So...Animal Crossing

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Okay so I got a switch for Xmas and just let it sit 'cause I didn't really want it. But I have it, and the world is in the middle of a zombie apocalypse so I figured might as well dust it off and see whats what.
And I got 2 games now, Zelda whatever and today I bought Animal Crossing after hearing about how relaxing it is.

And here's my thought: Is this it?

Like I'm enjoying the gameplay well enough. I want a fish, I fish, I get the fish, done and done. I hit a rock with an axe and a gift appears. Cool.
But then I ran into the timeblock that everything is happening tomorrow. The museum comes tomorrow. My new house is built tomorrow. My mail will arrive tomorrow. The weeds and woods grow back tomorrow.
And normally that's not a big deal expect...its in real time. And it really does mean tomorrow.

So am I missing a mechanic? I tried sleeping and nothing happens. It this game really just 90mins of gameplay a day, and then that's it? Come back tomorrow? Same mechanics of any FTP mobile game, just costs $60 with furries? Also where's the Doom furry? I thought she was part of the marketing for this, but all I got was some asshole raccoon.

 

[Hawki]

Also where's the Doom furry? I thought she was part of the marketing for this, but all I got was some asshole raccoon.

Probably in Hell, filling in for Cerberus.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Kinda-sorta. As time goes on and as you do more things, you get more stuff to do to fill that time, as well as new villagers and people to visit. You can make your own fun as well.

In the first day I paid off my tent, got the museum ready, among a few other things. Soon enough I'll have new tools to use, and more stuff to do. Eventually I can really start customizing the island. This is not a game meant to steamroll your way to success through extremely lengthy binge sessions. It's meant for you to lean back, play something relaxing and fun for a bit, come back if you want to, and repeat the next day. Sometimes that doesn't appeal to some folk. Others can sink thousands of hours into this sort of game.

If you're expecting some action packed thriller or a game so jam packed with stuff you'll never get bored if you binge it all day, then your expectations might be set a little high. If you look for a nice little fun game to unwind and chill out with, then you'll get more out of it that way. Don't forget we're all on day 1 too. Animal Crossing games never lay out their full potential in the first day, or even the first 7. Give it time and it'll build upon itself the more you put into it. It could be a good time passer during this pandemic situation too

 

[Drathnoxis]

That has always been the problem with Animal Crossing. I know Yahtzee complained about it too in his New Leaf review. Can you still adjust the system clock to set the day ahead on the switch?

 

[Yoshi178]

complete the Nook Miles tasks.

the more Nook Miles you earn, the more stuff you can build and buy.

i've earned just enough to pay off my move in fee and tom nook is gonna build a house for me now. he said it should be ready by tomorrow.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

complete the Nook Miles tasks.

the more Nook Miles you earn, the more stuff you can build and buy.

i've earned just enough to pay off my move in fee and tom nook is gonna build a house for me now. he said it should be ready by tomorrow.

But I finished that in 2 hours. I played more. I have nearly 100,000 bells now, and its day 1. The game starts tomorrow and ive farmed for nearly 2 hours.

 

[Yoshi178]

complete the Nook Miles tasks.

the more Nook Miles you earn, the more stuff you can build and buy.

i've earned just enough to pay off my move in fee and tom nook is gonna build a house for me now. he said it should be ready by tomorrow.

But I finished that in 2 hours. I played more. I have nearly 100,000 bells now, and its day 1. The game starts tomorrow and ive farmed for nearly 2 hours.

this is my first Animal Crossing game but the way friends have described it to me is that the series isn't designed to be a game you play for hours on end at a time.

people tell that the whole point of it is to check the game out each day, do a few tasks each day, and slowly watch your village develop over time.

 

[McElroy]

I watched some gameplay and the mechanics are like in a mobile tapping sim. Like for example trees just spawn wood when you hit them and then you stick them into your sleeve. You also put live fish up your sleeve and they magically become clear plastic bags. In this sort of game there should be object permanence instead of some RPG inventory. Give your player a backpack, let them carry that wood and those sticks. It's like The Sims but too basic even for that comparison, but hey I guess there are colors and plushy animal characters.

3/5 best game since Super Mario 2

 

[Avnger]

3/5 best game since Super Mario 2

Congrats. You just earned yourself death threats and doxxing from Nintendo fans.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I watched some gameplay and the mechanics are like in a mobile tapping sim. Like for example trees just spawn wood when you hit them and then you stick them into your sleeve. You also put live fish up your sleeve and they magically become clear plastic bags. In this sort of game there should be object permanence instead of some RPG inventory. Give your player a backpack, let them carry that wood and those sticks. It's like The Sims but too basic even for that comparison, but hey I guess there are colors and plushy animal characters.

