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Animal Crossing: Putting the "social" back in "social-distancing."
Sterica
YesRegistered User, Moderator mod
YesRegistered User, Moderator mod
I felt we were long overdue for a new thread.
What is Animal Crossing? It's a small-town life simulator from Nintendo, and it's an open-ended game where you pretty much set your own goals. Make mad cash on the Stalk Market and get the biggest house. Collect all of the wildlife for your house, or donate to the local museum! Collect furniture sets, or mix and match to unleash you inner decorator. Or become the ultimate control freak, curating who lives in your town and taking meticulous control over every square inch of the landscaping. Your imagination is the limit. In the last game I had my character transition over the summer. And that's not even getting into multiplayer! It's fun, low-key kind of game, and it typically only demands about a half-hour of your time each time. You certainly can go longer than that, but Animal Crossing is definitely more of a slow burn, expecting you to play over a little bit each day over a long period of time.
But first, some history:
Dōubutsu no Mori
N64
The very first Animal Crossing game, this never saw an English release until the GameCube version a few years later. I really miss the weird horned-hair kids the game had for Villagers in this one.
Lookit that cute dork! Why wasn't this a Smash skin???
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Nintendo DS
Game number two introduced online play, along with new features like haircuts (RIP Horned Villagers). Also removed holidays which was...not well-received.
Animal Crossing: City Folk
Wii
The third game had a city portion that you could visit with expanded shops and characters.
Animal Crossing: New Leaf
3DS
Fourth in the series made you the mayor, introducing a number of quality-of-life features. You got a bit more control over the town, and there were useful city ordinances that could let you do things like shift the town's hours to be later to accommodate your real-life schedule. Also redesigned the villagers to give them more human proportions (taller, longer limbs). Also introduced Isabelle, the single most popular new character, who quickly took over as the franchise's mascot. They added her to Smash Bros.! Had a major update halfway through its lifespan that added a bunch of features such as amiibo support.
Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer
3DS
The first spinoff game, in which your job is to design homes for various villagers. Introduced an easier way to move furniture, which was added as an unlockable feature in New Leaf.
Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival
Wii U
The second spinoff game, and the only one for the ill-fated Will U. It was created after demand for a game that required and heavily drew upon amiibo for its gameplay. So, what people wanted was Skylanders, and what they got was somehow worse Mario Party. The game only uses Animal Crossing amiibo, and since you are just moving around the board and collecting bells or Win the Game Currency, there is no reason to require amiibo. They just determine your character and are required to roll your dice, which just makes the game more annoying to play since you have to pass around the gamepad. A boring, terrible game that won't even hold a young child's interest for long. Still worth buying since it's a very cheap way to get Isabelle and Digby amiibos (aka the only reason people bought this game).
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
Mobile
The third spinoff, this is more like a traditional AC game, except everything is covered in a slimy layer of micro-transactions. Enjoy features such as "grinding for currencies to unlock items" and "buying special currencies to make items build faster." Seriously, this game is pretty bad. But good news!
Animals Crossing: New Horizons
Switch
The fifth main game, and the focus of the thread. Here's the new stuff:
- You are on an island!
- Skin tone is now an option. Uh...better late than never?
- Hairstyles are now all unisex, so no more unlocking for the other gender.
- You can choose how the seasons progress (Northern or Southern hemisphere)
- Best Friend option means you can determine which visiting players can make lasting changes to your town.
- Nook Miles are a new currency that is harder to grind than Bells and will offer unique rewards.
- Camera mode for those sweet selfies with your favorite villagers.
- Inventory tweaks: more space, better stacking, etc.
- New accessories like purses and backpacks
- More granular movement with furniture. Still a grid system.
- The NookPhone has a bunch of apps, such as altering the landscape of your island. Need a bridge? Waterfall?
- You can finally create paths instead of laying down patterns like a crazed artists.
- And more!
I will expand this with more guides and tips once we have our hands on the games. Check the Switch thread for friend codes!
Sterica on
+7
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
Switch - SW-3699-5063-5018
3DS Friend Code: 0404-6826-4588 PM if you add.
Odd, mine did this too. It then proceeded to crash time and again until the game was unplayable so uh... Beware.
I will just pick whatever comes to mind when I get it. I named my town on the 3ds Lizards my other town was There
My Japanese 3ds has this problem I will not play it for a few days the time will reset back to Jan 2012 but my Japanese new leaf town hopped forward a year
I was kinda on the fence about it for awhile because I feel like a lot of Nintendo series have been way too samey...AC,Pokemon ECT but I guess it's kinda like Smash in that it's not broken, so they ain't fixin to fix it.
INSTAGRAM
Eh, it's just saying don't go out and socialize if you can help it to prevent the spread of the virus. So it's more like quarantine lite
Social distancing is minimizing social interactions. The goal is reduce the chance of catching the disease by staying home.
Getting off-topic though.
INSTAGRAM
With a name like that, what could go wrong?
Last time I wanted to name my town Sanctuary but it exceeded the character limit. Hopefully they bumped it up this time.
A character limit.
My city/town is always Glosta, the local pronunciation of my RL hometown, Gloucester. Bonus for NH: the bulk of Gloucester is technically an island (which it shares with all of Rockport).
I can’t think of anything better than my last town’s name: Boros.
Double meaning for me as a MTG guild and a place in Firefly.
Twitch: akThera
Steam: Thera
Like... Awesometon
so far lumina and polpota have had their turn, so we've decided on madora for this one.
I might go with Bikini Island. It’s kind of a quirky name because that’s where they did nuclear tests.
Somebody posted this island designer earlier and I'm not sure I want to invest too much time into it before getting to play around with the game proper, buuuuut the urge is rising.
https://eugeneration.github.io/HappyIslandDesigner/
Getting tempted to take Friday off.. getting too hyped
As far as I've heard, it's literally just a character designer like I believe Pocket Camp uses. No more random ass questions thank god.
Twitch: akThera
Steam: Thera
Also you’ll be able to change it whenever you want via any mirror.
Twitch: akThera
Steam: Thera
Since my New Leaf town was called 'Suplex City', I'm going to keep my wrestle motif and call my island 'Parts Unknown'.
Steam ID XBL: JohnnyChopsocky PSN:Stud_Beefpile WiiU:JohnnyChopsocky
10 character limit. Prts Unkwn at best.
Well, that is a bummer.
Gonna need a new wrestle location to keep AC continuity
Steam ID XBL: JohnnyChopsocky PSN:Stud_Beefpile WiiU:JohnnyChopsocky
...(she’s three years old)
FFFunHouse
ThsVryRing
Compound (gotta change catch phrases to "DELETE")
WWE PC (why not; everything else is there this month)
Is this an indication that big N might actually release early because we all need it so bad? My fingers are crossed, even if it’s a long shot.
Some European stores were breaking the street date, US places are canceling the midnight launches, and the Nintendo stores themselves are closed.
Chant with me: EARLY LAUNCH EARLY LAUNCH EARLY LAUNCH
Twitch: akThera
Steam: Thera
Switch - SW-3699-5063-5018