Token Female Gamer

To talk about Animal Crossing: City Folk is to talk about the previous version of the game. All of its incarnations so far have pretty much been the same. Therefore I am going to take this golden opportunity to discuss all three versions. Three reviews in one!

My Impressions

The original Animal Crossing was quite a while ago, making the details of its introduction rather fuzzy. Regardless, the end result was obvious: it came, I saw, it conquered.

Before I knew it, we had four different towns, set for different times and seasons and fruit. Big holidays always ended in frantic animal crossing (yes that is now a verb!), trying to collect all the special furniture before the day ended.

Even in my office the Animal Crossing fever spread like wild fire. It got so heated that at one point there was a white board put up to keep track of turnip prices in the various towns.

Animal Crossing turned into a daily event for almost eight months. Needless to say the DS and the Wii version were much anticipated.

Eight months of a fabulously good time, builds up a lot of goodwill – goodwill that was quickly used up by both of the subsequent titles. Having already played a lot (a LOT!!) of the original game I was looking for the next step in the Animal Crossing world. What I got was an updated version of the original. Oh there was some new content but nothing game redefining.

The only conclusion I could come to was that the DS and the Wii versions were released for the benefit of the Animal Crossing uninitiated.

Review

Release dates:
Original (GameCube) – Sept 15 2002
Wild World (DS) – Dec 5 2005
City Folk (Wii) – Nov 16 2008

Websites:
http://animal-crossing.com/cityfolk/
http://www.animal-crossing.com/wildworld/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Crossing

Great Resource: Animal Crossing Community

Developer: Nintendo EAD

Platform I played on: GameCube, DS, Wii

Game Summery

Move into town, buy a house, make friends, plant trees, catch fish and bugs, collect furniture, make money, buy a bigger house, rinse and repeat.

World and Story

The birth of a new character is rather quick and painless. A name is picked and then a few simple questions are answered that determine appearance. Then its time to move into the town of your choice – create a new one or move into an existing town.

The setting is a bustling little forest that is populated by anthropomorphic animals. This little haven is a place to live and preserve, make friends and grow plants, but most of all it’s a place to build a bigger house. =)

What there is to do is left completely open ended. This design ideal is also mimicked in the minimalist story. After moving in, the local shop owner takes the newcomer under his wing and gives them a mini tutorial. Once completed there is very little guidance thereafter.

There are lots of friends to make in town. Most are more then happy to help out. Go talk to everyone as every character has a special story of his or her own (sometimes they even give you presents!)

Game play

Animal Crossing took the notion of real time and turned it into all the time. Upon starting, the game asks your date and time and then moves forward from that point on using the same 24-hour day/night cycle.

This allows for in game Holiday events to coincide with the proper ‘real world’ dates.

There isn’t so much an overall goal in the game. The closest the game comes to one is paying the mortgage on your house, even though you are never forced to pay anything.

If you do pay it in full, there is the option to upgrade your house to a larger size; this of course creates another mortgage that you then have to pay off. The first person to fully upgrade their house and pay their mortgage in full gets a golden statue in town. (Jayne’s Towne anyone?)

Houses turn out to be important features if you are pack rat like me.

Some other goals are collecting all the bugs and fish that appear in the game. Furnishing your house and maintaining your towns pristine forest floor. Completing your local museums collection of fish, bugs, and fossils, looking at stars and creating new constellations. Obtaining the golden versions of each of the tools and decorating your house to hilt.

Of course making money is a main focus. This can be achieved by selling fish and bugs and fruit from your local fruit trees, selling furniture and rugs and wallpaper. Pretty much anything you get your hands on can be sold, but in most cases it can’t be bought back, so you sell items you don’t want to keep.

One of the most effective ways to make money (without cheating) is to buy turnips from the turnip lady on Sunday morning. Each day that week the local shop will buy them for a different amount of money. But the turnips only last for seven days. Buy turnips cheep and sell them for a profit!

All three of the Animal Crossing games share these features, though there are some discrepancies. They don’t all share the same holiday events, they all have different graphics features, the housing situation is slightly different in each one, and later versions boasted larger furniture and clothing collections.

The DS version was so similar I am loath to call it anything except an updated port.

The newest version, Animal Crossing: City Folk, does add more content by including a whole City section for the towns people to visit. Like most cities, this area is a bit more fancy, with a larger shopping mall area. It contains among other places a barbershop, an auction house, a movie theater, and a furniture store.

