Animal Crossing: Part 4 - Welcome To New Leaf City!

Hi All!
This week's entry I'm going to be talking about Animal Crossing: New Leaf City.

Now as you already know I am a big fan of this series! This is the latest game in the series and in my opinion the best. It has all sorts of new features and visually new things so let's get into it!

The beginning of this game is just like any other. You are asked a bunch of questions, arrive in town, but wait- you're the mayor! A cool and interesting new way to play is you control the fate of your town. You character is given duties that involve keeping the town beautiful, adding new buildings and decorations to your town (which...I mean... thank god), and hosting major holidays. The whole town is your oyster!

Another great aspect that I love is the dream suite. The Dream Suite allows you to venture to another persons town in your dreams - therefore you can't muck up anything. This feature is useful because if your friend wants you to see something of there's (ie: the way their house is set up, a new project, or a special flower/fruit) you can go view it while they aren't playing. The Dream Suite is also useful in that you can get ideas, see strangers towns without having to be their friend (the Dream Suite uses a "Dream Code" that is still specific to a town but makes the player anonymous).

Something interesting that's come out of the Dream Suite are these "Horror Towns". I started reading about them a couple of weeks ago and it's really interesting. It started in Japan as just a way to set up your town so that it's spooky. Usually the bulletin board will have some message or story about what happened and then you get to explore the town and see scenes from whatever horrible story it is. I ventured into a couple (I'm very prone to being spooked..) thinking, oh how scary could they really be? TURNS OUT PRETTY SCARY! I mean, I never jumped or anything, but I definitely on more than one occasion walked into a room in one of the houses and went, NOPE. Also, you can make your character have a greeting and I ran into a lot that were something like, "I was just so lonely..." and in the Dream Suite the voices of people kind of echo and sound very eery. Overall this is a really really cool idea that people have adopted in their towns and I urge you to check it out. 

The animation in this game does change a tiny bit. Your character's body is a little longer now, which doesn't seem very important but after being so short and squat for all these years it's definitely refreshing. Nintendo is very much of the mindset that if it's not broken don't fix it, well Animal Crossing is definitely one of those titles where you see that. Minor changes are expected and the look of the game is so great that there's no reason for them to have to change much. I think that mentality hurts and helps Nintendo.. but I digress. 

This game is great because it's suitable for all ages (as were the last 3) and I wouldn't say it improves the series necessarily but it's definitely the best game out of them. The game has morphed little by little through each game and I love how it turned out. I play this game religiously and definitely addicting. 

If you haven't tried this game yet- do it. It's totally worth your money and has given me just about a year of enjoyment. 

Look out for next week's post where I talk about WOMEN IN VIDEO GAMES!

And don't forget to subscribe and leave comments below. 

Animal Crossing: Continued - It's a Wild World After All!

Hello again! Thanks for stopping by again! 

This week I am going to be covering the second game in the Animal Crossing Series! 

Animal Crossing: Wild World

If you haven't read my post from last week concerning the first game to this series, don't worry! This game isn't one for spoilers. I would like to start off by reiterating that I love love love this game series. As mentioned last week - my two best friends and I all got tattoos to memorialize this game. 

So let's begin! 

This game was just what I needed. The Nintendo DS is one of my favorite consoles. My grandparents bought it for me for my birthday the year it came out and I was hooked again! I thought - how could this game get any better - what's the purpose of making a new one? 

In a world so simple and perfect the idea of change almost made me hesitate. I was mistaken though. 

This game exceeded all my expectations on how great this game could be. The quadrant feature was abandoned for a smoother and rounder world. This made the game a little less clunky. Also, the game opened up a multiplayer feature where the former police officers are now gate keepers - allowing and forbidding people to visit your town. This was AWESOME TO ME! I was in high school when this game came out and so naturally all my friends got it and we all chopped down each other's trees, smacked each other with nets, and barracaded you in a circle of holes. 

The adventure had opened up into an experience you can enjoy with friends - LIVE! I should note that in the first game you could also visit other towns but it was only by having a memory card with another village on it and you couldn't interact with other players. So the appeal in this is obvious. Finally this game is perfect. 

Now admittedly because the Nintendo DS still had work to do on graphics and stuff - looking back the game was visually "okay". The characters were difficultly rounded out, somewhat pixelated, and a little unclear. But that opinion is from someone who has been playing on a 3ds XL for a year or so. At the time- the graphics were great and I loved this game. 

Another cool function was that you could all live in the same house! This idea was disasterous for my sisters and I considering our age difference and commitment to the game. I was deeply invested in getting a perfect HHA score while my sisters didn't care and threw anything in their rooms. Eventually when they became disinterested with the game I was able to focus on decorating. I think there is a feature where you can move into your own separate house but I'm not entirely sure and looking it up wasn't much help... 

Overall, this game was a huge improvement in a surprising way. You'd think that the game was great the way it was and a lot of things that changed weren't necessarily a nuissance before so I didn't think to complain. 

Look out for next week's coverage of Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Wii! 

Thanks for reading and leave your comments below!