include them, even if they're lacking the special sound effects that other characters have. Interestingly enough, a batch of Event Course costumes (Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle) feature sounds from the Pokemon games.
• Just Here for Godzilla: For many people, the main appeal of amiibos isn't the toys-to-life functionality, but rather just having official but affordable figurines of characters they like, as opposed to Nendoroid toys usually costing a pretty penny. Smash bears special mention, as it also provides figures of third-party characters like Solid Snake, Banjo & Kazooie, and the Belmonts, most of whom don't even get much official merchandise nowadays, in addition to having appeal beyond Smash fans.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Some amiibos like the Animal Crossing ones have been discontinued and are allegedly being phased out^note They remain in print and plentiful in Japan, but apparently distribution of the cards in the west is so bad that they're really hard to find. Not helping is how westerners tend to dislike them and compare them to microtransactions. New old stock and even used cards can fetch a serious amount of money on auction sites, especially with top tier characters. Perhaps unsurprisingly, amiibo piracy is a thing.
• Memetic Badass: The Shovel Knight amiibo is an unfathomable paragon of manliness that can support virtually anything above its head without giving so much as a single day.
• Memetic Loser: The Lottie amiibo is infamously unpopular among collectors or fans of the toyline, given how little demand there was for this niche character over other fan favorite picks, be it from other games or Animal Crosing itself, so little demand in fact that it's not uncommon to see clearance sales try to give this figure away for ridiculously low prices.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The Off-Model heads of the Fire Emblem amiibo have become infamous online, oftentimes comparing them to a "before and after" infomercial.
    • This has resulted in a mini-meme in and of itself where people play a badly-done (is there any other kind?) recorder rendition of a character's theme while zooming in on their cheap-ass amiibo face.
  • Due to what appears to be very little quality control, many figures may have strange defects. The most famous of these is a Samus figure with two Arm Cannons. This has also led to people making fun of the phenomenon by having "invisible amiibo" (simply an empty box) or passing other figurines, either of the same characters, or other characters entirely, as defective amiibo.
  • Related to the above, there are also pictures of various characters in amiibo boxes, such as Nintendo characters who are unlikely to receive amiibo (like Lanky Kong), characters who don't belong to Nintendo (like Shrek), real people (like Reggie Fils-Amie) or just plain absurdity (like a Toilet and Dark Toilet).
  • One particularly salty consumer, the infamous Mario Teh Plumber, claimed that he bought over 100 Rosalina & Luma amiibo so as to prevent other people from getting them. Of course, this led to jokes about how his "diabolical plan" will end up making her more popular with consumers and will earn Nintendo tons of money regardless. It ended up being a fabrication, but it's still joked that this is why Rosalina's amiibo is so rare.
  • The hand for the Bowser amiibo sticks out, so there are people who show him grabbing people, saying "Swiggity swooty, I'm coming for that booty!" This is a funny example of how it's been expanded. Mega Man's amiibo received a similar treatment◊.
  • Ness's "hand" sticking out has become a meme itself. People have posted pictures of Ness poking/pointing at something◊ or at people.
  • Aaaaaaaand it's gone.^note Refers specifically to orders through retail websites, which tend to sell out within minutes of becoming available.
  • Dapper Yoshi◊ has become somewhat of an in-joke due to the Super Mario Yoshi amiibo's rather dignified pose.
  • After Nintendo posted some Innocently Insensitive tweets in the wake of the Smash Wave 4 preorders, some people made joke◊ tweets of their own.
  • Dr. Mario: Walgreens Exclusive ^note There are exaggerated reactions on Store Exclusives, including them being associated with stores that don't even sell electronics, let alone amiibo, like Zero Suit Samus at Victoria's Secret, Duck Hunt at PetSmart or Cabela's, or Dark Pit at HotTopic.
  • The existing "Please understand" joke also finds a lot of use when it comes to amiibo.^note In Nintendo Directs, Iwata frequently asks for understanding when delivering bad news such as game delays. Fans tend to repeat it to one another when discussing frustrations with Nintendo, and unfortunately amiibo's Demand Overload means frustration happens often.
  • You know what? Corndog Shulk is really feeling it! ^Explanation A few users on GameFAQs started to complain about how the Smash amiibo were keeping the poses on their promotional artwork, since that meant a lot of them needed bits of plastic supporting the character, including Shulk having a pole shoved up his butt. It didn't take long for other users to make the comparison stated...
    • Link's "pee stick".^Explanation While most characters have decent looking supports, regular Link is held up by a clear yellow block jutting into his leg. Lots of people have compared the block to frozen urine, or perhaps a stick of butter.
  • AMIIBOH, YEAH!! ^Explanation As a result of this memorable quote from a Youtube Poop of the Smash Bros. Nintendo Direct.
