YMMV / Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival

• Audience-Alienating Premise: While fans weren't enthused about getting a spin-off Party Game instead of a new main series entry for the Wii U, the thought of a party game wasn't seen as a total bust. At least, until it was learned how the game actually functioned, as unlike most games in the genre such as Mario Party, amiibo festival lacked any minigames in its main mode, being near-entirely based on luck. There were side-games available to play, but some required extra amiibo cards, one of them was a quiz on Animal Crossing trivia (locking out newcomers even more); and others required you to engage with the dull main game anyway. Throw in that tapping the amiibo card/figurine was required for almost every action in the entire game if you want to play as any of the villagers, including rolling the dice, and you had a critical and commercial failure.
• Mis-blamed: The game gets a lot of hate from people who presumed it prevented a true Animal Crossing game from appearing on the Wii U. In reality, it's been implied that the reason there was no proper Wii U installment was because there was never any plans for one to begin with. During the marketing for New Horizons, series producer Aya Kyogoku would state that while conceptualization for the game began immediately after New Leaf shipped, they were planning for then-unknown future hardware, suggesting the next entry was planned for the 3DS successor rather than the Wii U, which released the same month as New Leaf.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Among the many gripes people had with the game, most prominent was the fact that in order to play as specific characters, you had to scan their amiibo during each of your turns. This made it a hassle, especially if you were playing with friends, as you'd be required to pass the Wii U's GamePad controller around in circles. What makes it all the more baffling is that the game allows you to play as human villagers who aren't subject to this mechanic. This ironically made a game with "amiibo" in the title arguably worse with their usage, with only special dialogue to make up for it.
• Tainted by the Preview: Fans of the main series can't seem to get over the disappointing Trailer Spoof done for this game, where it looked like it was going to be a new Wii U entry in the series.

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