I’ll post a separate comment for this, but basically, earlier this year, in May, before I ever knew that I would become the happy owner of a Switch 2, I wrote a lengthy blog post detailing my...
Exemplary
I’ll post a separate comment for this, but basically, earlier this year, in May, before I ever knew that I would become the happy owner of a Switch 2, I wrote a lengthy blog post detailing my experience with the series... which I never published anywhere. I guess this is my chance:
Animal Crossing
What became one my favorite video game franchises, was introduced to me sometime in early 2004. Back then, nintendo.de (I used to visit the German website, since I lived in Germany between 1995 and 2000) looked completely different from what it does today (and Nintendo made sure that the Internet didn’t archive any of it). Before the game was released in Europe in September of 2004, they had a few video clips of it up on the website, which I stumbled upon, prompting me to immediately fall in love with it. (A kind soul preserved an old 2002 trailer for the game, and I think that portions of it were turned into the clips that I saw on nintendo.de).
I had never seen nor played a game like this before. Something about how colorful it was and how chill it seemed, immediately sparked my interest. I literally begged my parents to buy it.
One cool thing about the Gamecube release is that the game came with its own 59 “blocks” (about 4 MB) memory card in the box (of which the game needed at least 57 blocks to save its progress). I had a third-party memory card with 129 (if I remember correctly) blocks already, and I wasn’t using all of it, so I immediately could play on two towns! (This was necessary to unlock the last store upgrade, by the way). I also had a GBA and the cable necessary to connect it to my GCN, so I got to experience almost everything that the game had to offer (and for the year 2004, it was a lot).
I played the ever-loving heck out of this game. I think that there has hardly been a year since 2004 that I have not booted this game up at least once, whether on real hardware, or on Dolphin. Something about it just mesmerizes me to this day, and I don’t think that the series was ever able to recapture that magic. It’s not that the series has gotten “worse” (though in some aspects, I think we could argue that it has), but it just became something “different”. That’s not bad in and of itself, but I’d love to see a remake of the original game, left mostly intact—especially the dialogues. (The only exception being the “horny hair” of the main male character. That has got to go. 😂)
What joy I felt when I stumbled on a YouTuber, who goes by Hunter R., who started a channel last year almost entirely dedicated to the intricacies of the game, particularly its code. I devour every single video he releases. I just can’t get enough of learning more about this game. I think I might be actually obsessed.
In fact, I was so obsessed, that I would even read other people’s “diaries” (blogs) of their experience playing the game. Two of those diaries were so fun for me to read, that I have re-read them a few times over the years.
The first was written by a German guy who went by the nickname “Schrody”. If you can read German, and if you understand German humor (from that time), and you love the original entry in the series (that’s a lot of requirements 😂), then I highly recommend that you to read his diary. Still, to this day, his writing makes me laugh until I can’t breathe anymore. I love his diary so much that I downloaded the archive, so that I don’t ever lose it.
The second was written by an American, Joe Fourhman, and may be one of the first really long pieces of English text that I ever read in my life. It was not only funny, but also very insightful. In an era before every little detail about a video game could be uncovered on the Internet, this guy was doing actual research to try to understand the mechanics, and he was actually working towards 100% completing the game. He even played every day for an entire year, thinking that the game would somehow reward him for it. I really loved his 27th entry in particular, where he made a list of items that were difficult to obtain, and divided them into four categories: minor, major, extreme, and suicidal. It made me laugh so hard that my lungs almost imploded. Poor Static. 😂
Sadly, unlike the famous JVGS, I was not consistent as a teenager. I deeply regret that. I restarted my towns all the time (though some I did take quite far, unlocking pretty much everything). I really wish that I had not only preserved my original save games (and backed them up), but continued to play them. JVGS has his original save still, and he’s been playing it on real hardware to this day (his blog goes all the way back to 2011). He’s a legend in the AC GCN community.
I actually know (about) quite a few people in that community. I want to give a shout-out to the equally legendary James Chambers and Cuyler, who have both made some insane contributions to reverse-engineering efforts of the GCN entries of the series. They have developed so many incredible tools (many of which I have used), like a save editor (that even allows you to alter the map), and one that I personally “contributed” to: the letter scorer tool. I am that “Cris” who in 2018, asked Chambers if he’d be willing to dig into the code behind the letter system, out of sheer curiosity.
One other sad thing that I didn’t preserve, was my Gamecube and the games. Sometime in the summer of 2022, I managed to bring back my entire collection from the GCN and Wii eras back with me from Portugal. I live in relative poverty and my tiny studio apartment just doesn’t have a lot of space. I then made the very regrettable decision of selling off my collection. At least, it went to a Latvian video game museum, but I wish I had kept the hardware.
Edit: I remembered this old and touching story about a sick mother whose son suggested she play Animal Crossing with him. He quickly lost interest in the game, but she got really into it and sent him a lot of letters, which he found when he randomly booted up the game again a long time after she passed away from her illness. The sad story made the rounds on the Internet in late 2005/2006. How the story spread is actually a story of its own: The original story was shared by the son on the IGN forum/message board. It was then picked up by a Korean guy who translated it into Korean and published it on his blog. Another guy then took the Korean translation, and turned it into a comic that he published on a Korean gaming website with the aptly chosen TLD thisisgame.com. The text in that comic was then replaced by the original English text from the post on IGN, and made its rounds in the west itself. I spent a good two hours this morning trying to find all the original sources but couldn’t figure out how to find an archive of the story on the IGN forum. I only found the Korean translation (which includes the original English text at the bottom, without attribution 😡), and a repost of the comic. Funny enough, the Wayback Machine did preserve the comic from the website that it was originally posted on, but I can’t figure out how to retrieve the page that it was displayed on either.
