After scanning an Amiibo, a treasure chest will drop from the sky, along with mushrooms, meats, herbs, rupees, and fish, among other items, depending upon the Amiibo. Boxes or barrels will also fall, offering additional goodies. It’s the chest that contains the prize of the day, however: an upgraded weapon or special shield, a piece of armor, precious ore, and similar noteworthy items. At time of publication, there are 24 Zelda-themed Amiibos that can be scanned in the Breath of the Wild. Below are examples and, naturally, some commentary.
If you purchase just one Amiibo, we recommend the Guardian, which is modeled on the aggressive Stalker version you’ll see in the Wild. The chest will contain an Ancient weapon, Guardian shield, Ancient arrow, ordinary Ancient Core, and once in a great while, a Giant Ancient Core. Metal boxes contain Ancient screws, springs, and gears; ordinary arrows; and certain precious metals. You’ll covet the Ancient parts for upgrades at the Hateno Tech Lab and, later, purchases at the Akkala Ancient Tech Lab.
The four Champion Amiibos (Daruk, Mipha, Revali, and Urbosa) will, after certain requirements are met during play, drop a Divine Beast helm. They’re not precisely elegant – the Vah Ruta Divine Helm, for example, makes Link look like he has an elephant’s trunk sprouting from his head – but the Divine Helms can substitute for the Ancient Helm. (Otherwise, the Ancient Helm must be purchased at the Akkala Tech Lab for 2000 rupees, 20 Ancient Gears, 5 Ancient Shafts, and 3 Ancient Cores. Two thousand rupees is no small sum, and the ancient parts are also hard to come by.)
The four Champion Amiibos hold down their respective homes in this clever Breath of the Wild National Park map. Link, Zelda, and Ganon hold down the fort. Er, the Castle. And a Guardian looks on…
(Map is courtesy of KnerdKraft, which has no affiliation with Zelda for Elders.)
The Divine Helms, when combined with the Ancient Greaves and Ancient Cuirass, provide the same Ancient Proficiency set bonus that an Ancient Helm does. Moreover, a Divine Beast helm will give an extra boost, such as heat or cold resistance, related to the Champion in question. (Demelza has made the definitive study of helms; Itzal just complains that one makes him look like a bee.)
Both Twilight Princess Link and Super Smash Brothers Link will “drop” Epona the first time you scan. (Fear not, no horses are wounded in the dropping of one from the sky.) Unlike most horses in the Wild, Epona has maxed out stamina, strength, and speed. You won’t have to cajole her into letting you on her back, either. But get yourself next to a stable the first time you scan this Amiibo, because you must register Epona to keep her. We didn’t know that. After waiting patiently for Link to hop aboard, after a while our Epona wandered off, because Itzal was more interested in gathering apples. (This was back when we still had significant resource issues.) Epona’s abandonment led to much berating by Demelza, when the second time scanning the Amiibo would not bring Epona back, nor the third, nor the fourth, nor the fifth … finally, after a couple of weeks and considerable berating, Epona dropped again and was duly registered.
Super Smash Brothers Zelda (she’s the one wearing a pink dress and holding her arm out in a pointing fashion, probably chastising Link for abandoning Epona or leaving the Giant Ancient Core in the Mirro Shaz shrine) may gift you with the Twilight Bow, which is fairly durable and shoots arrows of light.
The Breath of the Wild Zelda (wearing a blue and cream top, pants, and what look to be boots but with sandal toes, an unfortunate combination, and holding her Sheikah slate) allegedly drops the Hylian shield. We say “allegedly” because we don’t remember getting the shield from this Amiibo, although it’s possible it was dropped and we simply didn’t realize its significance (possibly because one of us was busy berating the other, but probably because that other had opted to keep a “prettier” shield like the Gerudo instead). We later got the Hylian shield the old-fashioned way, by infiltrating Hyrule castle in our scary first venture into that place. The shield is extremely durable – great for practicing parrying!