3/5 best game since Super Mario 2

I actually spent some of my bells on a backpack, thinking it'd expand my inventory which is pathetically small and I had to wait an entire in real world day for it to arrive.
Nothing. The backpack is purely cosmetic. As far as I can tell everything is purely cosmetic. I have a bunch of cardboard boxes and I can't put anything in them. So I just have a bunch of resources and tools just lying in a field 'cause there's no storage.

 

[McElroy]

3/5 best game since Super Mario 2

Congrats. You just earned yourself death threats and doxxing from Nintendo fans.

Too late to tell them I was only quoting videogamedunkey, the biggest Nintendo fanboy on the planet? I wouldn't bet on even him to unironically call New Horizons a masterpiece, but then again I got my impressions from only watching gameplay.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

As far as I can tell everything is purely cosmetic. I have a bunch of cardboard boxes and I can't put anything in them. So I just have a bunch of resources and tools just lying in a field 'cause there's no storage.

Clothing is just cosmetic, yes. You get storage once your house is built (Which you should have by the time I send this response). In the previous games you used to have your storage be connected to things like dressers and such, but eventually they just started connecting every piece of storage capable furniture into one large inventory space. Now you don't need any boxes or dressers at all for storage, as your house just has storage... somewhere. You also should be able to get your inventory space upgraded soon as well now that the house is built.

From what I gathered in your responses, I gotta say again... Like any game you buy, it's not gonna let you do everything and anything you want right off the bat. Mechanics get introduced, you progress like any other title, and the game expands around you. It's a casual game to the top degree. The difference here is it takes real world time, which I admit I get kinda bothered by as well. But it at least gives me reason to wanna come back the next day. I can't just blitz my house upgrades to max in 1-2 days and call it done

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I never got into that series, it just doesn't look appealing to me. It's basically like Rune Factory or Harvest Moon but with vastly inferior design/artstyle and all in all less cool-looking.

Is the gameplay any notably deeper than that of those other series? Cause the look of everything about this game is just a thorough turnoff that feels like an acquired taste to me.

 

[Yoshi178]

So i just paid off my home loan in full!!!


in Animal Crossing. sigh....

 

[laggyteabag]

The game does this one thing that is really stupid. So your game is locked to one island per console. There might be some background jiggery pokery that you can do with your save files, or whatever, but the game is supposed to be locked to one island per console.

What this means is that the first person to play the game becomes the Island Representative, or whatever. They get the story. They get the "quests". They get to make all of the decisions, and they are the only ones able to progress the game. Everyone else who plays on the same console, regardless of if you are on a different account, can only follow in their footsteps.

Example: To get the axe, you need to hand in a bunch of creatures to one of the characters in the game. Only the Island Representative can do it. So I cant get the axe, until her character unlocks the axe. So even if I have all of the required stuff, I cant do anything with it. I can't even help with her progress.

Its really, suprememly stupid.

Another thing is that how all of the resources are limited on a day-by-day basis, and, you guessed it, the same across our games. So, lets say my girlfriend mines all of the rocks on the island - im stuck with nothing.

Sure, its nice that we are both working on the same land, so she can play, do whatever, and then I will play later on and see all of the cool new things she has done, but from my perspective, im stuck with a comparatively neutered experience, and its really, really boring.

Nintendo, plz fix.

 

[Yoshi178]

The game does this one thing that is really stupid. So your game is locked to one island per console. There might be some background jiggery pokery that you can do with your save files, or whatever, but the game is supposed to be locked to one island per console.

What this means is that the first person to play the game becomes the Island Representative, or whatever. They get the story. They get the "quests". They get to make all of the decisions, and they are the only ones able to progress the game. Everyone else who plays on the same console, regardless of if you are on a different account, can only follow in their footsteps.

Example: To get the axe, you need to hand in a bunch of creatures to one of the characters in the game. Only the Island Representative can do it. So I cant get the axe, until her character unlocks the axe. So even if I have all of the required stuff, I cant do anything with it. I can't even help with her progress.

Its really, suprememly stupid.

Another thing is that how all of the resources are limited on a day-by-day basis, and, you guessed it, the same across our games. So, lets say my girlfriend mines all of the rocks on the island - im stuck with nothing.

Sure, its nice that we are both working on the same land, so she can play, do whatever, and then I will play later on and see all of the cool new things she has done, but from my perspective, im stuck with a comparatively neutered experience, and its really, really boring.

Nintendo, plz fix.

What is time travel?

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

The game does this one thing that is really stupid. So your game is locked to one island per console. There might be some background jiggery pokery that you can do with your save files, or whatever, but the game is supposed to be locked to one island per console.