Wild World
I used to own three copies of Animal Crossing: Wild World.
And I played on all of them.
The first (1) copy (and the first NDS) that I got, was bought for me by my parents for Christmas 2006.
For 80 EUR I bought another NDS along with a second (2) copy the game (and two or three others) from a friend.
The third (3) copy I got as a gift from a friend who had bought the game because I suggested it to him, though he didn’t like it.
My towns were (1) Dolphin, (2) Delphino, and (3) Daphnes (I think). I have always named all my towns “Dolphin”. It was the Gamecube’s developer code name. The Gamecube was the console that I played my first Animal Crossing game on. “Delphino” was the name of the island in Super Mario Sunshine. Daphnes (I’m not 100% sure that I named it that) was the name of Hyrule’s king in The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker.
Wild World was the only Animal Crossing game that I never restarted, so my “Dolphin” save game existed for almost two decades. I had a ton of stuff in it, and had even played online with it quite a bit.
Unfortunately, unlike my GCN/Wii collection, I wasn’t able to salvage it before my mom threw all of my NDS consoles and games in the trash. Like, literally. She just threw them away. She didn’t want to give them to me after I moved abroad. It’s a long story that I don’t want to get into, but yeah.
It’s funny that I have so much love for the original entry but invested far more hours into the NDS one. I think that the Animal Crossing series was one of the original “cozy games”, long before that term was ever thought of. Playing it on the handheld felt natural somehow. It felt extra cozy. I think that the online multiplayer also somehow incentivized me to keep my town alive, because I knew that others would visit it.
City Folk
I got this entry in early 2009. This was the year that I officially began to “leave the nest”. From that year on, I spent more time away from home (and abroad) than at home, moving away for good in late 2014. As such, and because that was such a transformative (and traumatic) period in my life, this was the entry that I played the least.
Unfortunately, it also disappointed me bit.
At the age of 19, when I was considerably dumber than I am now, even I was able to tell that City Folk was “just” an “uprezzed” version of the NDS entry. Maybe that’s a bit harsh, because the game does have some new content, but none of it fundamentally changed the experience of the NDS entry. This is to say that I think that the game was a bit of a cash grab.
By this point, the series had become quite popular, and it totally fit into Nintendo’s philosophy of expanding their audience to “casual” gamers. At the risk of sounding sexist, I have to say that it was women who made the NDS entry so popular. I remember a time when I was reading blogs and Tumblr pages full of cute (and altered) screenshots of the game—all created by women. Most of the people I played online with were women. Kind of Wild (World) for 2006. That trend continued with the Wii entry. It was easy money.
The “City”, uh... “““mechanic”””, didn’t really add anything to the experience for me. Sure, I wouldn’t want my town to be overcrowded with buildings, but the hair dresser in Wild World, for example, was just part of one of the store expansions. They could have done the same for all the other new buildings. The city takes long to load and there isn’t much to do there, especially early in the game.
But if you really like the core gameplay of Wild World, and want an “uprezzed” version of that, then I think that City Folk is a great option. It plays best on original hardware, but works great on Dolphin with a keyboard and mouse too (it’s just that I happen to have very little desk space to sit comfortably). I think that it might work really well on a system like the Steam Deck, since you could assing the buttons and the joystick, but then use the track pads for the pointer. (How I wish I had a Steam Deck. 🤤)
New Leaf
In early 2019, I was firmly settled in Latvia. I moved here in 2018 (2017 was when my wife and I got married).
I was about to turn 30 that year, and my personality, character, mentality, and even circumstances were drastically shifting. I wonder to this day if it is a coincidence, but alas, this shift led me back to video games as a hobby.
I had missed out on the WiiU (💔) and the 3DS was about to go the way of the dodo (now with the Switch firmly leading).
It would still take another year before the fateful release of New Horizons though.
How amazing it was that, in early 2019, I somehow found myself in a position to buy Nintendo hardware and software with my own money. 💀 It’s crazy for me to think that I ever had the means to do that. Part of the reason was that I found a 2DS XL (🧡🧡🧡) on discount (for 159.99 EUR), as well as a “Nintendo Selects” version (popular games released for cheaper, something Nintendo used to do all the way back to the Nintendo 64 days) of Animal Crossing: New Leafwith the Welcome Amiibo update, which I got for just 25 EUR! Crazy!
This entry was a much needed, fresh take on the series. It included so many new amazing features, most of which gave the player more options to customize their town. I feel that, in general, the developers took the series into the direction that its core audience (young women) wanted it to go, and that was definitely the right direction (always listen to your customers). Funny enough, after the release of City Folk, the amazing Aya Kyogoku was made the producer of the series. She had worked as a scripwriter on City Folk before. She also happened to have been the scripwriter for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which earned her a GDC award in 2007. I think that her bold new vision for the series really shone through with New Leaf (which was a very appropriate title).
I loved the game and all of its new features so much, that I very intensely played it for about two months (maybe). A big portion of this time was spent online, trading turnips for bells. There used to be an insanely active turnip trading community on Reddit, and within a few short weeks I was basically a “bellionaire”. I don’t think that the developers intended for that mechanic to be exploited that way, but it made it easier to get a lot done in the game, quicker. I got to experience pretty much every new main feature that the game offered, even though I didn’t play it for very long.