  • Australia is amiibo heaven. ^note Many American amiibo collectors get disgruntled by photos of amiibo stock in Australian stores, which have plenty of amiibo that are much more aggravating to get a hold of in the US. However, ironically enough, the Super Smash Bros. Mario figure is considered to be rare in Australia despite being very common everywhere else in the world.
  • Make a Rayman amiibo, I dare you! ^Explanation Many people have jokingly suggested a Rayman amiibo simply because they know that the incredibly conspicuous clear/yellow/blue plastic pieces they use to hold up anything airborne or ill supported, combined with Rayman's Floating Limbs, would make it look absolutely ridiculous. Others joke that they wouldn't even bother trying to connect them, and just have each part of Rayman's body sitting on the base like he fell over◊.
    • Making fun of plastic supports in general (particularly with Bayonetta, whose Smash pose is ridiculously intricate).
  • ROB holding things.^Explanation It became very popular to post pictures of the ROB amiibo holding various objects when the Retrio pack was released.
  • ¯\_(ツ)_/¯^Explanation Shovel Knight's European release date was subject to so many contradictory rumors that the release date on r/amiibo's sidebar was changed to a shrugging emoticon for quite some time.
  • Golf Mario.^Explanation One r/amiibo user made a post asking about Gold Mario, but made a typo that ended up derailing the entire topic. For a day afterwards, Gold Mario's place on the subreddit's banner was replaced by a picture of Mario with a golf club, and a moderator later set it as their flair.
  • We don't know when Cloud, Corrin, and Bayonetta are coming out.^Explanation Asking for information about their release date is annoying for many fans; in addition, the sheer dearth of information (and length of time in between the last Smash release and the final three) is a bit of a meme in of itself.
  • NO AMIIBO^Explanation There are 3-inch figurines for the Rabbid counterparts of Mario, Luigi, Peach and Yoshi released by Ubisoft, that were often mistaken as amiibo. They are packaged in a box with a "NO AMIIBO" sticker on it, due to the boxes being similar to amiibo boxes.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Activision originally approached Nintendo with an idea to make a video game in which you could scan characters into the game from collectible figurines. The figurines would be based on Nintendo's roster of characters. While initially interested, Nintendo would pass on the idea. Eventually, Nintendo would develop their own take on the concept in the form of amiibo.
  • Some people tend to forget that this isn't Nintendo's first toys-to-life series.
  • Most people also tend to not remember that Nintendo wasn't the first to have NFC as a play mechanic.
  • amiibos were unofficially revealed way back in 2012, two years before their official release, in the Rayman Legends concept trailer. The trailer clearly advertised NFC capabilities long before the Wii U officially supported them.
• Periphery Demographic: Because amiibo are primarily aimed at children, characters that appeal to their demographic (such as most Mario characters and Pikachu) are generally very easy to find, while characters that lack kid appeal (such as Marth and Captain Falcon) tend to become very rare.^note There are exceptions, such as most Legend of Zelda characters being uncommon while Lucario and Rosalina are "unicorn" rarity. Characters in the latter group tend to be very popular with teen/adult Nintendo fans who focus more on collecting than using the figures, which brings them over to the amiibo collecting community; however, the rarity of these characters is a frequent source of frustration for older fans, and is one reason why the amiibo community is so centralized around figure rarity. As of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, a full Audience Shift seems to have occurred, with the amiibo focusing on greater detail for a slightly higher price tag and their generally being easy to find in stores for weeks after their release, regardless of their recognizability or demographic (Ridley of all characters was very common for a good portion of 2019).
• Popularity Polynomial: When they first released in 2014, amiibo were incredibly huge, with figures often selling out on day one and resulting in demand so huge that the GameStop servers shut down. However, their popularity waned quite a bit starting in late 2015, with the unpopular Animal Crossing line being overproduced and associated with the very poorly received Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival, not helping that the much more popular Smash line was running out of new figures to produce and games that had important game modes or levels tied to amiibo, such as Chibi Robo Zip Lash receiving backlash. Ultimately, this resulted in tons of amiibo ending up in the bargain bin. However, things began to turn around in 2017, with games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and later Super Smash Bros. Ultimate bringing new life to amiibo with their respective lines and with all games that include amiibo now having them as completely optional, amiibo saw a resurgence in popularity, and while not as popular as they were at their peak, amiibo are doing pretty well for themselves, being the only survivor of the decline of the toys-to-life genre.
• Porting Disaster: With issues encountered in NES Virtual Console on the Wii U, the version of Super Mario Bros. 3 included with amiibo Tap can have a sizable amount of input lag, which can make the game difficult to play. Additionally, how much it lags can vary, making the game unplayable.
