Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival Review

I paid under £10 for the game and the 2 amiibo around 18 months ago. To be honest I only bought it because of the amiibo, I'd seen the reviews ... they weren't great. But I thought I would give it a chance, after all Animal Crossing New Leaf was one of my favourite games on the 3ds and I’d also played and liked Happy Home Designer and the mobile game Pocket Camp. What can I say, animals that speak nonsense are cute! So me and the other half sat down to play...

The main premise of the game I guess is similar to Mario Party, you have a board, you roll dice to move and you collect bells and things called happy points. Unfortunately unlike Mario Party you don’t have the fun little mini games in between rounds to give that extra entertainment and competition. Also there is only one board. One square board. Apparently you can unlock new stuff by playing games, so you can customise your board and you can build new houses and facilities but that would require multiple plays and one game is much like the next in regards to the gameplay. Each game is based on a calendar month and ends when the month is over, it links to real time so you will play the month you are currently in. I would guess that each new month will change how the board looks with the seasons changing.

To roll the dice you need to scan an animal crossing amiibo or character cards on the game pad and then it will automatically move your character the number of spaces that you roll.

There are different kinds of squares you can land on, the main ones will give you happy points or bells, or take away your happy points and bells. Each square has a cute little animated scene that happens when you land on it which I liked (refer to the animals speaking nonsense point).

There are also different villagers that will come in and change the spaces, such as Nat and his bug catching competition. I got a bit salty with the other half here because he won by catching an orchid mantis when I only caught a normal mantis, even though it’s completely random depending what square you land on...

The most interactive bit is when ole Joan shows up with her turnips, as in the normal games you can buy turnips from her and sell them when the price is right. Each space has a sell price for the turnips and you have 6 days to get the best price you can. The turnip stock market is probably the most interesting part of the game, and the bit I was better at than the other half!

Overall there were things I liked about the game, as with most Nintendo games graphically it looked amazing, the 3d character models for each villager were so good, why is there not a 3d animal crossing on switch yet Nintendo? The animal animated scenes were cute, and of course, Joan and her turnips. But there was so much lacking as well, the gameplay was boring and there was the continuous interruptions during gameplay when a new character would change the spaces on the board for something else. It just kind of plodded along with not much happening. It's a shame because they could have done so much more with it, it feels like it was a very rushed game that they just wanted to get out.

Would I replay it? Potentially, if only for a rematch against the other half as he beat me this time round!