Why didn’t I play it for very long?
Well, it’s a long story that I don’t want to get into, but I ended up selling the game and the console to the same video game museum (they also have a store).
There were many reasons why I did that, but one of them was that I just couldn’t see myself financially supporting video games as a hobby.
And of course, I regretted this decision too, both because my income for the few years that succeeded (until last year) increased, making it actually possible for me to invest a bit more into gaming, but even if I hadn’t (I didn’t), I could have eventually hacked that beautiful, orange-highlighted 2DS XL of mine and played so many other amazing games that I completely missed out on. Truly a shame.
New Horizons
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Animal Crossing: New Horizons are the two games that I lament never having bought a Nintendo Switch for.
I did eventually get to play both on my sister’s Switch. She somehow got a well-paying job in 2017, and became filthy rich (I’m exaggerating), not only recently getting a mortgage for a house, but also buying some 30 or 40 games on the console. (Yes. I’m envious. 😂)
Thankfully, we get well along, and she allowed me to play the game one of the times that I visited the family. I got instantly hooked. Unlike a lot of fans of the series, the “slow” beginning of the game, which forces you to forage materials and craft tools, was very entertaining to me. Honestly, if I owned the game, I don’t think that I would go as crazy about customizing my island as many people do. I would maybe do that to about half of my island, but I would keep the other half intact and as “wild” as it was in the beginning. I think that the “early game” in this entry might be more interesting than the “late game”. But I only played for a few hours over a few days, so I can’t say that for sure.
There is one thing that saddens me about the development of the series though, and New Horizons is notorious for it: The character dialogues have become just completely flavorless. A lot of people have complained about this. One notable case is Jaiden from the Jaiden Animations YouTube channel, who made a video ranting about this particular issue, which I have rewatched a few times because it’s just so funny (and true). I think that there are two reasons for this change in the series: Aya Kyogoku’s influence as an experienced scriptwriter (and now producer) and Nintendo’s family-friend policies. The original Animal Crossing on the Gamecube had some really wild dialogue, but that made the characters so lovable, relatable, and fun to interact with. I still fondly remember how I went, over months, from thinking that Lobo was a jerk, to becoming “best friends” with him (as much as you can become friends with a digital, anthropomorphic animal). That kind of gradual “warming up” to a character isn’t possible in the new entries. The dialogue doesn’t change after you have interacted with any of the villagers for a while. And that is, I think, one of the major reasons why I keep going back to that entry, more than to the others. I mostly want to play Animal Crossing my myself (it’s my main “chill-out game”), but if interacting with the NPCs doesn’t feel any more involved than going through in-game menu options, then it just kills the vibe.
Future?
It’s crazy for me to think that this series of video games, more than any other, has been with me through some really important moments in my life, and I would like that to continue.
I’m holding onto the hope that I’ll miraculously get a chance to play New Horizons for real before they release the next entry. Rumors have been circulating that it’s already being developed, and Nintendo would be dumb not to. It’s crazy how New Horizons dropped at just the perfect time and went on to sell close to 50 million copies, almost exactly 20 million less than the best-selling Mario Kart 8: Deluxe. For a game whose target demographic is mostly women, casual, and “cozy” gamers, that is mighty impressive.
I like that Animal Crossing is a series that keeps broadening its audience, and appeals to such a diverse demographic. It’s got one of the nicest communities ever. I’ll never forget, for example, how it and the DOOM community came together when it turned out that New Horizons and Eternal were going to be released on the same day. There were so many funny memes during that time, including this super catchy franchise crossover song.
I think that we can confidently say that this series has had a long-lasting influence on various related genres (and has even spawned some popular games that are deeply inspired by it). There certainly is a lot of money to be made with Animal Crossing. The series is far from done being massively relevant in the video game industry, and all of it started with one man feeling homesick.
But how will Nintendo convince us to return to this series?
As much as the game is about “socializing”, I wish that they would acknowledge that many people want to play it mostly by themselves (or that the core mechanics of the game necessitate that the player mostly plays it alone). This means that the new entry should have a vibrant, colorful world, where characters do more than just walk and sit around. They need “stories” (something that the Wild World entry kind of had).
They also need to not repeat the mistake of releasing an incomplete game. At launch, New Horizons was missing a lot of the series’ staple features, like certain events, holidays, and characters.
I also hope that they don’t fall for the temptation of trying to monetize anything within the game itself (unless it’s really good DLC). I think that if the game comes out of the box in a complete state, then selling it for $80 is more than justified in my mind. Yes. I do think so. Consider all the content that the series has a whole, and imagine a new entry with all of that, plus entirely new content and features. Not only will such a game have been difficult and costly to develop, but it would also have taken a lot of time. As much as I hate that games are becoming more expensive, I think that in this particular example, it makes total sense to sell a large game (in terms on content), such as this one, for a higher price. It is, after all, almost certainly going to entertain millions of people for hundreds of hours, and some, for a 1,000 or more, or like then 87-year-old Audrey for more than 3,500 hours.
And if the new game delivers on these and other aspects, then I’ll be sure to do what I can to get my hands on a copy.
That's my problem with these types of games as well. I find myself always missing the "early days" when I just have the equivalent of a hobo bindle and a fist to punch trees with. I love the late...
