"The edible, fleshy, roundish, or somewhat conical, root of a cruciferous plant"

Its definitely been a month of gaming and we've been so lucky getting to review some great Nintendo 3ds and Wii U titles. The boys love gaming and although we do limit them so that it is done in moderation, if they can steal a spare gaming minute here or there they will. Today was one of those days where the rain was thrashing down, it was dark and gloomy and Mrs M was curled up on the sofa feeling poorly... cue a family gaming afternoon under a blanket.

With the release of Animal Crossing: amiibo festival last week we had been sent the game to review, we had planned on getting stuck in last weekend but with the days taken up by adventure and then a pretty busy week following we didn't get the chance to all sit down together. Firstly when the game arrived the boys were so excited to find 4 amiibo's! well it is a festival. Me and Opeie had reviewed Animal Crossing Happy home designer a few weeks back so Opeie was familiar with the characters and chose his boss Tom Nook straight away.

Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival follows a similar style to the Mario party series. 1 to 4 players make their way around a very cute board game and the aim of the game is to be the happiest player at the end of it, I know, too cute for words right?! each player takes it in turn to roll the dice by holding their amiibo against the game pad they then make their way around the board trying to land on the spaces that make them happy by doing good deeds and meeting up with friends, or the ones that give them the best pay out, to spend on turnips (more about that shortly).

It was nice to see that Cyrus shares my love of blogging and he is getting himself out there.

A full game plays through 4 weeks and each roll of the dice is the equivalent to a day. throughout the week you are greeted by different characters throughout the Animal Crossing games, fortune tellers, Crazy red who owns the card shop and Joan who visits each week to sell you turnips to sell along the way at a higher (or lower) rate. Some days the turnips you are carrying can be worth a lot more than the price you paid for them but other times the market drops and you will end up making a loss if you are unlucky.

Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival is a great interactive game, making use of both the amiibo characters for moving around the board and the huge collection of Animal Crossing amiibo cards for unlocking all of the mini games throughout main game.

For a 4 player game it took around 1 hour 15 minutes to play the full month. It was nice to play a game together as a family and great to have the chance to be playing something that I'm not continuously tied too, I could get up make drinks and dinner between goes, awesome! Mrs M's character Cyrus (who was nicknamed millenium fonz because of the quiff) was the happiest all through game and Mrs M was sure that she was the reigning champ. As we reached the end of the game though Opeie had more money which added to the happy points, proving that you can in fact buy happiness.

Animal Crossing: amiibo festival isn't the sort of game I would play myself of an evening but for younger children and for quality family time the game is great, sending a great message that if you are a good person and you do nice things for people you will inevitably be a happier person.