Editorial

The Game I Play For a Year

May 27, 2020

Ever since I saw my former roommate play Animal Crossing on the Game Cube, I have been a huge fan of Animal Crossing. I first got a memory card so I could play it on his Game Cube. Then I bought my own Game Cube just for Animal Crossing. Since then I bought Nintendo consoles just for Animal Crossing. I played that game on the Game Cube, the Nintendo DS, and the Switch. I did play the iPhone version, although I already had an iPhone.

I love the fact that it's slow paced, that you don't really win, that it has no violence, and that you customize your own world. In the Game Cube and DS version is was more your house than anything else, since pretty much the only thing you do outside is plant trees.

The Switch version, on the other hand, gives you a lot more control about your environment than any other previous version. You can finally place objects outside your house and determine the location of every single building in your town (your island, in this case). Plus you have way more objects that before. Furthermore, you can craft and customize some objects. That was something brought from the iOS and Android versions. It added depth to the game. You can terraform your environment too, and create rivers, lakes, and hills.

I already realized that furniture sets can come in several different colors, and you cannot customize them (or change the colors) after you get them. You can only customize objects you can craft. What I didn't realize until today is that the furniture sets you buy at your store are all the same color. For example, the Cute furniture I get is pink. The Rattan furniture I get is brown. The Antique furniture I get is gold. And the Diner furniture I get is yellow. That means over time I can collect an entire set of the same color. If I want I can exchange furniture with other players in order to get different colors.

I have always been able to collect all the fossils, fish, and artwork in the game, although I wasn't able to collect all the bugs. That's alright. There is no right or wrong way to play this game. I play it to relax and to create "a world of peace".

While I liked the fact that you could set the location and move every building, I had to suspend my belief in order to accept the fact that fellow villagers were so eager to let you move their house to where you wanted it. I chose to believe that the animals don't really have free will, no goals, and are just happy to live their lives the way you set it for them. No matter what I do and what I build on the island, they are happy.

Since things happen on real time in this game (it is night on the game when it is night on real life, it's winter on the game when it's winter on real life, and so on), I always ended up playing all of the Animal Crossings for at least a year. That way I could see all the seasons and events. After a year went by and events started to repeat, I lost interest, and only came back to the game from time to time. Still, that's the only game I have ever played for a year. I definitely get my money's worth in every Animal Crossing.

On my opinion, the Switch version is by far the best because of all the options you have which you didn't have in previous versions. The only detail which was better on the Game Cube version was that "angry" villagers insulted you when you didn't do what they wanted. Nintendo toned it down in further versions of the game. It want's bad, they just called you things like "stupid". It first shocked me to see these things in a children's game and then I got used to it and found it funny.

It should not surprise you to hear that I like Animal Crossing way more than every single other Nintendo franchise combined.

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