I think that the “early game” in this entry might be more interesting than the “late game”.
That's my problem with these types of games as well. I find myself always missing the "early days" when I just have the equivalent of a hobo bindle and a fist to punch trees with. I love the late game luxuries sure, but my desire to buy yet more upgrades or to micro decorate every corner of the island just isn't what brings me joy.
New Horizons came out when a bunch of us Hong Kongers visited one another's islands in yellow and black shirts, gas masks and helmets. I'll forever be thankful to them for that.
But I truly do not envision myself buying a $700 switch 2 + $100 game.
...when I just have the equivalent of a hobo bindle and a fist to punch trees with.
This made me chuckle. lol
...or to micro decorate every corner of the island just isn't what brings me joy.
Same.
New Horizons came out when a bunch of us Hong Kongers visited one another's islands in yellow and black shirts, gas masks and helmets. I'll forever be thankful to them for that.
Wait what? Is this a political statement (by who?) that I’m missing? Can you choose what to wear when visiting other islands or does the game do it? I’m so confused.
New Horizons came out when a bunch of us Hong Kongers visited one another's islands in yellow and black shirts, gas masks and helmets. I'll forever be thankful to them for that.
Wait what? Is this a political statement (by who?) that I’m missing? Can you choose what to wear when visiting other islands or does the game do it? I’m so confused.
Yep, in AC you can wear whatever you want when visiting other people's islands. You can also create custom patterns to use for clothing or decorations, such as wall art, standees and mats. I'm not...
Yep, in AC you can wear whatever you want when visiting other people's islands. You can also create custom patterns to use for clothing or decorations, such as wall art, standees and mats.
I'm not from Hong Kong, but I remember hearing about protesters taking advantage of that very liberally to decorate their islands as a virtual protest site against China's control of Hony Kong. So, AC is now banned in China.
Haha yeah. Old VICE article with photos, also linked above. Man that was a great time. good times, good times. We'd have used the more traditional house slippers if the game allowed it. And to...
Haha yeah. Old VICE article with photos, also linked above. Man that was a great time.
One video shows six players on a beach hitting images of Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam with butterfly nets.
good times, good times. We'd have used the more traditional house slippers if the game allowed it.
And to think the whole protest ignited over the citizens being incredulous that one could be scooped up by police, detained and deported (extradited) without a proper trial. World changed so much in 6 years.
There's an optional part of the game where one can open their island to (online multiplayer) visitors using an invite code. There was a seperate independent forum that organized said codes for...
There's an optional part of the game where one can open their island to (online multiplayer) visitors using an invite code. There was a seperate independent forum that organized said codes for visits. So a bunch of us who were quarantined / overseas / in exile / keeping off the streets for safety, used the forums to find islands of like minded folks to visit. The game also lets you import images, and naturally we imported slogans and images that we could not paste on actual streets anymore. When one visits, one can choose to wear anything they want and bring items; some of us brought gifts for the hosts, flowers for the memorials, and "protest gear" outfit items to share with other players who don't have "full gear".
Joshua Wong, of Teenager Vs Superpower fame1, tweeted about his island. A lot of folks were already playing, but the tweet sort of solidified it into a statement. Right time right game sort of thing. Got the game banned in China lolol.
Side note, Joshua is still in prison right now, along with many others. Agnes is studying in Canada after being released. Nathan is living in exile in the UK.
Here's a preview trailer for a mod of the Game Cube version of Animal Crossing which adds some quality of life features, other options, and new features. I loved playing Animal Crossing as a kid,...
Here's a preview trailer for a mod of the Game Cube version of Animal Crossing which adds some quality of life features, other options, and new features.
I loved playing Animal Crossing as a kid, and I never clicked with the newer games (Wild World for some reason gave me a headache). My wife loved New Horizons, and I'm hoping to use this mod as another nudge to have her come and try the game I loved as a kid.
I'm still looking forward to the day I get to load my childhood save, as the memory card is still sitting at my parents house. I just hadn't touched it as something happened to all my Game Cube controllers, and I wasn't curious enough at the time to buy a new one to play.
Any chance you could get the memory card back and then dump the save file? You’d probably need some special tools for that, but I think that it would be worth it, especially if you also happen to...
Any chance you could get the memory card back and then dump the save file? You’d probably need some special tools for that, but I think that it would be worth it, especially if you also happen to still have the disk and can dump that too. You’d have provided a legally safe way for you to keep playing this game into the future. That’s one of my biggest regrets, was to not make an effort to preserve the disk or the save. I allowed my siblings to delete the data and my parents to leave the disk to rot away.
Firstly, thank you for your other monster comment! I'll respond to that later, as I need to wrap up my work day and will probably be exploring the links you shared for a bit. I am able to get the...
Firstly, thank you for your other monster comment! I'll respond to that later, as I need to wrap up my work day and will probably be exploring the links you shared for a bit.
I am able to get the disk and memory card and our original Game Cube if I make it back to the states or convince my parents to ship it over, or our Wii as well. The only other person who'd be interested in it would be my brother, and if my parents go through with their move, I'm guessing he would end up with it so it should be in safe hands.
I'd love to back up the memory card, but buying any specialized hardware is probably going to put that out of my reach. I love the game, but my gaming budget has become $0 as all my leisure money is going towards things that I can do with my wife and family. My brother tends to have more disposable income for things like that so I might be able to convince him to take that route if he ends up with it.
