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.

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

This is my first Animal Crossing game and it's really neat. It's fun, but not in the same way that playing a game with strategy is fun - it's fun like lounging by the pool. I've learned that trying to optimize my time playing it is a lost cause and just ruins the experience. The trick is to play it for 20 minutes at a time and then give it a break, otherwise I naturally start to rush through everything. And as soon as I do this, it starts to feel like a job!

I can finally say, however, that I understand the obsession with Animal Crossing. "Just 5 more minutes" is something I've said out loud many times now and the game's only been out for a week!

Got my "Town Hall" today, and so I can finally start building bridges and ramps at will. My island is Besaid, so I'm gonna work on making the town tune either Besaid or Sight of Spira (since that's one of my favorite tracks and the music that plays in the actual village).

I still have two questions, though:

1. Where are the gyroids?!
2. Is there going to be a wetsuit?! I feel like removing the swimming/diving of New Leaf from a game based ON AN ISLAND wouldn't make sense, but what do I know. The way that new stuff is added to the phone, it could just become an addition to the critterpedia...

Also, I dunno if anyone has made a wand yet, but I'm not a fan. :( I was super excited about the ability to have an outfit wheel, but it ended up being even more disappointing than the tool wheel not taking the items out of your normal pockets. Basically, you can set the outfits to the wheel, but it removes those items from your wardrobe. Meaning, you can build an outfit using, say, blue loafers, but then they're tied to that outfit and ONLY that outfit on the wheel and won't show up in your wardrobe when you go to build more outfits. So if you want multiple outfits with a specific item, you need to own multiples of that exact item. That's the dumbest shit.

The wand outfits also act as "transformations" and not just swapping outfits. So if you've got a "transformation" on, you can't even try on any clothes that you might buy or get from a neighbor. You can take it off and whatever you were wearing underneath with still be there, and then you can try on an article of clothing, but that's...just dumb.

On another note, though, I was able to buy a space parka today!! I love galaxy-themed stuff, so I immediately built a cute outfit around it. <3

Man, this gaaaame. I've been having a blast, and there's so much to do. I'm so happy that I've got a lot of time to play right now.

I just wanted to note a few things that I'm enjoying as a longtime fan (I've played every game since the first on GC, including Amiibo Festival, HHD, and Pocket Camp), and some things I'm not such a fan of. There have always been improvements to each iteration of AC, from replacing the screen shift of the first game to a smoothly-curving town navigation, to new shops, being able to wear accessories and different shoes, bigger house expansions, etc. This game is no different.

We'll get the cons out of the way first: (maybe spoilers?)

1. I love the crafting addition, but I feel like other major aspects of the game took a hit because of it, namely villager interaction and the music. (It also significantly slows down progress because, I'm assuming, they want it to feel like you're really developing an island, but that isn't a bad thing in my opinion.)

----> One of the unique features of this series has been the hourly music. 24 different hourly tracks, plus the rainy day versions. I've been playing since midnight Friday, have a museum, a shop, a bridge, 5 animal villagers, and the residential tent is going to be upgrading tomorrow. I've paid off my house 4 times as of this morning (1 with Miles, 3 with bells; and no, I haven't been playing nonstop). THE MUSIC HAS NOT CHANGED. It is literally the same song, all day, every single day. I know that it DOES change eventually, I think with Town Hall, but man, this was a ridiculous thing to modify. Hearing new hourly music was one of the things I was super excited about with this release, and that's been a major disappointment.

----> Animal villager interaction has also taken a hit because of the constraints on new neighbors moving in. Because they won't move in until you do a lot of other work, you're stuck talking to the same two for a few days, and they aren't even giving you any errands. This is another huge part of what makes Animal Crossing what it is, so I'm not sure why they felt the need to limit it so much (disregarding new animals moving in--just give me fetch quests, dammit!).

Honestly, that one large complaint is the only one that I have. (Tool durability is a little annoying, but it's not the end of the world. I just don't like that some tools are made with the iron nuggets, which are already infrequent, even with mystery islands.)

I think a simple list of the new things that I love will suffice: crafting, moving whole trees, different ways of navigating (pole vault/ladder, even though I'm pretty tired of it now), the more streamlined friend features (even though I'm not really a fan of playing with others when I play AC), the phone, the sheer number of options of clothing types for customization, THE DAMN MUSEUM IS EVEN MORE GORGEOUS THAN EVER, the Nook Miles (which is basically the CAT machine added to the updated New Leaf, but a million times better), and, one of my personal favorites: being able to customize your looks from the start, and any time after just by having the mirror.

I'm probably forgetting like 100 things, but still. I'm blown away by how beautiful and engrossing this game is, and I've put an exorbitant amount of time into this franchise.

...Also, perhaps a discussion on your thoughts about time travelling in Animal Crossing?

This is the first AC that my boyfriend has played, and he's been time-skipping all over the place, like days at a time, through April. It's a little infuriating, but I'm trying not to nag him about it, and we typically play in different rooms anyway. Plus, it's not up to me how someone else enjoys a game, but this one hurts my Animal Crossing-loving heart a bit. I've been trying to avoid seeing a lot of what he's got because I want to get there myself. I'm not totally above time-hopping, especially in the previous games when you couldn't do much during a day because the shop was upgrading, but it was really never for more than that. I skipped ahead one day myself yesterday to get my 5th villager because I was over waiting on more to talk to, but then I went back. It's the AC hipster in me being a hypocrite toward a newbie to the series. I called him disrespectful and he was just like, "I DON'T LIKE WAITING."