• Replacement Scrappy: amiibo cards. In response to some amiibo becoming notoriously hard to find, Nintendo has revealed that they plan to release amiibo cards in their stead. Response to this solution went over as well as you may expect. However, so far the only amiibo card set announced has been for Animal Crossing, where a full set of figures would be impractical.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • North American store exclusivity, to an extent. When Waves 3 and 4 were initially released, all of the figures that were exclusive to various different retailers (Rosalina and Jigglypuff to Target, Meta Knight to Best Buy, Shulk and Ness to Gamestop, and Lucario and Greninja to Toys 'R Us) were in especially short supply and difficult to obtain compared to most of the other available figures. However, by September of that year, later exclusives (such as the Mr. Game & Watch/R.O.B./Duck Hunt Three-Pack to Gamestop, Dr. Mario to Target, Bowser Jr. to Toys 'R Us, and Falco to Best Buy) were far more abundant in stock & easier to obtain. As a result, news of store exclusivity is generally no longer reviled like it was before.
  • Animal Crossing amiibo cards saw a sudden surge in popularity after being viewed as a Replacement Scrappy with barely any use outside of gimmick games thanks to the Welcome amiibo update for New Leaf, which not only allow easier ways to get certain items, but also easily allows players to hand pick villagers they want in their towns.
• The Scrappy:
  • Overly common amiibo get some flak for taking up limited shelf/peg space that could have been filled by less common amiibo and also for enforcing a trend where cartoony, family-friendly mainstream characters are easier to find than the "realistic" characters that are very popular with the Periphery Demographic. For months, the Mario characters and their respective line were most notorious for this, and Peach in particular has become a punchline of sorts for collectors; while the character herself is a Base-Breaking Character and isn't even one of the top five best-selling amiibo, she is one of the most common and widely-distributed amiibo period, if not the most common, while characters that sell better than her are difficult to near impossible to find. Averted for Smash Bros Mario in Australia, which is a very rare and highly sought-after Amiibo. While the Smash variants of most Mario characters have become harder to find and are no longer hated, the Super Mario and Animal Crossing lines still get on some fans' nerves.
  • This is especially true for Lottie amiibo, to the point where some have outright accused Lottie amiibos for the general decrease in focus amiibos have gotten during the Switch era. Not only does she come from a game that was considered mediocre at best, she's the most common 'backflow' amiibo to see lining store-shelves; to the point where it's not uncommon to see entire rows of shelves in amiibo displays of only her. Combine this with stores carrying amiibos less and less as time went on, you're almost guaranteed to see Lottie being the only amiibo most stores still carry at this point.
  • The Skylanders/amiibo hybrid figures, or "Skymiibo", as they are often nicknamed, are almost unanimously hated by the amiibo community. The two major gripes with them are that they are not up to the usual quality standards of amiibo, having a noticeably cheaper look (commonly being compared in quality to Happy Meal toys) and often having messy paintjobs and looking Off-Model, (due to them being produced by Activision, not Nintendo), as well as the fact that they were formerly only available in starter packs for Skylanders Superchargers. Not only that, but Turbo Charge Donkey Kong and Hammer Slam Bowser aren't even sold in the same starter pack; Donkey Kong is in the Wii U version and Bowser is in the 3DS and Wii versions. To top it all off, there are also "Dark" versions of both figures that come in their own separate starter packs, meaning that to buy all of the Skymiibo, you would have to buy four starter packs, and most amiibo collectors don't see that it's worth it to spend hundreds of dollars to obtain four figures that are very noticeably lower in quality than all other amiibo, especially if they have no interest in Skylanders. Even many amiibo collectors who go for a "complete collection" will make an exception for the Skymiibo, and the community typically doesn't care if someone claims to have a complete collection but is missing the Skymiibo.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: With several amiibo being hard to find at a reasonable price at the height of their popularity, some self-imposed challenges that people have done for amiibo include but are not limited to:
  • Only buying amiibo at MSRP or below (give or take a dollar or two, as places like Toys R Us charge more).
  • No importing allowed.
  • No pre-orders allowed.
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys:
  • A certain subreddit (back during 2015) was usually against most memes and tongue in cheek/lighthearted jokes and tries to control the fanbase. Also qualifies as Serious Business since the community seems to be quite cynical by doing things such as responding to questions with nothing but downvotes and scrutiny, and this is sadly the majority of the community, since anyone speaking against it is also met with the same results. It got to a point where the downvote button was disabled (and still is) disabled on desktop computers.
  • Additionally, many fans believe that taking amiibo out of the packaging is a childish thing.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • After the release of Ultimate, the Super Smash Bros. series has been updated. Some didn't like that the redesigns of certain characters, such as Zelda or Ganondorf, were excluded from getting new versions.