The fans doing what Nintendon’t, as usual. Incidentally, I have been playing New Horizons since July 11... for the first time. I know. I’m late to the party. It’s a long story, but I wasn’t able...
The fans doing what Nintendon’t, as usual.
Incidentally, I have been playing New Horizons since July 11... for the first time.
I know. I’m late to the party. It’s a long story, but I wasn’t able to ever buy a Switch 1. Now that I have a Switch 2, I went back to the series, since it’s my favorite video game franchise of all time, and I have literally played all the mainline games in it, extensively.
And guess what?
I still like the GCN entry above all the others in many aspects. I so wish that I could legally play it again, that Nintendo would remake it or something.
Oh this looks perfect - I had been thinking just a few months back on how "Animal Crossing GCN but with some QoL tweaks" would be my favorite game of the series. It'll be so much fun to be back to...
Oh this looks perfect - I had been thinking just a few months back on how "Animal Crossing GCN but with some QoL tweaks" would be my favorite game of the series. It'll be so much fun to be back to a village that really feels like it exists independently of the player, instead of catering directly towards their wants at all times.
I’ll post a separate comment for this, but basically, earlier this year, in May, before I ever knew that I would become the happy owner of a Switch 2, I wrote a lengthy blog post detailing my experience with the series... which I never published anywhere. I guess this is my chance:
Animal Crossing
What became one my favorite video game franchises, was introduced to me sometime in early 2004. Back then, nintendo.de (I used to visit the German website, since I lived in Germany between 1995 and 2000) looked completely different from what it does today (and Nintendo made sure that the Internet didn’t archive any of it). Before the game was released in Europe in September of 2004, they had a few video clips of it up on the website, which I stumbled upon, prompting me to immediately fall in love with it. (A kind soul preserved an old 2002 trailer for the game, and I think that portions of it were turned into the clips that I saw on nintendo.de).
I had never seen nor played a game like this before. Something about how colorful it was and how chill it seemed, immediately sparked my interest. I literally begged my parents to buy it.
One cool thing about the Gamecube release is that the game came with its own 59 “blocks” (about 4 MB) memory card in the box (of which the game needed at least 57 blocks to save its progress). I had a third-party memory card with 129 (if I remember correctly) blocks already, and I wasn’t using all of it, so I immediately could play on two towns! (This was necessary to unlock the last store upgrade, by the way). I also had a GBA and the cable necessary to connect it to my GCN, so I got to experience almost everything that the game had to offer (and for the year 2004, it was a lot).
I played the ever-loving heck out of this game. I think that there has hardly been a year since 2004 that I have not booted this game up at least once, whether on real hardware, or on Dolphin. Something about it just mesmerizes me to this day, and I don’t think that the series was ever able to recapture that magic. It’s not that the series has gotten “worse” (though in some aspects, I think we could argue that it has), but it just became something “different”. That’s not bad in and of itself, but I’d love to see a remake of the original game, left mostly intact—especially the dialogues. (The only exception being the “horny hair” of the main male character. That has got to go. 😂)
What joy I felt when I stumbled on a YouTuber, who goes by Hunter R., who started a channel last year almost entirely dedicated to the intricacies of the game, particularly its code. I devour every single video he releases. I just can’t get enough of learning more about this game. I think I might be actually obsessed.
In fact, I was so obsessed, that I would even read other people’s “diaries” (blogs) of their experience playing the game. Two of those diaries were so fun for me to read, that I have re-read them a few times over the years.
The first was written by a German guy who went by the nickname “Schrody”. If you can read German, and if you understand German humor (from that time), and you love the original entry in the series (that’s a lot of requirements 😂), then I highly recommend that you to read his diary. Still, to this day, his writing makes me laugh until I can’t breathe anymore. I love his diary so much that I downloaded the archive, so that I don’t ever lose it.
The second was written by an American, Joe Fourhman, and may be one of the first really long pieces of English text that I ever read in my life. It was not only funny, but also very insightful. In an era before every little detail about a video game could be uncovered on the Internet, this guy was doing actual research to try to understand the mechanics, and he was actually working towards 100% completing the game. He even played every day for an entire year, thinking that the game would somehow reward him for it. I really loved his 27th entry in particular, where he made a list of items that were difficult to obtain, and divided them into four categories: minor, major, extreme, and suicidal. It made me laugh so hard that my lungs almost imploded. Poor Static. 😂
Sadly, unlike the famous JVGS, I was not consistent as a teenager. I deeply regret that. I restarted my towns all the time (though some I did take quite far, unlocking pretty much everything). I really wish that I had not only preserved my original save games (and backed them up), but continued to play them. JVGS has his original save still, and he’s been playing it on real hardware to this day (his blog goes all the way back to 2011). He’s a legend in the AC GCN community.
I actually know (about) quite a few people in that community. I want to give a shout-out to the equally legendary James Chambers and Cuyler, who have both made some insane contributions to reverse-engineering efforts of the GCN entries of the series. They have developed so many incredible tools (many of which I have used), like a save editor (that even allows you to alter the map), and one that I personally “contributed” to: the letter scorer tool. I am that “Cris” who in 2018, asked Chambers if he’d be willing to dig into the code behind the letter system, out of sheer curiosity.
I want also give a shout-out to Brackenhawk, who leads the still very active Animal Crossing HD Texture Pack group. I hope to see this project, and the decompilation of the game, finished someday.
