About seven houses into someone’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons Happy Home Paradise adventure, Lottie will add a small device called the Amiibo Scanner to the office which allows players to add specific important villagers to the game, including VIP guests. Amiibo cards and figures can then be scanned in order to obtain every type of villager imaginable - as long as it’s had a card or figure, it can be scanned into Happy Home Paradise. These cards and figures are sold separately, which means that some of the more popular villagers will cost real-world money to design houses for.
That aside, the upside of the Amiibo Scanner is that it also allows some very special characters to be had that can’t be found on the island chain, dubbed VIP guests. These are usually the side characters that aren’t villagers, like Tom Nook and everyone on his payroll. Since these NPCs don’t have houses in the main game, this feature is a great way to give them a nice place to live and relax.
The Animal Crossing VIP guests don’t actually want a specific style of room - it’s up to the designer to choose a theme they think fits the style of the new client. In addition, some of these guests will come in pairs or groups, meaning designers can create a house for multiple guests and get more characters interactions. Therefore, the best VIP clients are fan-favorite pair-ups and nostalgic NPCs from games past, as they are the most unique and exciting additions to ACNH's Happy Home Paradise DLC.
Blanca Is A Rare And Strange Animal Crossing VIP
First appearing in Animal Crossing for the GameCube, Blanca was a side character that players would sometimes encounter that asks villagers to draw on her blank face. Players would only encounter her when travelling to another player’s town, but the face paint would stay on from journey to journey. While Animal Crossing: New Horizons hasn’t brought back this feature, Blanca has an Amiibo card and she can be invited to the island.
This is one of the harder Amiibo cards to find inexpensively given its newfound use and relative scarcity. Still, for those who can find one, there’s a lot of creativity that can be had with her vacation home. As her face is already a blank canvas, there’s limitless potential with what a weird Animal Crossing house design can look like - an art studio, a white void, or even a cat shrine might be fun to create. Having her back after all these years in any form, even in a smaller role, is also pleasant.
Kapp’n Brings His Family To Happy Home Paradise’s Resort
Kapp’n definitely fits the definition of fan-favorite character. In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, he takes players to a somewhat special island that has vegetables and gyroids, all while singing his namesake song. While he runs his boating service alone, a well-hidden photo will show that the Kappa actually has a family, complete with a wife, a child, and his grandmother.
Kapp’n is the only character that comes with three other roommates in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It’s not only a challenge to fit that many living spaces into two floors, it’s also tough to find a unifying theme that still appeals to each of his family members. While most players will only experience Kapp'ns special Animal Crossing boat tours, it’s nice to see a multigenerational family represented in Happy Home Paradise through this amiibo card, as many of the normal villager pairs just end up being roommates.
Timmy & Tommy Are Twins Who Need A Home In Animal Crossing
Two of the main characters that players get to know the minute they set foot on the island are Timmy and Tommy. Tom Nook’s apprentices spend a lot of time in Animal Crossing: New Horizons tending to Nook’s Cranny, but there’s also ways in Happy Home Paradise to build a vacation home for them. Naturally, these two are roommates that will show up no matter which amiibo card players scan.
Despite the announcement trailer providing a specific theme for Timmy and Tommy, players actually get the freedom to design the house the way they want to. The brothers’ vacation home is a great opportunity to use bells, turnips, and custom designs as signifiers of their local business, much like players have already created with Animal Crossing's Tom Nook and Nook's Cranny. There’s other ways to build Timmy and Tommy’s vacation home, from an upscale apartment to a traditional country-inspired cottage, but seeing the twins interact with their new furniture is the best part of the game, regardless of what’s been picked.
Mabel Brings Her Sisters To Live With Her in Happy Home Paradise
Mabel runs the Able Sisters store in Animal Crossing: New Horizons alongside her sisters Sable and Label. If players scan a Mabel Amiibo figure into Happy Home Paradise, they’ll be able to build a shared house for all three. Seeing as they’ve been a mainstay in the series, it’s great to be able to finally design a living space for them.
Building a tailor’s shop is already a requirement for multiple villagers, so players can get more creative with their design concepts and try to find a building style that suits the family. Gardens, countrysides, and possible custom clothing Animal Crossing could add all might be fun to integrate into the design. Building for pairs and families is already exciting, so creating rooms and filling in the story of the sisters’ differing personalities is a fun task.
There’s more than enough regular villager requests that players who can’t find Amiibo cards will still find hours of enjoyment building vacation homes. The unlocks for designing homes are already worth players’ time with rewards ranging from resort facilities to the ability to remodel houses on the main island. The VIP guests don’t give out any more rewards than normal - they’re here to add a bit of extra playtime for those who want to find their favorite non-villager characters.
The Animal Crossing 2.0 Amiibo collection with both cards and figures does have its benefits and one of them is a varied play experience. Finding figures on Amazon or through resellers can be tough, but the ability to build houses for these special characters makes for a unique Animal Crossing experience. Since many of the Amiibo cards were released with the 3DS titles, it’s nice that Animal Crossing: New Horizons has found a use for them and they can continue to be used far into the future.