Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin works with older Monster Hunter amiibo too

Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin dropped recently and, as the commercials let you know, there are a lot of new amiibo coming out for the game. As you might know, I love amiibo. Arguably too much. And these new ones unlock various layered armor for the game. If you’re unfamiliar with layered armor in Monster Hunter, it’s basically a cosmetic shell for the armor you’re currently wearing. So don’t worry about stat changes hidden behind an amiibo, it’s literally just changing how you visually look.

But there have been two other Monster Hunter games for Nintendo that had amiibo and so far Nintendo has been pretty dang quiet about what those do. Luckily for you, I can’t stop buying these damned things so I got you.

Surprisingly, the amiibo from Monster Hunter Rise get you almost nothing. It’s disappointing but you do get some unique stickers you can use as emotes in the multiplayer mode.

But the cool thing comes if you have the amiibo from the first Monster Hunter Stories game for the 3DS. While I know that these didn’t really come out here, I recommend you get them. Not only do they feature the various riders riding their “monsties,” but you can actually take the pilots off and put them on other ones. As far as I know, these are the only amiibo you can change outside of Mr. Game and Watch. Plus, they look cool as hell. Here’s mine of the main character riding their Rathalos.

Now scanning this one(or any of the other original Monster Hunter Stories amiibo will you’ll get special layered armor based off one of the more iconic armors from the first game.

When you first scan an amiibo, any amiibo, you’ll get this weird cut scene that ends with you getting a random item depending on your fortune as shown here.

But when you scan the Monster Hunter Stories amiibo you’ll also find this Hakum Rider Outfit in your layered armor inventory.

It looks a little tame at first but when you change up the color and find that your character pulls the hood off in most of the cut scenes, it can actually look pretty awesome — like this moment here where my character looks like an absolute badass in it.

I know these amiibo can be a little harder to get now that the new game is coming out, especially as they were Japanese exclusive, but I’m not going to fault you for using an NFC card for these bad boys as Nintendo isn’t going to see a penny off buying the original amiibo off a reseller anyways. Hint hint.