One other sad thing that I didn’t preserve, was my Gamecube and the games. Sometime in the summer of 2022, I managed to bring back my entire collection from the GCN and Wii eras back with me from Portugal. I live in relative poverty and my tiny studio apartment just doesn’t have a lot of space. I then made the very regrettable decision of selling off my collection. At least, it went to a Latvian video game museum, but I wish I had kept the hardware.
Edit: I remembered this old and touching story about a sick mother whose son suggested she play Animal Crossing with him. He quickly lost interest in the game, but she got really into it and sent him a lot of letters, which he found when he randomly booted up the game again a long time after she passed away from her illness. The sad story made the rounds on the Internet in late 2005/2006. How the story spread is actually a story of its own: The original story was shared by the son on the IGN forum/message board. It was then picked up by a Korean guy who translated it into Korean and published it on his blog. Another guy then took the Korean translation, and turned it into a comic that he published on a Korean gaming website with the aptly chosen TLD thisisgame.com. The text in that comic was then replaced by the original English text from the post on IGN, and made its rounds in the west itself. I spent a good two hours this morning trying to find all the original sources but couldn’t figure out how to find an archive of the story on the IGN forum. I only found the Korean translation (which includes the original English text at the bottom, without attribution 😡), and a repost of the comic. Funny enough, the Wayback Machine did preserve the comic from the website that it was originally posted on, but I can’t figure out how to retrieve the page that it was displayed on either.
Wild World
I used to own three copies of Animal Crossing: Wild World.
And I played on all of them.
The first (1) copy (and the first NDS) that I got, was bought for me by my parents for Christmas 2006.
For 80 EUR I bought another NDS along with a second (2) copy the game (and two or three others) from a friend.
The third (3) copy I got as a gift from a friend who had bought the game because I suggested it to him, though he didn’t like it.
My towns were (1) Dolphin, (2) Delphino, and (3) Daphnes (I think). I have always named all my towns “Dolphin”. It was the Gamecube’s developer code name. The Gamecube was the console that I played my first Animal Crossing game on. “Delphino” was the name of the island in Super Mario Sunshine. Daphnes (I’m not 100% sure that I named it that) was the name of Hyrule’s king in The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker.
Wild World was the only Animal Crossing game that I never restarted, so my “Dolphin” save game existed for almost two decades. I had a ton of stuff in it, and had even played online with it quite a bit.
Unfortunately, unlike my GCN/Wii collection, I wasn’t able to salvage it before my mom threw all of my NDS consoles and games in the trash. Like, literally. She just threw them away. She didn’t want to give them to me after I moved abroad. It’s a long story that I don’t want to get into, but yeah.
It’s funny that I have so much love for the original entry but invested far more hours into the NDS one. I think that the Animal Crossing series was one of the original “cozy games”, long before that term was ever thought of. Playing it on the handheld felt natural somehow. It felt extra cozy. I think that the online multiplayer also somehow incentivized me to keep my town alive, because I knew that others would visit it.
City Folk
I got this entry in early 2009. This was the year that I officially began to “leave the nest”. From that year on, I spent more time away from home (and abroad) than at home, moving away for good in late 2014. As such, and because that was such a transformative (and traumatic) period in my life, this was the entry that I played the least.
Unfortunately, it also disappointed me bit.
At the age of 19, when I was considerably dumber than I am now, even I was able to tell that City Folk was “just” an “uprezzed” version of the NDS entry. Maybe that’s a bit harsh, because the game does have some new content, but none of it fundamentally changed the experience of the NDS entry. This is to say that I think that the game was a bit of a cash grab.
By this point, the series had become quite popular, and it totally fit into Nintendo’s philosophy of expanding their audience to “casual” gamers. At the risk of sounding sexist, I have to say that it was women who made the NDS entry so popular. I remember a time when I was reading blogs and Tumblr pages full of cute (and altered) screenshots of the game—all created by women. Most of the people I played online with were women. Kind of Wild (World) for 2006. That trend continued with the Wii entry. It was easy money.
The “City”, uh... “““mechanic”””, didn’t really add anything to the experience for me. Sure, I wouldn’t want my town to be overcrowded with buildings, but the hair dresser in Wild World, for example, was just part of one of the store expansions. They could have done the same for all the other new buildings. The city takes long to load and there isn’t much to do there, especially early in the game.
But if you really like the core gameplay of Wild World, and want an “uprezzed” version of that, then I think that City Folk is a great option. It plays best on original hardware, but works great on Dolphin with a keyboard and mouse too (it’s just that I happen to have very little desk space to sit comfortably). I think that it might work really well on a system like the Steam Deck, since you could assing the buttons and the joystick, but then use the track pads for the pointer. (How I wish I had a Steam Deck. 🤤)
New Leaf
In early 2019, I was firmly settled in Latvia. I moved here in 2018 (2017 was when my wife and I got married).
I was about to turn 30 that year, and my personality, character, mentality, and even circumstances were drastically shifting. I wonder to this day if it is a coincidence, but alas, this shift led me back to video games as a hobby.
I had missed out on the WiiU (💔) and the 3DS was about to go the way of the dodo (now with the Switch firmly leading).
It would still take another year before the fateful release of New Horizons though.
How amazing it was that, in early 2019, I somehow found myself in a position to buy Nintendo hardware and software with my own money. 💀 It’s crazy for me to think that I ever had the means to do that. Part of the reason was that I found a 2DS XL (🧡🧡🧡) on discount (for 159.99 EUR), as well as a “Nintendo Selects” version (popular games released for cheaper, something Nintendo used to do all the way back to the Nintendo 64 days) of Animal Crossing: New Leaf with the Welcome Amiibo update, which I got for just 25 EUR! Crazy!