Archer Link–that’s what we call him, regardless of what his official name might be –drops bows, not surprisingly, but also the bounty associated with archery: meat, poultry, and fishes. Okay, truth be told, we never thought about shooting a fish with an arrow. But apparently someone did. This Amiibo also drops arrows, not just ordinary but elemental (bomb, shock, ice, and fire).
Certain other Amiibos offer so-called “exclusive armor,” meaning it is obtainable only via Amiibo drop. These include the Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, and Twilight sets.
Demelza loves the look of Eight-Bit Link, a tri-dimensional rendering of the hero from the original Zelda game, which she played while young and bohemian. This Amiibo’s drop is simple, just like its look: The chest will yield pieces of the Hero set of Amiibo armor and – which we found charming – a weapon unpretentiously called Sword. We wished we’d put it on the wall of Link’s home, but regrettably, it was put to good use defeating our enemies, and eventually Sword was lost to the sands of time.
Initially, we diligently upgraded the Amiibo armors, until (a) our closet began to overflow; (b) upgrading took too many resources; and (c) our research indicated that none of the Amiibo sets protects you any more than in-game sets available. Nor do they offer set bonuses other than one related to the Master sword – and that’s a bonus you can get on your own, around the time you might actually want to use it, by completing all 120 shrines.
We did rather like the Fierce Deity armor, which is a drop from Majora’s Mask Link.
Eventually, though, we sold all our Amiibo armor for 125 rupees a piece whenever it dropped. It proved a valuable source of income, along with hunting and selling crickets, when we were saving up for a Home for Link.
Then there’s Wolf Link. This Amiibo provides a wolfie companion to Link. He’ll alert Link to enemies, often attacking and killing them himself. Unfortunately, he may also alert enemies to Link, so it’s a good idea to learn to tell him STAY. He’ll also hunt and kill game, which Link can retrieve if Wolf doesn’t eat it first. Unfortunately, Wolf has only three hearts, unless one has previously played Twilight Princess and transfers data from that game to the Amiibo. (Our copy of Twilight Princess is in Demelza’s storage unit.)
In addition to a chest usually containing weaponry or valuable ores, the Ganondorf Amiibo will drop three or four barrels which you need to bomb open – don’t waste your sword’s durability. Beware, however: Occasionally, there will be one or even two red barrels, which will explode massively. Carry them away and set them down gently – don’t throw them, as you’ll be close enough to go up in flames in the resulting explosion. (Not that we did this. Okay, we totally did this.) Barrels may contain monster guts, arrows, and rupees.
Those aren’t all the Amiibos, but you get the gist of it. If you decide to use them, consider your needs, then choose accordingly!
How to Scan an Amiibo
After enabling Amiibos on the Switch console, the Amiibo rune will appear in the same menu in which you find other runes like bombs, stasis, etc. Select Amiibo from the rune menu and tap the L button. Then “scan” the Amiibo by placing it on a specified position on the console or on the Master Controller, so that the NFC thingy communicates with your game. That may not be the technical way to put it, but we’re elders, after all.
If you’re using a master controller, NFC Checkpoint Charlie is located over the Nintendo Switch logo at the top-center of the controller. If using the console for handheld play, it’s just under the right control stick, the top of which you then push like a button.
It took us a while to get the hang of scanning – first we were using the wrong place on the controller, then the figurine kept sliding off; we’re sure this had nothing to do with the number of cocktails (Demelza’s Spouse!) – but once we did, we were Amiibo-scanning fools. You can scan every Amiibo you have, once each day, even on a day you’re not playing.
One last thing: choose carefully where you use your Amiibo rune. If you are near a cliff, chances are excellent your chests or barrels or other items will tumble off, or if you’re in high grass or a forest, you may find it hard to find the items. Our favorite location is near the Dueling Peaks stable. There’s ample room for Amiibo drops and little to kill you there while your harvest your Amiibo treasure!