Animal Crossing Review

Probably one of the most unique and innovative games ever to be released, Animal Crossing encourages you to run your own virtual life. You get throw into a village with animal residents and given a house by Tom Nook. Actually he doesn’t give you the house; you have to pay for it. Not all at once of course, considering that you don’t have near enough money to pay for the house at the beginning of the game. As you continue on you will meet many different animals, find many different things and live your life. Animal Crossing runs on real time so when it’s 12:00 in your world it’s 12:00 in Animal Crossing and when it’s Dec 6th in your world it’s Dec 6th in Animal Crossing unless you mess around with the clock you evil person.

Gameplay

Spectacular! This game has so much detail. There are so many things you can do. You can fish, catch insects, make patterns, do work for the villagers, collect things for the museum, dig holes, plant trees and many more. Every village is differently designed, has different villagers and different things may happen. You can also interact with the villagers and the game has a unique way of preventing you from resetting. You run your virtual life in the best possible way and the connectivity with the GBA and E-reader enhance it some more. The use of real time really adds in too. You can visit other people’s town; send items to them using the passcode system and some other stuff. Up to four people can live in every town. Everything you’ve ever wanted in this type of game you’ll get. O.K. I’m getting a little ahead of myself here so let me explain it better.

You own your own house in the game where you organize your furniture and store your personal belongings and the main shop keeper who you sell and buy from is Tom Nook. Since the game recognizes real time different things happen at different parts of the day and many holidays are celebrated such as Halloween and Labour Day. Different fish and insects come out at different parts of the day/night and villagers go to sleep at different times. Each village is different; the chance of you getting the same village and villagers as some one else is next to nothing. Each village also has a specific type of fruit, which sells for 100 bells each at Nook’s so it would be a good idea to go get some different fruit and plant an orchard because foreign fruit can be sold for more. You can have 3 other people live in the same town as you and the animals will recognize each individual and even talk about the other people living in the same town. You can’t play in the same village at the same time though. Animal Crossing also offers you the chance to visit other peoples’ towns if you have a second memory card for your travel information or if you have another person’s memory card you can directly visit their town by having one memory card in Slot A with the other memory card in Slot B. You can also take an item to Tom Nook to get a passcode and give that code to a friend so he can get the item.

Animal Crossing also has GBA connection so you can go to a special island and then download it to the GBA if you want and make some money. You can also use the GBA to make patterns for free at the Able Sisters and you can download NES games to your GBA to play them on the go. Then there’s the GBA E-Reader, which allows you to get special items, town melodies and other things.

If that hasn’t convinced you that the gameplay isn’t excellent you weren’t paying attention!

Graphics

Just reading the gameplay part should have convinced you to get this game but if you want excellent graphics you’ll be disappointed. Yes that’s right you’ll be disappointed. These graphics don’t come anywhere close to GameCube standards. The characters look very lowly detailed and aren’t enjoyable to look at. Thankfully the characters movement is smooth and the characters even blink. That doesn’t matter though because the characters just look bad and so does most of the items don’t look to good. There are few exceptions though and the backgrounds look fine but not great. The reason for these graphics is because the game’s graphics haven’t been upgraded from the Japan only version for the N64.

Sound

The language the animals speak is either annoying or funny depending on the person. If you don’t like it you can simply turn it off. The sounds made from certain actions such as hitting trees with an acts or fishing is good but not great. The background music is also good and enjoyable to listen to. Some of the music you can collect and put in your house is great while some are lacking. If you want to change your town melody you can also do that.

Control

This game is really easy to control. A is the action button and B is to pick up. You can use R, L or B to run also. Y or Start takes you to the item menu. Simple enough? Now onto the bad; you can only carry 8 patterns and 15 items at a time. Also sometimes when you talk to the villagers and others you may want to stop talking but you have to wait. The use of the writing keyboard in the game may be annoying due to the fact there is no real keyboard support.

Lasting Appeal

With the real time thing in this game you’ll be playing for months, maybe years and everyday there’s something new in the town. Villagers move in and out and many events happen. Different things are available at different times of day and year also. This is one long and lasting game.

Final Say

Quite possibly the best game of 2002 for all consoles and handhelds. This is one game everyone should own and treasure. Go get it now!