This entry was a much needed, fresh take on the series. It included so many new amazing features, most of which gave the player more options to customize their town. I feel that, in general, the developers took the series into the direction that its core audience (young women) wanted it to go, and that was definitely the right direction (always listen to your customers). Funny enough, after the release of City Folk, the amazing Aya Kyogoku was made the producer of the series. She had worked as a scripwriter on City Folk before. She also happened to have been the scripwriter for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which earned her a GDC award in 2007. I think that her bold new vision for the series really shone through with New Leaf (which was a very appropriate title).
I loved the game and all of its new features so much, that I very intensely played it for about two months (maybe). A big portion of this time was spent online, trading turnips for bells. There used to be an insanely active turnip trading community on Reddit, and within a few short weeks I was basically a “bellionaire”. I don’t think that the developers intended for that mechanic to be exploited that way, but it made it easier to get a lot done in the game, quicker. I got to experience pretty much every new main feature that the game offered, even though I didn’t play it for very long.
Why didn’t I play it for very long?
Well, it’s a long story that I don’t want to get into, but I ended up selling the game and the console to the same video game museum (they also have a store).
There were many reasons why I did that, but one of them was that I just couldn’t see myself financially supporting video games as a hobby.
And of course, I regretted this decision too, both because my income for the few years that succeeded (until last year) increased, making it actually possible for me to invest a bit more into gaming, but even if I hadn’t (I didn’t), I could have eventually hacked that beautiful, orange-highlighted 2DS XL of mine and played so many other amazing games that I completely missed out on. Truly a shame.
New Horizons
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Animal Crossing: New Horizons are the two games that I lament never having bought a Nintendo Switch for.
I did eventually get to play both on my sister’s Switch. She somehow got a well-paying job in 2017, and became filthy rich (I’m exaggerating), not only recently getting a mortgage for a house, but also buying some 30 or 40 games on the console. (Yes. I’m envious. 😂)
Thankfully, we get well along, and she allowed me to play the game one of the times that I visited the family. I got instantly hooked. Unlike a lot of fans of the series, the “slow” beginning of the game, which forces you to forage materials and craft tools, was very entertaining to me. Honestly, if I owned the game, I don’t think that I would go as crazy about customizing my island as many people do. I would maybe do that to about half of my island, but I would keep the other half intact and as “wild” as it was in the beginning. I think that the “early game” in this entry might be more interesting than the “late game”. But I only played for a few hours over a few days, so I can’t say that for sure.
There is one thing that saddens me about the development of the series though, and New Horizons is notorious for it: The character dialogues have become just completely flavorless. A lot of people have complained about this. One notable case is Jaiden from the Jaiden Animations YouTube channel, who made a video ranting about this particular issue, which I have rewatched a few times because it’s just so funny (and true). I think that there are two reasons for this change in the series: Aya Kyogoku’s influence as an experienced scriptwriter (and now producer) and Nintendo’s family-friend policies. The original Animal Crossing on the Gamecube had some really wild dialogue, but that made the characters so lovable, relatable, and fun to interact with. I still fondly remember how I went, over months, from thinking that Lobo was a jerk, to becoming “best friends” with him (as much as you can become friends with a digital, anthropomorphic animal). That kind of gradual “warming up” to a character isn’t possible in the new entries. The dialogue doesn’t change after you have interacted with any of the villagers for a while. And that is, I think, one of the major reasons why I keep going back to that entry, more than to the others. I mostly want to play Animal Crossing my myself (it’s my main “chill-out game”), but if interacting with the NPCs doesn’t feel any more involved than going through in-game menu options, then it just kills the vibe.
Future?
It’s crazy for me to think that this series of video games, more than any other, has been with me through some really important moments in my life, and I would like that to continue.
I’m holding onto the hope that I’ll miraculously get a chance to play New Horizons for real before they release the next entry. Rumors have been circulating that it’s already being developed, and Nintendo would be dumb not to. It’s crazy how New Horizons dropped at just the perfect time and went on to sell close to 50 million copies, almost exactly 20 million less than the best-selling Mario Kart 8: Deluxe. For a game whose target demographic is mostly women, casual, and “cozy” gamers, that is mighty impressive.
I like that Animal Crossing is a series that keeps broadening its audience, and appeals to such a diverse demographic. It’s got one of the nicest communities ever. I’ll never forget, for example, how it and the DOOM community came together when it turned out that New Horizons and Eternal were going to be released on the same day. There were so many funny memes during that time, including this super catchy franchise crossover song.
I think that we can confidently say that this series has had a long-lasting influence on various related genres (and has even spawned some popular games that are deeply inspired by it). There certainly is a lot of money to be made with Animal Crossing. The series is far from done being massively relevant in the video game industry, and all of it started with one man feeling homesick.
But how will Nintendo convince us to return to this series?
As much as the game is about “socializing”, I wish that they would acknowledge that many people want to play it mostly by themselves (or that the core mechanics of the game necessitate that the player mostly plays it alone). This means that the new entry should have a vibrant, colorful world, where characters do more than just walk and sit around. They need “stories” (something that the Wild World entry kind of had).
They also need to not repeat the mistake of releasing an incomplete game. At launch, New Horizons was missing a lot of the series’ staple features, like certain events, holidays, and characters.
