Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020)

This game fell off, honestly.

Seriously though this game was really fun and addictive for like 3 months. Not exactly a hot take but this game came out basically unfinished. The game slowly got main staple features that are in past games over time, which should have been in the game in the first place. Like why did I have to wait a year to get my fucking fortune? The game came packaged with burn out from the get go and I really wish Nintendo would retire their finish the game later tactic.

Either way though the game was still a lot of fun when I did play it, and I feel it is one of the strongest games in the series, especially graphics wise, not frame rate wise.

Only 4 star because the customization interior and exterior wise was peak.

Animal crossing sux not because it is this grindy experience with little to no control in comparison to almost every other sim game (even when later on listening to fans and adding the bare minimum), that exploits your depression from playing a more fufilling game in just making you come back every 30 minutes a day to see one of the few written dialog repeated by 6 types of characters that are the same across a hundred animals you can get, so that you can like do the money trick and then return later, it sucks because of it's lame ass censored genocide celebration of Explorer's Day.

Luckily enough they remove that day from the newest entry and now all is forgiven, this game is absolutely perfect, I'll gladly play the same exact game I played since 2001... Wait, what's that? They literally just changed the date of "Explorer's Day" to October October 14th to distance itself from the dirty controversial holiday? What the hell? NEVERMIND THIS SERIES SUX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I didn't actually play all that much last summer, so I missed several late spring/summer bugs and fish.

I finished my fish collection a few weeks back, but I've been working on the July beetles. I'm down to the golden stag and...a fly. I never left trash lying around, so I don't have a damn fly yet.

Basically just walking in loops across the beach to check palm trees and then up to my trash pile.

The Moonflow waterscaping process is coming along nicely. The "legs" of the Light/Bahamut symbol are pretty tedious because of the angles, and because it's essentially filling in most of what's already there and replacing it.

My current map:

The map that I created using this site:

As you can see, some aspects of the projected map aren't quite right, like the placement of Redd's cove and a couple of other minor things. That's just because my exact map wasn't one of the default options, but it was close enough, and I coooould technically redraw those parts on the site if I wanted.

My villager houses are uneven, I realized. Like, I knew the bottom two on the right weren't level, so I need to fix them, but I'm debating whether I even care that the ones on the left aren't even with the ones on the right. It's already not really organic placement, so I dunno.

Still working on shaping the highest cliffs and adding inclines/bridges and moving stuff, but I'm happy with the progress!

I got my Island Designer App on Island 2 today!

The long process of terraforming and waterscaping has begun on Moonflow.

The museum and shop will need to move eventually, but first I'm working on the placement of the neighborhoods. Some of the houses are already set, but others (like the two from the first day) can't until I've got the cliffs where I need them. I still have one plot to place, as well. The map that I posted on the previous update is also a liiiiittle off, as Redd's cove is actually centered on my island, so its placement looks better with the upper circle/Museum location.

The Able Sisters' shop is under construction today, but I think I was able to place it just right yesterday for where the river is going to circle around it.

I'm excited for how it's going to turn out!

So it's only been a week but I'm deleting Bikanel (second island). Having them on the same Nintendo account has been nothing but problematic, honestly.

After I unthinkingly downloaded the two items from the Nintendo Online thing, I've run into one issue after another. It'll kick me off the second island if I'm not in airplane mode and start up the main game, and won't reconnect no matter what I do unless I totally close the game first. Gives me errors if I'm not connected to wifi (even if I'm not on my main game at the same time). Have to turn on airplane mode, start up my main game and open my gate for local mode, and then turn off airplane mode on my second game again to fly over to my main island.

I transferred some of the stuff that I want to my main island and sold the rest. Made a second Nintendo account with my backup gmail, and deleted all of the data. Blehhhh.

I was working on some island designs on a browser-based designer thing yesterday, so I'll plan where I place stuff in the first few days a little better this time and save myself some bells when it comes to moving buildings.

Things I'm STILL waiting to see added to New Horizons:

• BREWSTER
• All of the other fruit that we had in New Leaf (lychees, durians, lemons, bananas, mangoes, and persimmons-- why do we have LESS tropical fruit on an island??)
• Kapp'n (okay, he's a creep but I miss his sea shanties)
• Crafting in multiples (come onnnnnn)
• Marks next to items you already own when you're in the shops
• Buying multiple variants of clothing items at once (we've been begging for thissssss)
• Something other than material farming on the islands (How do we have a game set on an island with LESS island activities than the Tortimer tours provided in NL?? I dunno if anyone else really cares about this, but I had way more fun going to the island to fish for sharks and steal all of the different flowers by loading my pockets in the last few seconds of the planting mini-game)

Also, the side rooms are hella small. They had expansions in NL. I'd just like more space in my rooms. I just dump random stuff in them at this point.

