Ahh, Capitalism
Animal Crossing New Horizons is my first game in the series after Wild World which was a game that I really didn't put a lot of time into. It was cute yeah, but I like gritty things, I like Metal Gear Solid, Dark Souls and horror games and the cute outfits they have in the Able Sister's store....
Okay, so I got the game because it was cute. The game begins rather earnestly like a camping trip with cub scout leader Nook running you through the basics, teaching you how to make things and the game mechanics. Catch your first fish, strip your first forest. But over time you'll replace him as the island's (your island's) kingpin, turning it from a wild and unruly natural paradise into an idyllic capitalist's ant farm where you can interact with the ants.
Everyone knows that money makes the world go round and it does in Animal Crossing too, you sell things to Tom Nook and his minions for money you use to buy things and upgrade the island. This time around the island management and designing is very much what I like the most, changing waterways, cliffs, slathering terra cotta tiles onto the floor and planting trees, various bushes and flowers. Placing outdoor seats for my villagers to ignore... it's beautiful. A true paradise. It feels a little limited but you can still go a long way with what you have at your disposal. Then there's items, a frankly daunting number of items in the game, sofa's, chairs, beds, clocks, tv's, ovens for cooking, radio's, musical instruments... the list goes on forever and whilst a great majority of them are just for show the ones that do work are magical. The only thing better than items you can interact with is seeing your villagers interact with them, it's precious.
Paying for all these extravagant things requires you to sell things you collect, from seashells, to fish, bugs, fossils you dig up, furniture and clothes you don't want... again, the list goes on. But you'll always find that unless you catch bugs all day you'll run out of things on your island to sell after a while and you can either turn the game off and wait for them to refresh the next real-life day or, thanks to the nook miles program, do some chores to gain nook miles and then use them to go to another island and strip that clean too. Crafting, of course, requires materials and these islands are pretty much gold mines of resources. Decorating my home and littering the island with things I bought is an intrinsic reward, I just like doing it, it looks great! But paying for these things is the real gameplay.
Wild World was a rather simple game that (from my perspective) seemed to be based around interactions with the villagers and besides hitting Bud with a net, I don't recall any of them standing out to me. This was immediately rectified in New Horizons with me getting Buck who was my favourite villager and Plucky whom I strongly disliked. And it's the bonds you form with your villagers that really make the game worth playing for me, I've seen sadness in videogames but no words can describe the amount of emotional pain I felt when I accidentally gave Buck a gift he gave me, seeing those words pop up on screen "hmm this is familiar" made me feel like I'd betrayed a nation or kicked a puppy, what was worse was he accepted it! They're videogame characters, lines of code with fluffy exteriors and a pleasant design, AND I LOVE THEM. I once stopped playing for a few months in December of last year and was afraid to return in case I hurt their feelings. I buy them outfits and say hi whenever I see them, I spend my time giving them furniture and decorating the area around their houses to reflect their personalities, Buck is a Jock and I put a punching bag and a pull up stand outside his house and he's never used them but I don't care.
But it's little things like that, that ruin the immersion. Carmen, one of my favourite villagers came round my house one time, didn't interact with anything and just sat on the floor eating an apple and then read a book. All the cool things in my house and she just sat there. I chatted to her a few times and she played the card game with me they all play, which again reminds you of the narrow choice of dialog there is for characters. It's kind of surprising that Nintendo has really gone out of the way to make so many different villagers, (413!) but made so many of them... the same. There's personality types and characters of the same personality type are basically all the same. On my island there's two "popstars", Carmen and Ketchup and besides appearance, they both say the same things, send me the same letters and react the same way to things and it's... disappointing. It would have been better to have more unique and interactive dialog with less villagers than a wider selection of essentially the same thing. I love Buck, but on the island is also Jay, who's a Jock too and besides the little nuances like Buck calling me "pardner" and Jay saying "heyyyy" a lot, they are the same. It breaks my heart to admit it.
It's so good but still far from perfect, I'd always list this as one of my desert island games, but I think living in this artificial community would get to me after a while. I still go back into my village to see what's on sale at Nook's Cranny and the clothes shop, sell some fossils and visit Buck and Carmen but I feel it could be much better. I want the villager interactions to be better, I get invited around my villagers' houses and it's always a bit awkward since there's nothing much to do but pester them, Nintendo seems to want to make it feel like the villagers are your friends but the limitations put on them makes their personalities feel shallow, there's not enough interactivity to make visiting their house worth doing. Besides chatting to them and playing the card game again there's nothing to do there. It's a sad reality that eventually you'll have just heard everything they have to say, the illusion of a community is just that, an illusion.
Despite this, Animal Crossing is an incredibly endearing game, it's gameplay is addictive and keeps me coming back day after day to buy new things and continually work on my island like a gardener tending to the weeds, (which I do in the game too). Despite its limitations I was still enthralled when Buck visited my house and sat in my desk chair and read a book on lifting, which was portrayed by a picture of some weights and the up symbol. But in the back of my mind, I know it can't last forever.
