Animal Crossing Amiibo Cards - Ridiculously Expensive... Especially In Europe!

Did you know that both Animal Crossing Amiibo and Animal Crossing Amiibo cards are region-free? Well of course; they're simple add-on content for games, why wouldn't they be? And as an added bonus - we can bag a deal online from eBay sellers who might not be from the same country we are - or we can play with exclusive cards or Amiibo that weren't released over here.

So while trawling eBay for deals on the RIDICULOUSLY overpriced Animal Crossing Amiibo cards - I've discovered something.

EUROPEANS ARE GETTING SHAFTED. 

Did you know... every pack of Animal Crossing Amiibo cards is guaranteed to contain a special character? One of the holographic cards of a special NPC - basically - Isabelle, Resetti, Tom Nook etc. 

Take series 1 for example - there are SEVENTEEN special cards and EIGHTY-THREE normal cards. The likelihood of completing your collection of special cards is incredibly high - whilst encountering a regular villager card - or at least a specific one is rather low.

OK, so how does that mean Europeans are getting shafted? Japanese and US players are getting shafted too?

NOPE.

The packs that are for sale in the UK and Europe cost around £3.20-£3.99 per pack - and our packs contain THREE cards. That's more than £1 PER CARD. I managed to find a seller on eBay selling packs of the US versions of the cards for £6... and their packs contain SIX CARDS. The cards themselves cost around the same - BUT...

They too only contain ONE special card! Where we get TWO normal cards, they get FIVE! The sheer prices people are hoping to get for individual cards - particularly popular characters like Punchy, Bob and Kabuki - absolute insanity. Shelly and I both would like a town full of CATS - 10 cat villagers - and thanks to Amiibo cards, this is now possible... if people weren't charging prices like THIS:

And if we were to buy the blind packages of cards - we'd soon be getting doubles, especially of the "special" characters - we could sell those on eBay - except NOBODY IS BUYING THEM. Nobody is buying them because the name "special" character is a misnomer - they're less rare than the regular cards!

If we were to buy the blind packages to complete the album (the album incidentally is very cheap - £7 and it comes with a pack of cards that normally cost £3.99 - the album is like £2!) we would theoretically end up spending double what a non-European player would in order to complete their collection!

And the problem is; this isn't going to change. In fact, it's going to get worse. I've been watching the prices slowly climbing since last October. We've really chosen a bad time to get into these poxy cards. They sell the albums and games dirt cheap, and gouge us up the arse (especially if you live in Europe) for the damn cards. 

Amusingly, the Amiibo themselves are decreasing in price, I recently nabbed Resetti for £5.20 and Rover for £5.40 - and you can display those on a shelf!

Unboxing: Fake Chinese Pokémon Toys

I've been on eBay again - looking for more bizarre Chinese knock-off video game merchandise... 

This time I found a pack of Pokémon figurines - it claimed to come with approximately 40, but it turned out I just ended up with two bags of identical badly sculpted and terribly painted figurines of Pokémon - amusingly at least one from each different generation.



And here is my comparison of these figurines to what they're supposed to look like:

Spinda isn't too terrible - at least the spirals on its eyes and ears are accurate. Its hands are almost the right colour, but it lacks the orange around its waist and spots on its ears and face. It's also PURPLE instead of creamy-beige.

In my video, I incorrectly said this toy was Phione; but I think you can forgive me - it's actually Manaphy. Manaphy that for some reason is a dark green colour and a really bizarre shape... The painting on its markings is really off, the long tail thing on its head is moulded oddly and of course we have to address the pressing issue that it's GREEN. 

Now the colours on this Azurill aren't too bad. The blue is more or less accurate, as are the white on its cheeks. The inside of its ears are a tad too dark - but it's the badly painted face that ruins it for me. I shall applaud them however for making the bottom of its tail flat, allowing it to stand up - which is more than can be said for some of these other figures...

This Magikarp toy is actually pretty decent. Granted, the fins are a blue colour rather than white, but it has all of the correct markings and texture where scales would be - and like Azurill it can stand up on its own too. 

