There's such a contrast between the renaissance Nintendo franchises are experiencing on the Switch versus what's landing on iOS and Android. Each release is basically recognizable, but severely watered down.

I like seeing the Animal Crossing characters and objects, simple as they are, at a higher resolution. And it's nice that fishing and bug-catching feel basically faithful to the original (though I miss the museum and encyclopedia). I also don't mind the concept of "crafting" furniture, which feels a bit more empowering than having to wait for some random in-game date or set the clock on your system.

But the typical payoffs for these actions feel pretty hollow. You get to awkwardly arrange furniture in the middle of a vacant lot or an RV. You exchange repetitive banter with townsfolk with no particular attachment to anywhere, who won't visit or react to your campsite unless it matches their predetermined tastes exactly. The subtle joy of seeing your home and town evolve both in appearance, amenities and citizenry is so watered down here that it's almost unrecognizable.

It can be fun, but it feels closer in tone, feel and permanence to the islands in the mainline games than a satisfying experience in its own right. If you go in with reasonable expectations... and if the servers aren't still struggling... you'll have a fine time.

Honestly, this mobile isn't bad if you want to get an idea of what the full Animal Crossing: New Horizons game is like, or even if you don't want to commit to the game.

Gameplay

Pretty basic, you have your campsite and RV that you can customize with furniture and decorations. You will meet and make friends with a variety of animals that will make requests of you, which allows you to level up the friendship. At certain points, the levels will be locked until you achieve certain outcomes, like a camp feature or craft a specific request. It's pretty easy to level up fast if you put in a couple of hours a day to fulfill requests and do a round to all the camp areas.

Campsites

You will visit the same handful campsites to either pick fruit, fish, catch bugs, or even mine for gemstones, update your RV, and eventually customize your own cabin. Additional "sites" will open up, like the shop area where you can buy/sell things, the Happy Homeroom where you can complete challenges to design a room, OK Motors to design and upgrade your RV, and Blather's Treasure Trek where you can complete a game map to win prizes, find a new friend, etc.

Features

There are some other features, like a planner (I didn't make use of this) and special events that you can participate in, which is all optional. Special events will be opportunities to grow, catch, fish, whatever special items during a time period, and you may even win special furniture or clothes that can only be obtained in those events. There a ton of paid-only events that I did not explore, but if you're willing, you can buy even more stuff to customize.

Overall

Keeping it simple as a casual game, it's totally fine as a mobile game. If you want the full experience of Animal Crossing, invest in the New Horizons or another AC game. It's unfortunate that there are tons of features that you would have to pay real money, but it's understandable due to the insane success NH saw during the height of the pandemic. I actually tried this game out after playing NH for awhile and thought it was a casual version of the game with no intention to commit for the long haul.

Rating: 9/10

Like Super Mario Run and Fire Emblem Heroes before it I am reviewing this as a mobile game while not expecting this to be like a core entry because, as I said before, that would be downright silly to do. If you download this and think you're going to get a full Animal Crossing I don't know what to tell you; why would Nintendo do that?

So they just have to make a game that succeeds in making you pop in for 15 minutes multiple times a day, and they do that. It's not real deep but levelling up is a little satisfying since they give you enough to look forward to.

Your days are spent getting fruit, fish and bugs, occasionally smashing rocks and talking to your other animals, who are adorable and a reminder of how bad real life is. I want to go live in AC world. So the description is very Animal Crossing but be warned that it's not as deep, there isn't as much to do, and even by AC standards it's pretty repetitive. But it's what I want, and it's what a mobile AC game needed to be.

Crafting furniture, again, is a mobile thing but as the best mobile games of this ilk do, it's satisfying when you go away for a few hours and then come back and shit is done. Then you place it and you get the animals you want.

If you were to rate this game compared to other Animal Crossings I could see why you'd be disappointed, but the platform that something is on is relevant when it's something like a Switch or a phone. A game like Doom (yeah, name-dropping Doom in an AC review) would be great (though I haven't played it) even despite the technical flaws because it's cool to be able to take that on the go. This is great because you can just whip out your phone while you're on the shitter in some mall and play for a bit.

With that said, the online connection thing is bullshit, just like it was for Mario Run. I understand they want to integrate the online aspects to it since you randomly find other player avatars out there and whatnot, but man for those who play on the subway like bmo that would be a pain. I don't have that issue because everywhere I play it has Wi-Fi and I'm a loser in a small town who doesn't go out much anyway, but I have sympathy.

The microtransaction aspects don't seem to be bad either. I'm level 15 as of now and I haven't really felt the need to buy anything, but I'm also harder to get in that regard anyway. If something changes I will update this but I doubt it will. I might throw some money at it just because I like these Nintendo mobile offerings.