Super Mario Amiibo

With the amiibo figures - and upcoming Super Mario wave - becoming increasingly diverse in both the ranges on offer and the games they support, it's very easy to get mixed up in terms of which toy works in which games. Which games need to save data? Does it matter if I have a Smash Bros. Mario amiibo in Mario Party 10? If you're not paying attention there can certainly be some head scratchers.

In any case, Nintendo of America advertised an official compatibility chart in its Nintendo Direct broadcast, and it's actually rather enlightening. The table has columns for most current and near-released games - more will surely be added soon - and clearly marks figures in each game that are read only or read/write; the latter category is the process seen in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U where each toy saves and updates data based on what's happening in the game; each toy can only hold one set of data, however. Some key points we found interesting are below.

  • The relevant upcoming Super Mario toys (pictured above) all work as read-write amiibo in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and (from February) Nintendo 3DS, proving that they work in exactly the same way as the Smash Bros. figures. Only Toad isn't compatible due to him not being in the roster.
  • Those Mario Bros. figures (or their Smash Bros. equivalents) are read/write in Mario Party 10, and by clicking on 'Features' for each game in the chart you can get descriptions of what happens. In this case read/write figures in Mario Party 10 affect boards, while individual toys can save items to be used during a game. Notably, any figure outside of these core characters can be scanned as read-only "to play Scratch Bonus and win Mario Party points, letting you unlock in-game bonus content".
  • Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker makes the least use of the range, only supporting the upcoming Toad toy to place 'hide and seek' pixelated Toad characters in levels.
  • Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS will support all the same toys as the Wii U game, and the functionality appears to be the same - customise and train your amiibo. However, it's not explicitly explained as yet - at least as far as we can see - whether you can simply scan in your Wii U toys and continue their progress on the 3DS. We strongly hope and suspect that'll be the case, but Nintendo has seemingly avoided stating that's the case in both the Direct broadcast and on the website.

It's certainly worth checking out the official compatibility chart and details (linked below), for plenty of useful information. The industry of fan-made infographics has undoubtedly taken a hit, however.

[source nintendo.com]