I couldn't wait to buy the Nintendo Talking Flower – now it's just driving me nuts

Nintendo Talking Flower in a home setting — (Image credit: Rik Henderson / Future)

Be careful what you wish for. Like many others, I was enamoured by the idea of owning a Talking Flower – a unique piece of Nintendo merch released to celebrate the unsung heroes of Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

I'd already bought the Alarmo Clock on its debut in 2024, so thought this latest object of Nintendo nonsense would look great sitting alongside it. But little did I realise what I was letting myself in for.

At just £24.99 in the UK, $34.99 in the States, it hardly breaks the bank – and as a big fan of Wonder, the appeal of having my own chatty companion seemed too good to resist. My pre-order was placed the moment it was announced in January, then I waited.

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To be honest, I forgot all about it until a box arrived last week (along with my Switch Virtual Boy accessory, but that's a story for another day). I eagerly ripped open the packaging and thrilled at what was inside.

The Nintendo Talking Flower is decently sized, made of quality plastics, and as cute as it looks in photos. There's a big button on the "soil" which can be used to manually get it to talk, but that's about it externally.

You have to twist the base to get to the battery compartment (it's not rechargeable and needs two AA batteries). There's also a small, hidden LCD screen to set it up. You'll need a tiny Phillips-head screwdriver to get the battery protector open, but so far so good.

There aren't many options when setting up the device, you just set the current time, plus the times when you want to wake up and go to sleep, so it won't jabber on in the night. And you can set the volume using the same tiny buttons. That's about it.

Little did I know that this would be the best it got.

Once set up and placed on a shelf, the reality of having the Flower cough up pithy remarks all day soon set in.

It announces each hour on the hour (sometimes incorrectly for comedy effect), and occasionally gives you a rough estimate on the climate – if it's hot or cold – based on an on-board sensor. You can also manually get music to play and interact by pressing the button for a while.

But after the first hour or so of amusement, it's the random commentary that gets jarring. First you're just, "Ah, that's funny!" Then it's, "Hmmm..." And by the end of day it's, "Shut up, you incessantly irritating a-hole!!!!!"

You can press the button to send the Talking Flower into a form of sleep mode, or even take the batteries out, but that's somewhat extreme. It may save your sanity though.

I currently still have mine on, to see if I just get used to it over time, but as things stand, it may end up being a pricy paperweight. Still, it is a cute ornament, and when I do have guests stay over that I want to wind up, I can always reset the wakeup and sleep times and leave it in the guest room overnight.

That might be worth the £24.99 on its own.

Rik is T3’s news editor, which means he looks after the news team and the up-to-the-minute coverage of all the hottest gadgets and products you’ll definitely want to read about. And, with more than 35 years of experience in tech and entertainment journalism, including editing and writing for numerous websites, magazines, and newspapers, he’s always got an eye on the next big thing.

Rik also has extensive knowledge of AV, TV streaming and smart home kit, plus just about everything to do with games since the late 80s. Prior to T3, he spent 13 years at Pocket-lint heading up its news team, and was a TV producer and presenter on such shows as Channel 4's GamesMaster, plus Sky's Games World, Game Over, and Virtual World of Sport.

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