"This game was what it was made out to be!"

Welcome to Animal Crossing! How many times have you heard that? Well I’m hear to say it again. Your reading this because you want to know why you should get this game. Well I wouldn’t exactly call it a “game”, it’s more like another life. I’ve heard from everywhere that Animal Crossing looks kiddy! Well if you people would pay attention the key word would be “looks”. This game is like no other game, this game is a one of a kind. Why, here’s why….

Gameplay - 9/10

Animal Crossing surly is a one of a kind game. You will start off in Animal Crossing with just a little house with a small table, a tape deck, and a diary. What does that do for you? Right next to nothing! Lucky you Tom Nook cuts you some slack since you move in with not even 1/20 of the price of your house. He gives you a chance to make some extra bells(Animal Crossing version of money) by letting you work in his shop part-time! He doesn’t give you much but he will help you get off your feet and pay a small portion of your debt. Then eventually Tom Nook will let you go cause he has no more work for you and then you’ll be on your own! Once your on your own there are numerous things for you to do. At first you will be doing errands and such for your neighbors. They will ask you to do things and pay you back in bells, furniture, clothes, or stationary! But don’t worry you can always sell furniture, clothes, and stationary to Mr. Nook for a decent price. You will pay your debt at the post office. You will deposit however much money you want at a time. But if you don’t pay Mr. Nook at least 1,000 bells a week then he’s going to send the law after you, and I can tell you now, it’s not going to be pretty!

You can buy furniture from Tom Nook, along with receiving it from friends! Your probably wondering what good furniture is going to do besides putting it in your house. Well you can lay on your bed, put clothes and other things in your dresser, and even play your NES games! Besides that there are certain, “series” or “sets” of furniture, such as spooky, kiddy, ranch, wrestling, and lots of others that you could try to collect. Some things don’t belong in certain sets but you will receive them on holidays and other special events just for collectors, that sell for high, but can’t be resold again so if you want it you better hold on to it! Your probably wondering how your going to get furniture. Well one way to get it is the common sense way…Tom Nook! But Tom Nook does not give a lot to choose from, besides what you see in his store will stay there all day! That can be a good thing because you may not have the money for it when you see it, so you can go earn money and then come back and buy it. It can be a bad thing because he may not have what you want so you will have to wait all the way until the next day to hopefully get something you’ll like! Another way to get it is running errands for people.

What the heck are the animals for? The animals are in the game as your neighbors, or friends. Some of the animals will not be very friendly, but then again some of them will even ask you to become best friends! Sometimes your neighbors will leave town, for certain reasons such as not enough trees, you don’t pull your weeds, or simply they don’t like you or other neighbors. They may find your town lonely or think it’s boring period. But see there are ways to run people out of town such as beating them with nets, pushing them or writing embarrassing letters to them. Then again if you really like someone and want to make sure they aren’t going to skip town then I’d advice you to keep contact with them by talking to them every time you get a chance, writing them letters which they really love(this is also the best way to make them happy), or simply help them by running errands and such for them. They always enjoy those things.

If you have a friend with this game then lucky you! Why you ask, oh let me explain! See when your friends come over and bring their memory card shove it in your cube in slot B and then fire the cube up. Go talk to the monkey at the train station(I forget his name) and he will ask you if you want to visit another town, simply say yes, and then once he reads your friends memory card, here comes the train. You will come to realize that going to your friends town is nice, but the train ride does take some time and can very easily annoy you. I know I get tired of a 3-5 minute ride every time I want to go to my friends town. Some of you may like Blanca on the train ride. If you wanna know who Blanca is then e-mail me or just buy the game and you’ll find out, but I don’t wanna spoil anyone without request. Once you arrive in your friends town all the fun starts! You can write letters to your friend and then he can write back, you can buy something for him and send it through the mail or simply bury it in his town and give him clues on where to find it. It doesn’t stop there go inside your friends house and see what kind of furniture he has. But watch out your friend may have roaches if he hasn’t been in his house for a while! The same goes for you! After you check out your friends house go visits his friends, and look at their houses! Some of them may like you so much that they even move to your town. If you visit your friends town there is an 85% chance that one of your friends will go with you and you may never see them in your town again. You can do things for your friends, friends and even write them letters or send them gifts! After you do those things in more then it will be time to head back to your town and save. Make sure you NEVER reset on another memory cards town or you will lose all your items and your face will, well do it and see!

You’ve heard a lot of things about this game that say that this game is interesting and very unique compared to other games. Well this is true, let me give you some examples! Well for instance this game runs on real time and even a real schedule so, when it’s 8:39 on October 12, 2007 in real life then it’s EXACTLY the same on the game. That makes it interesting but takes a lot of patience. When the Nook shop closes for the night there is no more selling until the next day when it opens up. The dump picks up trash at about 6:00 AM, so that means check the dump for valuables after 6:00 AM before you go to school! You said it’s December 25? Oh that means it’s Christmas and the same goes for the game! So set up your Christmas lights and go look under the tree to see what you got. That’s right you get presents on Christmas from your mom and dad, along with your pals from animal crossing! But don’t hold back on Halloween after you get done running around trick or treating or stealing little kids candy then come home and turn on your cube. Why? Because your neighbors will be running around in costumes looking for candy, MAKE SURE you have candy because if you don’t have the TREAT in “Trick or Treat” for them then you’ll get the trick. What is it? Don’t buy candy and you’ll surly find out! Those are 2 big holidays you say. OK your right! What day is your birthday? Well when your friends ask make sure to tell them so you can get your birthday cake and presents from them. Also when someone tells you something on April 1 then don’t go right ahead beliving them because they will play an April Fool’s joke on you just as fast as you will on them. Even your mom will! I find it really cool that your town and neighbors are random! So while your post office is on A-5 and your friend Bob, the cat lives on C-3 then your friend may have his post office on C-3 and his friend Camofrog living on A-5! Everything is totally random so if you have to start over, don’t expect the same face, clothes on your back, friends, or even things in the same place, because it’s not going to happen!

Graphics - 7/10

Some people may think because these graphics aren’t like Resident Evils mean that they suck. That is not true! They may not be the best but for this type of game they are in fact very good. You can see lots of actions and the people very good and they can be eye pleasing. The thing that turns everyone off is there are not many polygons moving at one time along with the not very detailed setting. I find the graphics good so don’t listen to those silly magazines, because most of them are going to say they aren’t good but that’s because they can’t enjoy a great game!

Control - 9/10

There is no problem with the controls in this game. I think that they are easy to use and easy to access. Most of your items are on your menu so you won’t be using tons of buttons for each different item. You can put things like your fishing pole, shovel, umbrella, and other tools and such with your person which is what you access with the a button. So it makes those tools easy to use. Then if you don’t feel like walking around all the time then you can run by holding either B, R, or L! But don’t run by fish or they will take a dive underwater and you’ll never see them again. I use B myself but it’s your choice! You can also pull up weeds with B. It may take you 5 minutes to master all of the buttons in writing a letter. Writing a letter can also be very time consuming, but you will get faster and faster at it, take my word for it! But don’t panic you’ll learn the controls in no time.

That about wraps it up, I’m sure your mom walked out the door with the car keys 5 minutes ago because you begged her to buy you the game, but if she didn’t then tell her now. If this game doesn’t appeal to you, then you are on of the VERY few people that it does that to. If you have $50 then head on over to Gamestop and pick up the best game out on the Gamecube to date!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/28/02, Updated 09/28/02