As much as I love the last installment of Animal Crossing, I am extremely frustrated to know that it could have been perfect. And I’ll stop you right away: my goal is not to vehemently criticize this masterpiece from March 2020 which quite simply exploded all sales records and was able to bring smiles back to millions of confined people during a painful period. . No. I would simply like to take the time to explain to you why every day, when I want to play Animal Crossing New Horizons, a little aftertaste of bitterness settles in me. Why, despite all the great features added to the game, I can’t get enough of it. And why don’t I wake up every morning thinking “Nice, I’ll be able to say hello to my favorite inhabitants before starting to work.”
What Animal Crossing New Horizons is really missing
Although I have made a selection of the biggest missing features of ACNH compared to the old installments of the franchise, it is in truth not Helium, Carla, the auction house or even the exotic fruits that I miss the most. . You have to make up your mind. ACNH is a new game with new features like terraforming for example and cooking. Personally, I never asked it to be an enhanced Wild World or New Leaf on Switch.
However, even accepting this and having loved playing it the first year of its release, then again during the 2.0 update, I no longer have this same passion, this same desire to stay for hours in front of my Nintendo 3DS like back then. Some will say it’s because I grew up, but that’s not true. I have been a fan of the license since 2004, since its release on Game Cube and during each Nintendo Direct I was impatiently awaiting the announcement of an Animal Crossing on Switch. When the time was right (because it was sure to happen), I don’t think I’ve ever been happier in my life.
I must have watched the announcement trailer a good fifty times, dissecting it in every way, discussing it with my best friend and above all waiting months and months for it to come out. When I was finally able to play it, a month before everyone else for the goods of the full test, I was both happy to discover all the new features and terribly disconcerted at not being able to share it with someone.
Anyway, the discovery of the game was a real pleasure. In a few weeks, impossible to realize then, the biggest flaw of the game. It took me several months and, even when I realized it, I said to myself “It’s not that bad, I’m so happy to have an AC on Switch, with terraforming on top of that!”.
Yes but… What else? Once we’ve gone around, redid our island several times to change the decoration, what do we have left? Seasonal events, completing the Museum at 100%, visiting other islands, repaying your loan… As before finally, except that this time, it doesn’t have the same flavor anymore.
When the flavor of Animal Crossing disappears…
This time, I find it hard to be interested in the inhabitants of my island, in the special characters who come from time to time to roam. Everything seems so empty compared to Wild World, New Leaf and even the Game Cube opus. I will not talk about the one on Wii because at the time, I had much less appreciated. I can’t really say why (surely the non-portability of the title).
Coming back to ACNH, I’m finally going to spill the beans but I think you know where I’m coming from: the whole thing is sorely lacking in interactions, in flavor. The inhabitants always have the same dialogues. And even if they can visit us thanks to the latest update, it’s not the same feeling as before where you had to write down your appointment so as not to forget it. Even better, you could overhear very interesting conversations between the locals: and I can tell you there were a ton of them compared to ACNH because I wrote them all down in a notebook when I was 13 years old.
Before, we had a story. A real. The more we talked to animals and NPCs, the more we learned about them. Remember the love triangle between Opélie, Elisabec and Antoine! Café de Robusto where the characters came to reveal all their secrets to us. In short, there was life and a constant interest in discussing with all these beautiful people. To have lost this on ACNH is a terrible thing that frustrates me beyond measure.
So much so that the only thing holding me back from resetting my main island is the progress within it. Certainly I don’t want to lose my entire collection at the Museum and my Achievement Miles, but what else? Only my little Mathéo prevents me from doing it but with the disconcerting ease of doing “hunts” for the inhabitant, it would be very easy to find him. In short, we lost the very essence of Animal Crossing, which made us connect to it daily on WW and NL, this desire to know more about our village and its inhabitants, to constantly improve it, this suspense of telling ourselves that at any moment we were going to unlock a new thing (work at the café for example, a new infrastructure to be built, new furniture never seen at Carla etc…).
Events were much more regular (RIP the groundhog party) and interesting. We even had a kind of stone that gave us sorts of “gossip” on the inhabitants, lucky cakes to unlock Zelda furniture, Mario etc…
And, finally, what frustrates me even more is knowing how much Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, on mobile, is updated weekly to offer ever more content. That being said, that lively aspect that I’m looking for isn’t in ACPC either.
In the meantime, I remain an unconditional fan of Animal Crossing and I can’t help but buy absolutely all the goodies that exist: from the bic pen to the manga through the magnificent doll figurines.
nintendo
Nintendo turns 133 today! Indeed, the Japanese company entered the entertainment sector (before video games, of course) on September 23, 1889 as a manufacturer of playing cards. Now, Nintendo is an integral part of the video game giants.