"So... what is so great about this game again?"

Introduction

You're going to buy Animal Crossing. I guarantee it. Most people who have owned a Gamecube have at one point or another. Either that or Animal Crossing: Wild World, which I feel is a very similar game, with some touch-screen features, but I digress. You're going to buy this game, and you're going to have fun. Most likely a lot of it. Then you'll tear your eyes away from the screen and go to sleep. Then, you'll do the same thing for about a week, and then go back to the game and think- "hey, what's so great about this game again?" Sure, the game sounds innovative, and it is, but as we'll see, the innovation ends up making the game flawed as hell.

Storyline

So, the game opens with you meeting a cat named Rover. Rover is a VERY annoying (You'll see what I mean) blue cat. He asks you various questions, such as your gender, and you answer with a stereotype to determine your gender. If you think your name is "cool", you must be a boy, and if you think it's "cute", you must be a girl. WOW! Ok Nintendo, let's not offend people before we've even started playing the game, alright? Anyhow, if for some reason you picked the wrong gender, perhaps thinking that Nintendo couldn't be THAT sexist, you end up having to correct yourself and having the cat laugh at you. The cat will laugh at you thoroughout the train ride, and most likely you're going to dislike him instantly. For some reason you are going to move to a town, yet don't have any money to buy a house! Wow, that's some grade-A planning right there. You then reach the town (that you named during the train ride.), and you finally depart from Rover. Most likely you're just going to have to disregard this intro, believing that the game will get much better than that.


You then go and find a house you like, only for the realization that you don't have enough money to buy it, and therefore are in debt to Tom Nook, the raccoon store owner. (Yes, there is only ONE store in the entire town. The strangest thing is that people in the town do complain about it a few times, yet never set up any competition. The game could have been more interesting if there had been some competition between a newly-set up shop and Nook's store, but moving along...) Nook has you work for him in order to pay off the debt, and end up doing chores around the town. (planting flowers, delivering goods, ext.). These can often be tedious, but they keep your attention. So, once Tom Nook runs out of things he needs for you to do, you're on your own to pay off the rest of the debt. Let's say you completely pay it off. Then what? Tom Nook upgrades your house, and puts you in even more debt! WHAT FUN! So you get to pay off the debt again, until you've gotten all the upgrades, or stopped playing. That's, pretty much it as far as plot goes. The game really is based on you interacting with other animals and going through life, and we'll discuss that in our next section, Gameplay. Things just get more painful from here on out.

Gameplay

So to begin with, there is much less character variety than was let on by other players and the developers of the game. It's true that there's over 150 different characters to play with, however they all have a copy of a base personality, that shall determine how the two characters interact. The problem is that there are maybe 5-10 of these, so eventually it just feels like you're interacting with the same animals wearing different costumes. It get's dull conversing with them after a while, and that's the main problem with Animal Crossing- boredom. But we'll get back to that. Anyway, there are a couple of different things that you can do while chatting with these pieces of program. You can talk with them, which, like I said, just get's boring because you hear the same personalities say the same things after a while. To make matters worse, really the only thing that's different when it comes what the programs actually say, is the way the text is worded. Let's say you get stung by bees. Some animals will say "Hey! That sting doesn't look good." Others will say, "Hey! That sting looks bad." No real difference is there? Sometimes by talking to them though, they will give you items, often things you don't even want or need, and will end up either selling or collecting dust in your inventory. So what's the point really? You may get lucky and get something you want, most of the time you won't. You can also do favors for these animals, which can involve building things, giving them things, or delievering things. That's basically it. You'll give different things and transfer different things, and get different rewards, but it's going to end up being the same thing over and over again. That's the problem with this game. There's no variety here.

What about the actual conversations? Well, at first the animals will tell you about things you could learn from the instruction manual or just PLAYING THE GAME. For example "If you shake a tree, fruit will fall out!", however as you'll play the conversations will change, and will end up keeping saying the same things over and over. Just imagine talking to somebody and hearing "What time is it?" Over and over again. The conversations will continue to repeat, until you've talked to the characters too much, and they refuse to speak to you again for a lengthy period of time. It doesn't matter the personality type, either. Thanks Nintendo!