I also hope that they don’t fall for the temptation of trying to monetize anything within the game itself (unless it’s really good DLC). I think that if the game comes out of the box in a complete state, then selling it for $80 is more than justified in my mind. Yes. I do think so. Consider all the content that the series has a whole, and imagine a new entry with all of that, plus entirely new content and features. Not only will such a game have been difficult and costly to develop, but it would also have taken a lot of time. As much as I hate that games are becoming more expensive, I think that in this particular example, it makes total sense to sell a large game (in terms on content), such as this one, for a higher price. It is, after all, almost certainly going to entertain millions of people for hundreds of hours, and some, for a 1,000 or more, or like then 87-year-old Audrey for more than 3,500 hours.
And if the new game delivers on these and other aspects, then I’ll be sure to do what I can to get my hands on a copy.
That's my problem with these types of games as well. I find myself always missing the "early days" when I just have the equivalent of a hobo bindle and a fist to punch trees with. I love the late game luxuries sure, but my desire to buy yet more upgrades or to micro decorate every corner of the island just isn't what brings me joy.
New Horizons came out when a bunch of us Hong Kongers visited one another's islands in yellow and black shirts, gas masks and helmets. I'll forever be thankful to them for that.
But I truly do not envision myself buying a $700 switch 2 + $100 game.
This made me chuckle. lol
Same.
Dang.
Wait what? Is this a political statement (by who?) that I’m missing? Can you choose what to wear when visiting other islands or does the game do it? I’m so confused.
Yep, in AC you can wear whatever you want when visiting other people's islands. You can also create custom patterns to use for clothing or decorations, such as wall art, standees and mats.
I'm not from Hong Kong, but I remember hearing about protesters taking advantage of that very liberally to decorate their islands as a virtual protest site against China's control of Hony Kong. So, AC is now banned in China.
Haha yeah. Old VICE article with photos, also linked above. Man that was a great time.
good times, good times. We'd have used the more traditional house slippers if the game allowed it.
And to think the whole protest ignited over the citizens being incredulous that one could be scooped up by police, detained and deported (extradited) without a proper trial. World changed so much in 6 years.
There's an optional part of the game where one can open their island to (online multiplayer) visitors using an invite code. There was a seperate independent forum that organized said codes for visits. So a bunch of us who were quarantined / overseas / in exile / keeping off the streets for safety, used the forums to find islands of like minded folks to visit. The game also lets you import images, and naturally we imported slogans and images that we could not paste on actual streets anymore. When one visits, one can choose to wear anything they want and bring items; some of us brought gifts for the hosts, flowers for the memorials, and "protest gear" outfit items to share with other players who don't have "full gear".
Joshua Wong, of Teenager Vs Superpower fame1, tweeted about his island. A lot of folks were already playing, but the tweet sort of solidified it into a statement. Right time right game sort of thing. Got the game banned in China lolol.
More in depth article here from vice.
Side note, Joshua is still in prison right now, along with many others. Agnes is studying in Canada after being released. Nathan is living in exile in the UK.
Here's a preview trailer for a mod of the Game Cube version of Animal Crossing which adds some quality of life features, other options, and new features.
I loved playing Animal Crossing as a kid, and I never clicked with the newer games (Wild World for some reason gave me a headache). My wife loved New Horizons, and I'm hoping to use this mod as another nudge to have her come and try the game I loved as a kid.
I'm still looking forward to the day I get to load my childhood save, as the memory card is still sitting at my parents house. I just hadn't touched it as something happened to all my Game Cube controllers, and I wasn't curious enough at the time to buy a new one to play.
Any chance you could get the memory card back and then dump the save file? You’d probably need some special tools for that, but I think that it would be worth it, especially if you also happen to still have the disk and can dump that too. You’d have provided a legally safe way for you to keep playing this game into the future. That’s one of my biggest regrets, was to not make an effort to preserve the disk or the save. I allowed my siblings to delete the data and my parents to leave the disk to rot away.
Firstly, thank you for your other monster comment! I'll respond to that later, as I need to wrap up my work day and will probably be exploring the links you shared for a bit.
I am able to get the disk and memory card and our original Game Cube if I make it back to the states or convince my parents to ship it over, or our Wii as well. The only other person who'd be interested in it would be my brother, and if my parents go through with their move, I'm guessing he would end up with it so it should be in safe hands.
I'd love to back up the memory card, but buying any specialized hardware is probably going to put that out of my reach. I love the game, but my gaming budget has become $0 as all my leisure money is going towards things that I can do with my wife and family. My brother tends to have more disposable income for things like that so I might be able to convince him to take that route if he ends up with it.
The fans doing what Nintendon’t, as usual.
Incidentally, I have been playing New Horizons since July 11... for the first time.
I know. I’m late to the party. It’s a long story, but I wasn’t able to ever buy a Switch 1. Now that I have a Switch 2, I went back to the series, since it’s my favorite video game franchise of all time, and I have literally played all the mainline games in it, extensively.
And guess what?
I still like the GCN entry above all the others in many aspects. I so wish that I could legally play it again, that Nintendo would remake it or something.
Many people feel similarly to me.
Oh this looks perfect - I had been thinking just a few months back on how "Animal Crossing GCN but with some QoL tweaks" would be my favorite game of the series. It'll be so much fun to be back to a village that really feels like it exists independently of the player, instead of catering directly towards their wants at all times.