Today, Nintendo opened their E3 presentation with a rather impressive fight scene between president of Nintendo of Japan, Satoru Iwata, and president of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils Amie. Naturally this lead into a Smash Bros. reveal. You can now play as your Mii in SSB! The Mii has three 'classes' to choose from, the fistfighting brawler, a swordsman, and a gunner with an arm cannon to rival the likes of Samus and Mega Man during battle. Palutena was announced a bit later during the presentation, with a reveal set in the style of the Kid Icarus: Uprising anime shorts released with said game.
However, this was also the formal reveal of Nintendo's official NFC figurines, dubbed 'Amiiboo'. These figurines are read by the gamepad just as with Skylanders or Disney Infinity. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U will launch with the first series of Amiibo, which seem to act as computer players with RPG stats. Battling against them will make them stronger, and they even seem to adapt and learn strategies. They also have customizable movesets, as the players do.
Amiibo will also be compatible with Mario Kart 8, Mario Party 10, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker and Yoshi's Wooly World. Hopefully the Amiibo compatibility for Mario Kart 8 will mean character DLC to remedy the somewhat lacking roster. The 3DS will also be receiving a peripheral to allow it to use Amiibo as well, but we've yet to see any examples of its use on the 3DS.
Personally I'm probably the only person disappointed by the Palutena reveal when I was foolishly hoping for Hades, or in my wildest dreams Pyrrhon. The Miis look amazing and thanks to Tomodachi Life really improving my opinion of Miis I am really excited to try them out. Amiibo on the other hand, I'll have to wait and see before I have anything to say about it.
