What a journey. This review was first teased back in June of 2018, so this one has been 10 months or forty-nine other game reviews in the making! I won't say I played this game constantly since that time, but I've definitely been regularly working on it to the point that I can say that I've beaten this unbeatable game.
Frankly, this is one of the hardest reviews I've ever had to do, but that is what makes Animal Crossing such a unique gaming experience. Animal Crossing is what you make it, and that's what makes it special. You begin the game as a nameless and hideous person, on your way to a new town. You are immediately accosted upon departure by Tom Nook, the local shopkeeper who sets you up in a house, in exchange for a mortgage (you have no choice in the matter). You then need to do a bunch of little missions with him, and from that point on, you're free to do as you please! Possible activities include starting a bug farming enterprise, a fishing business, wandering the landscape as a vagrant, performing tasks for your fellow villagers, composing music, attempting to win a house decorating contest, winning a fishing contest, participating in the town's fitness celebration day, observing any manner of holidays...basically anything you could want.
Because of the in-game clock, the world seems real. It advances in real time while you're away, and was the first to popularize a mechanic popularized in mobile games in this century known as fear of missing out. What if the fishing contest is tomorrow? What if the guy from another country who sells rare furniture shows up? What if it's raining and I have a chance of catching that really rare fish? What if my town gets overrun by weeds? What if a villager buries an NES game, and my stupid brother digs it up before I can get to it? But the consequences are ultimately fairly low if you skip a few days, so Animal Crossing definitely tries to get you to want to come back, rather than feeling like a miserable failure if you miss, like if you break your login streak in Candy Crush Saga. It's a fun kind of slavery!
So how did I play the game? Speaking of Nook, you're talking about a fiendish raccoon that's in the pantheon of greatest video game villains of all time, along with my Kefka, The Illusive Man, Sephiroth, Bowser, and Ganon. His tale is the classic tale of the slumlord ushering the immigrant to their new home upon leaving the ship. Thinking that they're going to America, where the streets are paved with gold, and finding instead a dump at extraordinary prices, our poor villagers have found themselves awash in a sea of debt, hopeless flailing to keep their heads above water. But. I. Beat. Him. My eternal quest was to finally get to the point in the game that I was able to pay off all of my debt, living in my extravagant mansion alone, laughing through my lonely tears that Tom Nook no longer controlled my destiny in a sterile, weedless wasteland of my own making. How did I do all of this? I found several fossils each day (your island is a potent archaeological site) and fished. Oh boy, did I fish. I fished and fossiled my way to the 1,413,600 bells to pay off the savage Shylock ensconced in his shop for eternity, apparently. I did this by setting a personal goal of farming 30,000 bells a day, which took roughly 45 minutes every day (I did not do this every day, and sometimes I played at other tasks beyond simply farming bells). Using this metric, I had to perform this duty more than 47 days at this rate, which I did not always accomplish. The bulk of my earnings came from a fish called a Red Snapper, which fetches 3000 bells per fish. Measuring my herculean task this way shows that I needed to catch roughly 471 Red Snapper to pay off my debts, and while I certainly made up some of the money through fossils, the occasional and rare Barred Knifejaw (5000 bells!), fruits, buried bags of 1000 bells (why?), and bugs, I'd estimate I caught at least 300 of the Red Snapper devils. Sure, you pull up about 5 Sea Bass at a measly 120 bells (see, bass?) for every Red Snapper, but I can stand on the other side saying it was worth it. Because I set a goal, and achieved it. And they also built a statue of me for knocking Tom Nook off his ungodly throne, much like George Bailey did to Mr. Potter.
All of this is to say that you write your own story, and that's the charm. My kids love to just go fishing, and don't every pay off their debts, comfortable with their lack of equity in their home. My wife prefers to write little ditties in the game, and to decorate her house in a cute fashion. I think there's something to do for everyone in this game, if you have the creativity to manage it. But it's also a blank slate, and really won't give you more than you bring in to it, establishing why it's so difficult to review.
Graphically speaking, I don't really care for it. It's kind of cute, but also hideous.
The music is soothing and relaxing, and the different variations on the theme for time of day and season will creep into my brain without warning.
There are a bunch of NES games that you can get in the game, but after playing for hours and hours, the only ones I could find were Excitebike and Donkey Kong Jr. Math. Ick, and icker. But you can get titles as wonderful as Punch-Out, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Balloon Fight, and I'm sure that if I gamed the system and just set the date and time for the fishing contest every day, I'd have a complete set in no time.
I enjoyed my time in my little island, and also see just how much better this game would be in the internet era. Visiting other people's island's by bringing your memory card over to someone else' house is cool, but the internet would have made it way better. The in-game clock is easily manipulated by those weaker of character than I, and having a stable clock would enable community-based events more easily.
I don't usually care for games like this. The Sims is the pits. But this feels a bit more like Harvest Moon, which I do enjoy and think of as a bit of a forerunner to this game. But it should be noted that not only have I never played another Animal Crossing game, I don't even own one. Part of this is that these games rarely show up on the secondary marketplace for reasonable prices. People who buy Animal Crossing know what they're getting, and don't want to give up their hard-fought communities.
All of this is to say that Animal Crossing is simultaneously a game that is for everyone, and not for everyone. I think if you're willing to give it a chance, anyone can find something fun to do in this wild and wonderful world. But the hook takes time, and I think more impatient modern gamers, or more objective-focused classic gamers, may find it difficult to sink the time in here that you need to make this game your own. I'll give it a 9.0/10.
I have not cleared out a home console game since February, largely since I've been very busy at home, been keeping my word to complete this game, and also been replaying some old favorites. But I'm in the midst of a playthrough that finds me confused, and not exactly sure how my final review will pan out. I'd guess I'll probably be wrapping that one up in the next two weeks or so, and will also be continuing to make a lot of progress on handheld stuff, which has been the bulk of my work thus far this year. Below is a teaser for what's coming next...
-TRO
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