Cacnea in my opinion is by far the best out of this collection of toys - the mould is near perfect, as are the colours. The body is slightly too dark a shade of green, but it has all of the spikes and features in the right place, it can stand up easily and generally looks really good compared to some of the other dross.

The mistake the manufacturers have made on the Nidorino figure can sort of be forgiven. In some representations of the character, such as the anime and Pokémon cards, Nidorino is more of a pinky colour than purple. And, its pre-evolved form Nidoran is pink. I also feel the horn is far too small - but that could be done for practical reasons; perhaps a longer horn would have snapped? 

Here we have Exploud - painted in a very dark purple as opposed to the light violet colour he normally has. The yellow markings are also a darker yellow and the inside of his mouth is a darker pink. The sculpt is OK, but the painting on his teeth is downright terrible. 

This Magcargo bothers me a lot. For starters, it's an orange colour instead of red, the eyes and face are painted and sculpted totally wrong - but it's the shell that annoys me the most. Instead of painting it one solid colour, they've painted on a design like a wheel for some reason.

The main problem with this Latios figure is his face and belly are an off-cream colour instead of white. It just makes it look dirty and wrong. They blue they've used is also too dark. The sculpt is decent though. 

To me, this Chimchar figure looks like bloody Pinocchio - his face is too long and his arms are too spindly. He's also a far too dark shade of orange and his hands and feet are white instead of matching the colour of his face. It's also hard for this one to stand up, due to his stupid spindly legs. 

Now here's a Nidoran (female) - the sculpt is OK and she has all of her markings in the right places, but the blue paint they've used is far too dark - they should have used a lighter indigo shade. It's also lacking details on the feet, like claws.

For some reason, Machoke here has no underwear on. He's only wearing his championship belt, which has weird paint. His skin is a sickly grey instead of a light violet - he's missing all of the markings that show his muscle definition and for some reason he's been punched in the face - his mouth looks like it's pouring blood!

Here we have a Shroomish - who is painted in bright yellow instead of a beige. It does however have the correct markings and has detailed feet - but the face. They've ruined the face totally by forgetting to add his little furrowed brow.

Golbat here is painted in grey instead of blue, with green inside wings instead of purple. Its wings are totally the wrong shape, as are its feet - but that could be just to help it stand - and don't even get me started on what the fuck is going on with his mouth.

I can't even begin with this Crobat. It's just as terrible as the Golbat above, even using the same weird grey paint. It has no eyes, its teeth aren't painted, it has no feet or nubs on its wings - and generally looks like a big bag of shite. 

This Froakie here isn't too terrible either - the only thing it's really missing is the dark blue stripe down his nose and the white collar around his neck. The hands, eyes and other markings are decent though.

Clauncher looks like its eyes are closed here, and it's lacking many of the black lines on its claws and body. Its antennae are only half-painted and don't sit in the right place either. They have, for once used more or less the correct shade of blue for its body though. 

Axew is a bright green instead of a dark olive colour - whatever he holds in his mouth is totally unpainted, leaving it the same weird green as its skin. His neck markings are also bright yellow instead of lime green. The painting and sculpt on the eyes is OK though.

What the fuck is going on with this Reuniclus? It has no ears, half of the blobs on its arms are missing or mis-painted and its face is seriously fucked up. They've also had to add a weird chunk onto its arse to make it stand up properly.

Galvantula here has a decent sculpt and has the majority of its markings in the right place and painted in the right colours - just the main body is far too light - it should be yellow, while this toy is bordering on a cream colour.

Servine's sculpt here is just totally off - it has massive pudgy feet and arms, the arms are totally the wrong colour too - and its lime green pattern on its back is far too dark. 

Zebstrika is missing the stripes on its legs, along with the markings on its ears. The rest of the white stripes however are painted pretty well - including the mane and tail. Not too bad actually.

This Liepard is painted in a navy blue instead of a dark purple - the yellow parts are far too light and the markings around its eyes are purple instead of pink. We're also missing the yellow stomach, yellow face and even its bloody whiskers!

Pansear here has one major issue - as you can tell by the fact I'm holding it up, it can't stand up by itself. The face isn't too bad, but the colours are totally off and he is missing the yellow inside his ears.