  • The Smash line in the last 3DS/Wii U era wave introduced the concept of "Player 2" amiibo for the alternate costumes of R.O.B., Cloud, Corrin, and Bayonetta. The Ultimate line didn't do this again until Alex got her own figure alongside Steve, leaving characters like Alph, the Koopalings, Female Villager/Robin/Byleth, Male Inkling/Wii Fit Trainer, Leaf, Pikachu Libre, Meta Ridley, and the other Dragon Quest Heroes without their own figures, in addition to the alternate costumes for characters like Mario, Wario, and Joker. And even in the case of the Minecraft characters, the Zombie and Enderman were still left out.
• Unexpected Character: Some amiibo have been more expected than others, to say the least.
  • Not many people were expecting the first Splatoon to get its own amiibo figures due to being a new and untested series at the time of the figures' announcement.
  • Chibi-Robo! was also somewhat unexpected due to the overall obscurity of the character.
  • Shovel Knight, moreso than any other figure announced up to that point. Up until his reveal on August 27th, the only amiibo that have been revealed were either of Nintendo characters, Smash Bros. Guest Fighters or third-party versions of Nintendo characters (i.e. Skylanders). Shovel Knight was none of those, and to top it off he was an indie character. Many fans ended up assuming that Shovel Knight would end up in Smash Bros., just because of this. Also unexpected is that the Game Grumps were contacted to help promote the amiibo, considering that their show usually has rather raunchy humor.
    • The figures for the main characters of the additional campaigns (Plague Knight, Specter Knight, and King Knight) also qualify, with Arin Hanson returning to do the announcement video for them as well.
  • Any Super Smash Bros. character that was initially an unexpected character may also count as one here, due to many of them, such as Captain Falcon and Duck Hunt, never having merchandise of them or their respective franchises made before.
  • Monster Hunter Stories amiibo line were also unexpected, being the second Nintendo-licenced amiibo line after Shovel Knight.
  • Many were taken aback during the September 2016 direct when new Amiibo were announced for the Zelda's 30th anniversary, including a 8 bit Link, Ocarina Link, and Toon Zelda. The Bokoblin amiibo that was announced several months later for Breath of the Wild also wasn't expected by many fans.
  • The Qbby amiibo was also unexpected due to the Boxboy franchise not being very well known.
  • Considering they're the protagonists of what was possibly the most obscure Fire Emblem game up until the announcement of its remake, the announcement of Alm and Celica's figures definitely came out of left field.
  • Chrom, also from Fire Emblem. Because the Smash Bros. line was the flagship amiibo line and Chrom's exclusion from Smash was the butt of many jokes, nobody expected him to get an official amiibo release later on in the Fire Emblem line. And completing the circle, he did get a Smash amiibo with his inclusion in Ultimate.
  • No one suspected that Nintendo to release a Amiibo-Cereal Hybrid, but it did with a scannable code on the box for the Super Mario Odyssey tie-in cereal.
  • Solaire of Astora. Did anyone expect that?
  • A Loot Goblin amiibo was announced. That is all.
  • Many thought that amiibo was already wrapping up until new ones for the rerelease of Super Mario 3D World were announced. And even then, many were disappointed that those were Cat Mario and Cat Peach, instead of any of the new new characters, like a Sprixie or Meowser.
  • After what seemed like Nintendo was slowing down with amiibo that weren't related to Super Smash Bros., out of no where, the announcement of Xenoblade Series amiibo of Xenoblade 3 characters, Noah and Mio, the first new amiibo line in years.
• Vocal Minority: It's very easy to see so many people complain about "quitting amiibo collecting", especially on /r/amiibo, that it seems like more and more people are quitting due to not securing Wave 4 pre-orders on time. However, that's only like 5% of a lot of amiibo collectors.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Despite being a toyline primarily marketed towards children where Mario characters are the most prominent and widely-available, some of the amiibo are compatible with Teen- (or equivalent) rated games. The most egregious example is Fire Emblem Fates, which has a CERO rating of "C" (15+) in Japan and is pretty heavy on the mature content, and allows past Fire Emblem characters to be unlocked as playable units via their amiibo; other examples include The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD having its very own amiibo of Wolf Link and Midna (which looks more like a collector statue than a toy figure), and Bayonetta, a character from an M-rated game, having an amiibo in development due to her inclusion in Super Smash Bros. This seems to be a case of Nintendo fully embracing and encouraging the Periphery Demographic, apart from the fact that amiibo compatible with "mature" games were typically the harder-to-find ones prior to Wave 5.
  • Then they started putting amiibo support in M-Rated games. Specifically, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Resident Evil: Revelations, Resident Evil: Revelations 2, and the Switch version of Bayonetta 2.

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