Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival

Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival

If amiibos weren't such a selling point, New Horizons would have been on the Wii U!

Genre:	Party, Multiplayer
Platforms:	Wii U
Release Date:	NA: November 13, 2015 EU: November 20, 2015 JP & AU: November 21, 2015
Developer:	Nintendo EPD Nd Cube
Publisher:	Nintendo
Franchise:	Animal Crossing
Previous Game:	Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer (2015)
Next Game:	Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp (2017)

Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival is a party game for the Wii U published by Nintendo and developed by Nintendo EPD and Nd Cube (current developer of the Mario Party series). The game is an Animal Crossing spin-off and was released worldwide on November 2015. It's the sixth game in the series and the second spin-off title.

Why It Sucks

While the game comes with an amiibo figure, you'll have to buy more amiibo figures yourself if you want to play with other people or you have to buy a packet or two of amiibo cards just to play the Mystery Campers mode as the game only cames with 3 of them (or none if the game is preowned).
There's too little content to justify its price of $60 at launch!
The game is nothing but pure luck.
Almost nothing interesting happens on the boards, which quickly causes the game to become boring.
The game only has eight minigames.
There are almost no mini-games, and the boards consist entirely of simply moving from one area to the next to gather "Happiness Points".
Playing a different month is pointless because the board stays the same regardless.
The mini-games themselves range from boring to irritating to play through.
The "Stalk Market", in which players can buy and sell turnips every half-dozen turns, is based on luck and woefully underused in the game.
This game plays itself which defeats the entire purpose of this party game. You can literally make your move and mash the A button while playing another game on your phone while this game, as said, plays itself! That makes the game too easy, and way too simplistic.

Redeeming Qualities

It's visually beautiful, like all Animal Crossing games, and runs smoothly.
It retains the charm of the Animal Crossing series.
Desert Island Escape is actually a pretty fun minigame. It ended up being popular to the point that a port of it got added to Animal Crossing: New Leaf in an update the following year.
You can unlock extra costumes for the characters, which can also be obtained via their amiibo cards for both New Leaf and Happy Home Designer.
If you scan in amiibo cards from Happy Home Designer with data from the game in the card you scan in, you could get a house that looks like the house you decorated from Happy Home Designer.
You get free amiibo cards you could scan in with New Leaf or Happy Home Designer. The three amiibo cards you get are promotional and exclusive to the game where the artwork for the three villagers is different.
The cards had four series and you get more than one in a pack.

Reception

Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival was received unfavorably, with a Metacritic score of 46 based on 20 critic reviews. Common criticisms include a lack of interactivity, boring gameplay, and the game existing solely to get people to buy more amiibo. So far, it's arguably the worst Nintendo EPD developed game and the worst Animal Crossing game.