What this means is that the first person to play the game becomes the Island Representative, or whatever. They get the story. They get the "quests". They get to make all of the decisions, and they are the only ones able to progress the game. Everyone else who plays on the same console, regardless of if you are on a different account, can only follow in their footsteps.

Example: To get the axe, you need to hand in a bunch of creatures to one of the characters in the game. Only the Island Representative can do it. So I cant get the axe, until her character unlocks the axe. So even if I have all of the required stuff, I cant do anything with it. I can't even help with her progress.

Its really, suprememly stupid.

Another thing is that how all of the resources are limited on a day-by-day basis, and, you guessed it, the same across our games. So, lets say my girlfriend mines all of the rocks on the island - im stuck with nothing.

Sure, its nice that we are both working on the same land, so she can play, do whatever, and then I will play later on and see all of the cool new things she has done, but from my perspective, im stuck with a comparatively neutered experience, and its really, really boring.

Nintendo, plz fix.

I find with the limited resources per island I run out of shit to do within an hour or so. I mine all the rocks, and there's like 4 of them, takes me all of 30seconds and done. The entire island only takes me like 1 min to walk the full perimeter, getting all the fish and have a full up inventory.

 

[Mad World]

You can overcome these issues by "time traveling," a meta method by which you can change the time and/or date to whatever you want in Animal Crossing. Of course, the game isn't meant to be played that way. However, it's your right to play as you want.

To time travel, take the Switch off of its sync option (if it's already on it) for the time/date, and change the time and/or date accordingly. Want the store open so that you don't have to lose 20 percent of your earnings via that drop-off box at Nook's? Change your time to when the store is open. Want your rocks to replenish or for your house upgrade to be complete? Make time go forward to the next day.

There are some issues, though. Firstly, durability can screw off. Not sure which idiot thought that up, but it never ever benefits a game. All it means is that your tools break (very often), and that you'll need to make or buy new ones. Yes, better versions of "flimsy" tools exist, but they also break. Crafting is cool, but it absolutely does not need to be accompanied by durability.

Secondly, in order to purchase the plane tickets to go to another island, you have to use Nook Miles. This is stupid because they're much less frequent than bells. In New Leaf, it was a small amount of bells to go to the island each time. In this, you need to use Nook Miles every time that you want to go to another island.

Thirdly, a lot of content seems to be missing. In New Leaf, Main Street alone seemed to have at least 10 different shops (the cafe, shoe store, gardening store, etc.). New Horizons, so far, is missing many buildings that New Leaf has (aforementioned ones, Dream Suite, club, and police station [possibly even more]).

New Horizons has added some cool things: crafting, an actual system by which you can decorate your house, and the ability to place almost any item (rugs, furniture, etc.) anywhere on your island/town - not just in your house. However, Nintendo is definitely playing it too safe with the series. They know that they will make lots of money by doing more of the bare minimum, but they have had a lot of time to make the next entry. One thing that they really need to focus on is A.I. Animals should regularly go into shops and actually purchase things and visit the museum, for example. In New Leaf, I think that I may have seen a resident visit a shop, but that was about the extent of it. I want the Museum to be bustling, especially since they made it look so amazing in New Horizons. The cafe needs to come, and customers should sit next to you and order coffee. Believe it or not, the original Animal Crossing actually had the highest simultaneous villager count (14 or 15, I believe), while New Horizons keeps it at the typical 10ish. Give us a bigger town/island with 15-20 or more. Make it feel alive. Yes, obsessive-compulsive people who feel the need to talk to every resident daily may feel overwhelmed, but the majority, I am sure, would like it. (I have literally seen a comment from someone who admitted that they feel the need to speak to every resident every day, and that that is why they don't want more than 10 villagers.)

It's a great game, but it definitely comes short of its true potential.

 

[Marik2]

I never got into that series, it just doesn't look appealing to me. It's basically like Rune Factory or Harvest Moon but with vastly inferior design/artstyle and all in all less cool-looking.

Is the gameplay any notably deeper than that of those other series? Cause the look of everything about this game is just a thorough turnoff that feels like an acquired taste to me.

It's basically Sims from Nintendo.

 

[balladbird]

Animal crossing is a game that shines brightest as a side-project you play for a few minutes a day, only occasionally getting super invested in. It was basically a mobile game, sans microtransactions, before mobile games were a thing. That said, it has always been easy to cheese the date by messing with your console clock, though I tended not to.

The time barrier is only really bothersome in the early game when you're getting established, once you have a full house and your island is more or less reaching the shape you want it to be in, the day-delay to get improvements is a bit less galling.

also, does anyone have pears? I have every fruit except pears, and it's driving me insane. XD