Locking Zelda: Skyward Sword’s Fast Travel Behind An Amiibo Is A Bummer

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword arrives on Switch in July, and as Nintendo revealed this week, the game is launching alongside an elaborate new Amiibo depicting Zelda with her trusty Loftwing. This figure is much more detailed than many of the previous ones the company has released, and it carries a much steeper price tag than usual as a result. The higher asking price normally wouldn’t ruffle consumer feathers considering that Amiibo are often more appealing to core players and enthusiast collectors, but it’s the functionality the figure offers that makes it feel like a particularly egregious money grab.

As Nintendo explained, the Zelda & Loftwing Amiibo effectively allows you to quick travel between the surface world and the sky. Scan the figure while you’re on the surface, and you can return to the sky from anywhere, even while exploring a dungeon. Scan the figure again while in the sky, and you’ll return to the same point on the surface.

As far as Amiibo functionality goes, this is an incredibly handy feature. Typically, the only way to return to the sky from the surface in the game is to interact with Loftwing statues, which are found in specific locations around the world. This means that if you need to head back to Skyloft–the floating island that Link and Zelda call home–to restock on supplies, for instance, you first need to hoof it to one of these statues to launch yourself into the air.

Those who have played the original Wii version of Skyward Sword will remember how frequently Link needs to travel between the surface world and the sky, so the functionality that the Zelda & Loftwing Amiibo offers is a genuine quality-of-life improvement. That’s why it’s so perplexing that Nintendo is locking such a useful feature behind an additional purchase–one that costs $25 no less. And that’s to say nothing of scalpers. Collector items like Amiibo are often snapped up quickly, so if the Zelda & Loftwing Amiibo sells out, it seems you’ll just have no way of using this functionality.

To be sure, the Zelda & Loftwing Amiibo’s premium price tag isn’t the crux of the issue. Nintendo has released even pricier figures than this in the past, including a $30 Detective Pikachu Amiibo and a deluxe-sized $40 Yarn Yoshi Amiibo for Yoshi’s Woolly World. Those, however, unlocked ancillary features in their respective games, so players didn’t miss out on anything for not picking them up. In Skyward Sword’s case, it’s not like the game will be unplayable without the Zelda & Loftwing Amiibo’s functionality, but the feature it offers outright improves the overall experience, and the only way to take advantage of it is to shell out.

Gating certain features behind Amiibo has always been a delicate balancing act that Nintendo has had to maintain since it first launched the NFC-based figure line in 2014. Tie something significant to Amiibo, and fans will perceive it as a forced additional purchase; tie something minor to them, however, and there will be little incentive to buy the figures. Up until now, Nintendo has maintained that balance by mostly offering superfluous benefits through the Amiibo. While some figures have been used cleverly (being able to summon Wolf Link as an AI companion in Zelda: Breath of the Wild remains one of my favorite uses), most would unlock optional perks, such as new Yoshi patterns in the aforementioned Yoshi’s Woolly World, or extra items in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.

The Zelda & Loftwing Amiibo, on the other hand, is the first I can think of to offer such a clear game-improving feature–one that wouldn’t be available otherwise if you didn’t own the figure. Past Amiibo have come close to approaching that line. For instance, tapping a Bowser Amiibo while playing Bowser’s Fury lets you summon Fury Bowser on command rather than having to wait for him to appear on his own, which made collecting some of the Cat Shines a bit quicker, but didn’t appreciably alter the experience. With the Zelda & Loftwing Amiibo, however, Nintendo is effectively asking fans to spend extra money to enjoy a major quality-of-life feature that could very well enhance what it’s like to play Skyward Sword as a whole. Considering this is the sort of improvement one would typically expect from a $60 remaster, it comes off as a way to wring more money out of fans, and it’s disappointing to see.