Nintendo posted their Animal Crossing Nintendo Direct video today, and it started off with a big surprise: The update is available now! It turns your regular copy of Animal Crossing: New Leaf into Animal Crossing: New Leaf: Welcome Amiibo. There’s a lot of new stuff, so let’s get to it.
Drive-in Campground
The most noticeable addition is the new campground. The entrance isn’t on Main Street, it’s found as a new ramp in your town, going off to the side. In Forest, the entrance was near town hall.
Inside, you’ll find some camping related public works projects, one or two RVs, and you can see a waterfall in the distance.
You’ll also find Harvey the hippie here: He’s the dog that runs the place.
He has some items for sale, but he doesn’t accept bells. Instead, you need Mutual Exchange Of Wealth (MEOW) coupons. More on those in a bit.
There was one RV parked at the campground today, and special characters can appear there. Today, I found Booker inside. It’s decorated like a small room, and you can order his items (but again, you pay in MEOW coupons).
Amiibo Compatibility & Wisp
If you scan an Animal Crossing Amiibo figure (or an Amiibo card of a special character), that character will appear in the back RV. The front RV will appear if you scan in a new Welcome Amiibo card.
But before you can scan an Amiibo, you have to acquire a magic lamp, which you can then rub to make Wisp appear. But at this point, I’m not sure how you get the magic lamp. Will it appear in town at night like in earlier games?
Anyway, once you scan one of the upcoming Welcome Amiibo cards, Wisp will allow you to summon that character to appear in an RV. Again, you’ll be able to enter his/her RV, order items, and even invite them to move into town. If you use regular Amiibo cards for villagers, they won’t have special RVs, but you can still invite them to move into town.
As for other Amiibo figures, some of them unlock new things as well. The Callie and Marie Amiibos will unlock Splatoon themed villagers Cece and Viché, while an inkling Amiibo will unlock Inkwell the octopus villager. There are also Zelda themed villagers, including Wolf Link, Medli, Ganon, and Epona.
CAT Machine
Next to town hall, there will be a new Coupon Allocating Terminal…or CAT machine. There will be town initiatives (achievements basically) that will let you earn MEOW coupons. My first task was to hang some items of clothing up on the wall of my house. Once I did that, I returned to the CAT machine and scored two MEOW coupons.
By the way, if you don’t want to spend your MEOW coupons at the campground, you can exchange them for bells at the ABD. Each coupon is worth 3,000 bells, so it will be tempting to trade them in.
Mini-Games
Animal Crossing Amiibo figures may give you items that let you play mini-games like Animal Crossing Puzzle League and Desert Island Escape. The latter is from Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival on Wii U. Even though Amiibo Festival isn’t very good overall, Desert Island Escape was quite enjoyable. I’m sure it’ll be just as good on 3DS.
Amiibo Camera
The Amiibo Camera feature lets you scan Amiibo cards and add Animal Crossing characters to the real-life photos you take with the 3DS camera. I talked about it before here, but I haven’t tried it out for myself just yet. Look for more on this soon.
Secret Storeroom
Needs more storage? YES! The secret storeroom can be added onto your house at Nook’s Homes for a price of 158,000 bells. It appears to add 36 pages of storage (that’s enough for 360 extra items) that you can apparently access anywhere! Wow! This is one of my favorite additions in the update! I ordered mine, and it should be available tomorrow!
After adding the storeroom and completing a design seminar, you can move furniture around your house using the touch screen. It works just like in Happy Home Designer! Very helpful!
Linking Happy Home Designer
If you have Happy Home Designer, you can link New Leaf to your HHD data and order giant furniture from your Nooklings’ store.
New Villagers
The new Welcome Amiibo cards include 50 new and returning villagers who weren’t previously in New Leaf. Here is the full list: Vivian, Hopkins, June, Piper, Paolo, Hornsby, Stella, Tybalt, Huck, Sylvana, Boris, Wade, Carrie, Ketchup, Rex, Stu, Ursala, Jacob, Maddie, Billy, Boyd, Bitty, Maggie, Murphy, Plucky, Sandy, Claude, Raddle, Julia, Louie, Bea, Admiral, Ellie, Boots, Weber, Candi, Leopold, Spike, Cashmere, Tad, Norma, Gonzo, Sprocket, Snooty, Olive, Dobie, Buzz, Cleo, Ike, and Tasha.
I was quite disappointed to see that neither Hank nor Emerald were among the returning villagers. But I do like Hornsby a lot, and Bea is cool too.
Dream Suite
One of the biggest changes in this addition is one that’s barely mentioned in the video. And that’s because it’s really bad news. You are forced to get a new dream address for your town. My new address is 5D00-000F-7611.
Your count of visitors who have dreamed of your town? GONE. But it gets worse. I tried to visit the old version of Forest, and I couldn’t. And it’s not just my town. All previous dream towns are GONE. Did you enjoy visiting a certain dream town? It’s gone. Sure, some people may update their dream towns again with a new address. But many great dream towns are now gone forever. Honestly, I’m a bit peeved about this. And Nintendo gave no warning that they would be doing this.
Other Changes
On Club Tortimer, you now have the ability to mute annoying players so you don’t see their text. And if you choose to restart your town, you don’t have to start from scratch. You can actually sell your town for a bunch of bells, which will be in your bank account when you start up again. Oh…and now you can sit on rocks.