Otherwise, my second island is coming along nicely. My starter villagers are Renee the rhino and Iggly the penguin. I kinda want to sketch out some possible design ideas for when I get access to terraforming. I made sure to pick an island with different river mouths, and I like the design a lot overall. My original one has river mouths center left and bottom right. My new island has them both at the bottom, which gives me really nice, long stretches of mostly-unbroken beach on both sides. <3

My son is INCREDIBLY engaged in the Mario items and I'm trying to help him build with them in our town. I find it pretty lame they are all just for sale and you can only order five per day, but we are attempting to wall off an area of town so it's only accessible via warp pipes and then making that our own magical Mario "level".

Pray for me, as I try and achieve something remotely close to his planning and expectations.

I just could NOT pass on the opportunity to write about the GameStop stocks kerfuffle.

In this article (in spanish, of course) I talk about the 'systems' and 'mechanics' of stock exchange and the similitudes they have with video game mechanics like abusing 'glitches' and bad design to do better.

And of course I mention the stalk marked of ACNH and the Ichiban Confectionary mini-game of Yakuza: Like a Dragon. I won't pass a change to talk shit about how awful capitalism is.

I'd never really seen the appeal of the Animal Crossing series. I played City Folk for a while back in the day and found it, well, boring. It was a whole lot of nothing with no goals or objectives. Not enough gameplay to call it a game, not enough story to be a walking simulator and not artsy enough for "an experience".

This edition seems a lot more gamified than it's predecessors, which has vastly improved the experience for me, but possibly damaged the experience for long term fans. I gather the appeal always used to reside in the very fact that there was no pressure to do anything.

In ACNH, you start off on a untamed island with only a tent to your name and 2 other villagers living alongside you. The main objectives (if you can call them that) are to shape the island to your liking, expand the number of houses available for villagers, beautify it to a point where a famous musician is willing to hold a concert there, and pay off all your loans to Tom Nook so you can own the largest possible house. And this does take some considerable time. But once that's over...

Congratulations! You've completed the game.

Except not really. Because there's still a museum to fill, more items to buy, more DIY recipes to unlock and Nook Miles Rewards to achieve such as earning 10 million Bells on the stalk market or catching 10 000 fish or whatever. And odds are that's going to take you at least 6 months to do, because the game progresses in real time and some things are seasonal.

The problem is, once you've held the concert and paid off your loans, every day becomes a bit repetitive. Dig up 4 fossils, talk to everyone, chop down your money tree, plant a new one, etc, etc. I just wish there was a bit more variety, y' know? Like hey, maybe that piano I dropped 200k could play an actual tune, instead of a random note whenever I press it, that would make the endless cycle of buying items worth it. Maybe there could be more events instead of that annoying seagull that washes up on my shore once a week.

Basically, if you're artsy, enjoy designing or drawing and are the type of person who derives genuine pleasure from an hour of calm, quiet organisation of a bookshelf, you'll love this game.

If that doesn't sound like you... actually, you may still enjoy it. Returning to your island day after day to see what's new, chatting to your neighbors and edging slowly closer to achieving all those Nook Miles Rewards. 'cause, the truth is, this game has become popular because it provides stability and innocent joy during very uncertain times. It's escapism. I have friends that play and we talk about which villagers they hate and which ones they want on their island. I've even started watching Becca Scott's Twitch streams because of it and found a lovely community full of very sweet people, and I hate streaming.

What's the takeaway? I don't know, man. It's a massive waste of time, but it's cute and harmless and how do you define something's worth anyway? Go ask a professional art critic.

PROS

• Adorable art style and character designs
• Top-notch script full of charm and wit
• Offers tons of opportunities for customization and self-expression
• Exciting sense of progression for the first month or so
• Nook mile system is a satisfying way of assigning player tasks
• Discovering and crafting new furniture and item recipes is consistently rewarding
• Fish, bug, and fossil collecting are all addictive as can be
• Full of small touches and considerations that give the game huge personality
• The real-time gimmick gives the game plenty of mileage
• Encourages collaboration with friends in interesting ways
• Playing the turnip market can be quite the roller coaster
• K.K. Slider has some serious jams, the regular score is great as well

CONS

• Desperately needs some mini-games, especially for multiplayer. C'mon, Nintendo!
• Could use some quality of life improvements such as crafting multiple items at once
• On-line multiplayer is a bit wonky and needs polish
• The experience becomes a bit rote after the initial set of daily surprises runs dry