NINTENDO BADGE ARCADE

In December of 2014, Nintendo unleashed an evil upon the world.

MICRO-TRANSACTIONS, THE VIDEO GAME.

And everyone loved it.

Okay, okay, now to be serious. Nintendo Badge Arcade was a free-to-start software for the 3ds released December 2014 and later released worldwide in November 2015. Its gimmick was a virtual claw machine to collect 'badges' of Nintendo characters that could be displayed on your 3ds homescreen. The arcade was shown as a building full of mii characters alongside...the man, the myth, the legend, Arcade Bunny.

The player would begin with a few free claw machine attemps, and after that would have to pay real money. Tragic. But on occasion, it would be generous enough to allow you free badge attempts, with eventually adding a log-in bonus of two free attemps every day. And that kept me coming back for years. I managed to get quite a few badges without ever spending any real money. And now that the Badge Arcade has been shut down, my homescreen is the last monument to this game, with no other way of getting badges.

(...undoubtedly there's some way to mod badges onto there, but I don't know a thing about modding and if I tried I'd likely break fifty devices.)

So now, with the base of the game out of the way, it's time to discuss the LORE.

In the game's world itself, he often mentions his 'boss'. We never meet this character, and our information is limited. Outside of that, he's also mentioned to be friends with Nikki from Swapdoodle. But what, you may ask, do we know about the bunny himself? What is his name?

..."ABCDE"

but THAT is according ONLY to his NAMETAG in the original 3ds game. In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, his assist trophy's nametag is edited to say "A. Bunny". Outside of his nametag, though, he's referred to as "Arcade Bunny" or, in the Japanese version, "Baito", which translates to "part-time job". There are plenty of different names and no clear answer.

And now, with the closure of the game, the most recent appearance of our furry friend was 2021 with the release of WarioWare: Get it Together! with the badge catcher microgame. This game may be gone, hardly being acknowledged at all anymore, but this rabbit and his money-making schemes will always live on in our hearts...

arcade bunny for smash 6.