My Thoughts
This update is really big, with a lot more changes and content than I imagined it would have. I’m sure lots of inactive New Leaf players should, and will, give New Leaf another chance. But with all of these additions, I wonder why they didn’t just save this all for the next Animal Crossing game (hopefully on Switch). They’re just raising the bar for themselves, so the next one will need that much more. Let’s just hope this New Leaf update isn’t keeping us from getting the next Animal Crossing game sometime soon.
If you’re starting up a new town, be sure to use the face guide to start your character off right. If you’re resuming your old town, use the hair guide to get rid of that bed-head!
hi i do not have a dream code but i do have a cool house next fire work show i will get my dream code bye
I kept this link here, because I wanted the full experience of Welcome Amiibo. I really do like the secret storeroom, I think everyone does. But I can’t get items from there when I’m at a friend’s town. It really bugs me having to go back to my town and back to their town. I also like the furniture tool-thing from HHD coming to this game. There are little updates like sitting on rocks and shaking trees with a tool in your hand (apart from shovel and axe for an obvious reason) The problem I have with this update is that it could’ve been used in the Switch version, and I believe it could of been released by now if it wasn’t for this update. I thought the update would fix Resetti. You know, make him as angry as he was in Wild World and City Folk.. but no. This makes me fear that Resetti will remain that way in future AC games. The dream suite update is so so upsetting and Xavier, if you’re reading this, l had that happen to me too. 🙁
Those are some of my thoughts in the Welcome Amiibo update so far.
Umm… how do you get this update? Do you have to buy a new game? Because I don’t want to start over my town of Pairis (yes I know I spelt that way on propose) is the longest one I’ve ever had…
No, it’s a free update and you can keep your current town (it just adds a campground). There should be an option to update your game on the title screen, although you can also update via the eShop.
please add my dream code 4D00-0010-5F87 thank you
i love the new update although it is very hard to get friends to do things and get help when you need it. people can be very rude i found. but i’m a happy person and help them anyways.
for anyone who wants to visit my quiet little town of 1-UP, my dream address is 4B00-0010-5D93
I just got the lamp. I was just walking around (during the daytime, not night) and the wisp started talking to me, but I have to get some amiibo to scan!
Mixed thoughts about it, really. Sure, there are some really cool things included….but also some really annoying crap. Like the dream suite thing…what? Why, Nintendo? Also, you’re so right about the Switch. That’s really concerning me, too.
Oh wow, the update came out? I thought it was December. Whoops 😛
If only I knew I wouldn’t have asked Cookie to move into my town and I could have picked up some amiibo cards and get a villager.
Well, mistakes beside, it sucks that you need a new dream adress in the update. I guess all the small times random people have visited my town are gone.
The new cards don’t come out until December, but they surprised us by releasing the update earlier than expected.
Jeff How do I link my HHA to my new leaf?
Thanks Arlene
Once you’ve got the update, load up the game. Instead of opening your town, there’s a button (I think it’s around 3 down) that says ‘link HHD data’ or something similar. Click on that, and follow Isabelle’s instructions. If you have a physical copy, when she tells you to, take out your NL card and insert your HHD card. The data should upload then, and you’ll be able to purchase giant items from the Nookling’s Catalog.
Hope this helps! Hope you don’t mind me answering for you, Jeff 😛
What is the new address to Nintendo town Jeff?
As far as I know, they have not re-uploaded that town. But Nintendo (Japan) has a new dream town at 0000-000F-4241.
I absolutely adored this update! I was shocked at the sheer amount of things they managed to pack in, including those little touches that make the game much better.
If you want a full list of changes, nookipedia.com has a page for Welcome Amiibo which lists all of them. 🙂
Yeah, the dream address thing kinda stinks. I had an old town that was from a downloadable copy of Acnl, but when lost the sd card I started a new town and the only remnants of my old one were from the Dream Suite. I loved that town.
Other than that, I found Wisp while just randomly walking around last night. Maybe it’s just random?
This is a really impressive update. It refreshes the game when it was becoming stale. I hope they have more updates in the future, but I somehow doubt it. The dream suite thing is very annoying though. The cartridge for my very first town which I put easily 500+ hours into is un readable now, I would visit the dream town every now and then for good old times. It’s a shame, like you said, many good towns are lost now. Besides that, I’m digging the update.
I love the update but the Dream Suite is really annoying.
Well I helped bring your dream count back up a bit today. (My count was only 17, so no big deal for me.) I’m just sad that my late friend’s dream town is gone. Now the only part of his town that survives is Puddles, who moved from his town to mine two months before his death in the summer of 2015.
It kind of stinks when companies do stuff like this. I remember when Flipnote servers shut down. I felt the same way
Yeah that must suck. Now I can’t see my old town that I lost the game cartridge of.
And sorry for your loss Xavier 😭
It’s okay. Cancer sucks. I sometimes make that Puddles’ catchphrase: f-cancer!
I’m really excited about this new update. I have all 400 amiibo cards and I’m ready to meet some new villagers. I’m tempted to get the Splatoon squid amiibo for Inkwell the octopus.
Wow, that’s sad. Hopefully you took some pictures in his town to remember it by.
I’m so sorry to hear about that 🙁 So sad – life can be so unfair.
That’s one if the ultimate worst parts, as the same thing happened to me; I can’t visit my old best friends town anymore as her dream address has been reset.