Another way to interact with your neighbors is to send letters to them. You can use different types of paper, but it doesn't seem to matter what type of paper you use. There are two ways they'll respond to the letter. Either they'll respond positively or negatively, and the way this is determined is by a spell-checker. Yet, the dictionary is so small and nit-picky that you're going to end up having to use simplistic vocabulary to get your message through. For instance "Hey, I am thrilled to have you be a resident in this town.", it may very well get a negative response. If you put "Hey. I'm glad you're here." It's more likely to be a positive reaction. In addition, punctuation can mess up the spell-checking system as well. If you add an mark where the spell-checker thinks it's not supposed to be, then it'll mark you down. This is especially frusterating if the punctuation mark makes sense, and you'll have to use unnatural dialogue in order to get positive responses from your neighbors. In addition, you can send gifts with your letter, but although they often whine at you to send them, they'll never really care enough to send one back to you.


Another feature in this game is that it runs in real-time. If it's 5:03 in your Gamecube clock, it's going to be 5:03 PM in the game. This sounds awesome, but the problem is that the game goes on, even when you aren't playing it. So you will often miss special events or holidays, simply because of life. You aren't going to be able to get on there every day, and so you're going to miss things, which is very frusterating at points, especially if you wanted a specific item. In addition, if you live a busy life, for example have a job that causes you to not get home until 11:00 PM, everybody will be asleep, and you won't really be able to do anything. Oh well, there's always shaking trees.



You think that what I've said so far is bad? This is just the tip of the iceberg. Consider that for a second. It just get WORSE from here.


You can fish to try and catch.. fish. Well? How does that work? You basicially just sit there, press a couple buttons to throw out your lure, and then wait. Sometimes a fish will run up to it, and you'll catch it, however often you'll miss and have to continue to wait. Even more boring than just regular fishing. Digging is the same sort of thing. You walk around until you find certain spots in the dirt, and then dig. Sometimes it will be money, an item, or something called a "Gyroid", which can be put in your pad to dance, or can just sell them for more money.

The main appeal of the game that I haven't touched on yet is collecting. You can collect various things, shirts, furnature, fish, ext. Then display them in your home. If you're big on collecting, it'll keep you entertained, but not for too long. Afterall, you'll get everything you want within 2 weeks, and after that it'll just become a chore. There are certain items that are only accessible during holidays, and if you miss them due to a busy schedule, (because as I already said, the game doesn't care if you are playing or not), you either have to cheat, or wait a whole year to get the item.

Oh, and the game loves to just have to waste time when there's nothing interesting to do. One activity is that a musician called K.K. Slider will appear in your town every Saturday, and play a song for you. You'll then get to play the song on your radio. The problem is that all you get is to hear the song and watch the credits, and your character dance. After 2-5 times, it just becomes irratating to watch the same thing over and over agian, even with a different theme song. Saving takes a long time too, and if you don't save, you get to spend 5-15 minutes listening to a mole called Mr. Resetti chatter about how much you need to save. It's fun to listen to him rant the first couple times, but after that it's just a waste of time. (Like reading my review!). It's pretty glichy too. If save, move in a certain direction and turn it off, the game will think you reset. Blargh. Just a waste of time.

Anyway, the gameplay, the heart of the game is broken, as I've clearly proven. But what about other aspects? It's flawed as hell.

Graphics

The graphics are... bad. The graphics are simple colored shapes, with very little detail. There are some minor additions that keep it from being below-average for a Nintendo 64 game, but it doesn't keep the graphics from being mediocre. For instance, you can get a tan. These minor details don't keep the graphics from seeming simplistic and kiddy, but it doesn't really matter anyway. The graphics don't make this game, but they don't really kill it either. They end up just blending in.

Sound
There is musical variety, a song every hour, but it's all so plain and forgetful that it doesn't particularly matter. The sound effects are pretty plain and boring. The door creaks if you open it, you'll hear footsteps, but you won't really hear them if you don't pay attention. The voice acting on the other hand is horrible. If you choose to give them voices (by using the "animalese" option), you'll see that there are 3 different voices and they are all horrible.

Conclusion

This game could have been good. Being a life-sim doesn't mean that the game HAS to be boring. The fact is that Nintendo seemed to just not put in the effort they should have, and the game suffers because of it. There's innovation, but it ends up backfiring, the rest of the gameplay is just meh, and the sound and graphics are utterly forgetable. Why do people like this game so much? Why is it hyped by the masses? Why does it deserve both a game on the DS and one on the Wii? WHY?

STORY- 3/10
GAMEPLAY- 4/10
SOUND- 5/10
GRAPHICS- 4/10

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 12/25/07

Game Release: Animal Crossing (US, 09/15/02)