Let’s look at the Animal Crossing: New Leaf – Welcome amiibo cards

A whole new collection of Animal Crossing villagers are here. Nintendo has released the Animal Crossing: New Leaf – Welcome amiibo cards. This gives an opportunity to bring new (imaginary) people back into our lives. But, these amiibo cards aren’t identical to the previous four series. There are some important distinctions to be aware of before picking any of these packs up.

First, let’s go over the Animal Crossing: New Leaf – Welcome amiibo cards’ nature. This is a set of 50 cards, and you get 6 cards in each pack. All of the characters are rarer ones, with some having only having appeared in Animal Forest e+ prior to this update. My collection so far includes Julia, Ketchup, Sylvana and Wade from Animal Forest e+, as well as Huck and Leopold, two characters that have appeared in Animal Forest through Animal Forest e+, but have been absent since. Each card shows the character in a replica of their van, as well as a picture of some of the furniture they’ll have available to purchase when visiting the campground. These cards also feel a bit more substantial, with a nice matte finish.

This is to help people see that the Animal Crossing: New Leaf – Welcome amiibo cards are different from the standard Animal Crossing amiibo cards at a glance. Standard villager cards, from the previous four series, only allow you to either get an item from Wisp or have them move to your village after scanning them into Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Scanning this fifth series of cards lets you get an item or have someone move into the campground, letting you buy furniture from their camper and ask them to move into your town.

Unfortunately, you can’t go ahead and use the Animal Crossing: New Leaf – Welcome amiibo cards to start bringing these unfamiliar faces to games other than Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Their scope and usage is quite limited. Where the other amiibo cards will bring those villagers to games like Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer and Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival, these cards aren’t compatible with either of those games. Which is understandable, considering they were released after both games. Making them compliant would have meant substantial updates to both games that added new character models, room design requests and translation work.

This doesn’t mean you’re only limited to using Animal Crossing: New Leaf – Welcome amiibo cards with Animal Crossing: New Leaf. They work with exactly one other game: Kirby: Planet Robobot. Like previous Animal Crossing amiibo and amiibo cards, they give Kirby the Leaf power when scanned into the game. Which isn’t much, but is something.

There’s a very specific market for these Animal Crossing: New Leaf – Welcome amiibo cards: fanatics. People who have been playing Animal Crossing since it first graced our GameCubes. Maybe earlier, if you’re fortunate enough to have a means of playing Japanese Nintendo 64 games! This is for the folks who miss specific, rare characters, for the people who want certain pieces of furniture without trading online or waiting for them to show up in shops. For the people who love Animal Crossing more than anything, these Animal Crossing: New Leaf – Welcome amiibo cards are a way to make sure you can get it all in your game.