The theater adds a brand new feature, emotes. After watching one of the shows you then learn the emotion that was that shows theme. That emote is then available to show off at any time. You may only have four emotes at the same time.

Of course the Wii adds a different dimension with controllers alone. You can swing the WiiMote around when catching fish or bugs, digging or chopping down trees.

At its core it is still the same game even though its much more of a sequel then the DS version was. Never the less I would still call it more of a way to bring new Animal Crossing lovers into the fold.

Graphics

The original game was sprite based, were as the DS and Wii versions claim true 3D graphics. This hasn’t seemed to create much noticeable difference. The camera remains fixed, which doesn’t allow the full effect of the 3D features to be admired. The only real difference that I noticed is that there is now a horizon.

The graphics style also has not changed. It’s quite cute with their little animals walking on two legs. Also there are a ton of different outfits, parasols, glasses, hats, and accessories to put on your character.

As the year progresses, the town’s appearance changes with the seasons. In winter everything is covered by white. In fall the trees are a lovely orange yellow color. At holidays the town is dressed up to celebrate. It helps to emphasize the passing of time.

Guide

Since there are so many time specific events in this game, a guide really helps. Being able to look up the time and location that specific fish or bugs appear is invaluable!

Replay ability

There is almost infinite replay ability here. It takes at least a year to see all the events, if you don’t fast forward the clock. =)

Multiplayer

The original game had multiplayer in the form of shared towns. While you couldn’t play at the same time, you could play in the same town. And if you didn’t play in the same town you could visit other peoples towns. All you had to do was plug in the two memory cards that contained the separate towns. That allowed you visit by taking the train

The DS version boasted real multiplayer. Invite up to three other people to your town and play with them at the same time. They of course had to be playing on their DS. The other slight difference is that all the players living in the same town work together to pay of a shared house instead of everyone having their own house.

The Wii version also lauded its “visit my town” multiplayer. To connect up, both parties need to enter the other person’s friend code into their game, but that’s not enough, you still have to open your gates to let people through. No one can just show up without permission.

City Folk also supports the use of WiiSpeak, so you can chat with your friends instead of typing.

Lastly in the City there is an auction house where you can sell and purchase items online. Looking for that rare last piece of furniture for your complete set? Check out the auction house in the City. It might show up there someday soon.

Things that bothered me

-Friends in town are mean.
Sometimes the little NPCs that move into town are just plain grumpy and insulting. Have got to remember not to take the little pixel person calling me fat personally. ;)

-Games aren’t new.
I am really looking forward to a sequel. However fun it was to catch all those fish once, I would really rather catch something new. How about something simple, like different furniture sets, or different flowers and trees. Watching birds? There are a bunch of new directions the game could go.

-DS controls were too difficult.
I found the controls extremely difficult. Often, when I would attempt to activate something using the stylus, my character would move instead. This caused endless amount of frustration. Eventually I just game up using the stylus and used the buttons instead.

-Wii multiplayer is unplayable.
I’m not quite sure why, but my suspicion lies with the lack of infrastructure to support the amount of players attempting to get online. It’s been almost impossible for us to connect to our friends. Sometimes we get lucky, but it’s completely inconsistent.

-Exploiting nature for gain.
If I think too much about the ethical nature of the game, it gives me the willies. Buy a house, then fish the rivers and lakes dry to make money so you can pay off your house so you can build a BIGGER one, which you can then fill with more stuff. At least each town has a population limit. =D

Time played

Animal Crossing (GameCube) – 8 months
Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS) – 2 hours
Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii) – 10 hours

Game finished

I keep hoping that the new versions will be an evolution of the original and not remakes. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m done, I will admit that my dedication level is going to be minimal.

Rating

Mood Progression

Last Thoughts

Tips: Pressing the Z button makes the text scroll faster. The + button brings up your inventory and direction pad will quick equip fishing pole, net, shovel, and watering can. Also Mr. Resetti is super annoying so always make sure to save before quitting. The button on the top right of the screen is a save-at-any-time button.

Images

Tags: adoration, cooperative, cute, ds, nintendo, vitual-life, Wii

This entry was posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 12:01 pm and is filed under Console Games, Hand Held Computer Games, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.