The Animal Crossing series was good to begin with, back in the original English release on the Gamecube. It was a sideways take on the Sims, which had been released about a year earlier (the first version having come out in Japan only on the Nintendo 64 in 2001). In it, you played the (seemingly) only human character to move into a village of talking animals, and worked to build a bigger house, obtain more clothing and furniture, and make friends with the animals. It is now somewhat simplistic compared to the versions that have come out since - to visit another person's town, you inserted your town's memory card into the second slot on the Gamecube, after which your friend could go visit, all by their lonesome. There was no simultaneous multiplayer until the DS version, Wild World, which contained improvements such as new items and things to do.
City Folk, on Wii, wasn't too much of an improvement over Wild World, and to be honest, I barely touched it and thus don't remember too much of it other than thinking the town proper felt strangely empty because most of the shops had been moved to the downtown area to the north of the rest of the town.
New Leaf, released June 9th, 2013, is the first game to truly feel complete. I wonder where they could take the franchise from here - everything just seems so thought out and well designed. Take, for example, the fact that the downtown area from City Folk remains - but is completely fine because now, as mayor, the player can customize his town and make it seem not empty, but vibrant and - most importantly - his own. Never before have I felt as much attachment to my town then in New Leaf, and this is largely due to the fact that when you walk around my town, it is unmistakably mine. The tiny main street area I erected with sidewalks, street lights, and statues, fountains, and gardens does not exist in anyone else's town. Yet, when I visit other towns, I feel truly away from "home" - their towns are laid out differently and have very different features (I've seen tire benches and other unidentifiable buildings, some of which I want, some of which I think are very strange). Now, visiting someone else's town isn't just to see the layout and contents of their home, but their town, as well.
Having played during two seasons of New Leaf - summer and winter - I feel confident enough to say that Nintendo added a bunch of content to spruce up activities when in earlier games the player would get bored. There are season-exclusive furniture sets as well as some activities that aren't in other seasons. Winter in particular is better than I remember it, because even in addition to the Christmas set, there are two sets of furniture to get from snowmen as well as (as far as I'm aware) several items to win from playing bingo with the snowmen you build (unfortunately, when you start bingo, the player receives a bingo card that cannot be removed from their inventory until a bingo is obtained, which is dumb. The player should be able to leave the bingo card in their house, and go get it when they need it, not be screwed out of inventory slot for untold days until bingo is obtained).
I'm impressed with the mini games Nintendo added on the island as well. They are pretty simple, but all are fairly fun and all fit in the Animal Crossing engine pretty well. One of them tasks the player with entering a bunch of random houses and finding items for a scavenger hunt - something that seems so obvious to include in the series in retrospect. I do wish there were more exclusive items to get on the island, and that most of them weren't locked away on the multiplayer version of it (not too huge a problem, mind you, because you can earn medals alone for it, but sometimes actually connecting to the island takes forever and really kills your enthusiasm for it, especially when you get there and its just the cabana bookcase AGAIN).
Villager interaction is better, too. They've added several tasks the villagers request of the player, almost all of which are pretty simple and fun. One of my favorites is hide and seek, where three villagers hide around town and the player has to find them within the time limit. Long gone are the times when animals would just take items right out of a players inventory, although that was limited to the Gamecube version, if I recall. Now, if a villager wants an item, they ask to buy it or trade for it. Also, the villagers suggest new public works projects for the mayor to undertake, which actually makes the villagers important to the town since without them, the mayor would get nothing done.
Nintendo has also added what would otherwise be called achievements in the form of badges the player gets from a new character that shows up in town whenever they accomplish some hidden task. Most of them are things like "fish a lot," or "play the game a lot," but some of them encourage tasks as a subtle way of nudging the player to do certain things. Had I not seen one of my friends had gotten a badge for earning a ton of medals on the island, I'm not sure how much of that I would have explored. Sadly, I now want to collect all the badges, which will likely be an exercise in frustration because I'm sure plenty of them involve some crazy amounts of play time to get.
Overall, I am extremely impressed with the game. I'm sure they'll think of something, but I am sincere when I say I don't know what they will add to the next one other than maybe refining some of the very few rough spots in this version. Unlike Wild World, where ultimately I decided I liked the original better, I can say with confidence that New Leaf is the best version of Animal Crossing to date by a landslide, NES games or no.
No comments:
Post a Comment