I think this game is a winner! You can make your own world and spend your time doing whatever you want without worrying about eating, sleeping, or getting tired – or at least your characters don’t have to. What’s more, you can have your real world friends visit your little town even when they’re on the other side of the world! Its fun, its innovative, its addicting!
When you first start out, you get asked a series of questions which determines what kind of features your character will have as well as what kind of animal neighbors you’ll have. They also ask you to name your character and the place you’ll be going to. I named my character Gigi, and my town Narnia - which I thought fit well since the animals can talk. = )
After getting your new place you have to do a part time job for a bit so you can meet all the characters and get some money, then you’re off to do whatever you please (while paying off your mortgage). The controls take a little getting used to – it took me a while to be able to control the fishing pole and cast where I wanted. -_- But after that, I had fun running around trying to sell everything I had so I could buy expensive furniture and nice clothes – just like real life! Another interesting thing is that you can send mail to your neighbors and include gifts, then when they reply, they give you gifts too. ^_^ In Animal Crossing, the invisible hand is always at work!
Your animal neighbors all have different personalities, but if you please them, they’ll be nice and give you lots of stuff. Sometimes characters even ask you to make up greetings for them or to change their sayings, so I made one of mine say, “Hail Aslan!” and another says, “Loser,” after everything (which I thought it was appropriate because he was a meanie!).
As the game progresses, you can get a bigger house, the local store renovates, and more animals move into your town. Some animals don’t move in but just stop by every so often like the fox who sells furniture and the giraffe that judges your fashion sense. There is also a cat that comes around every so often and she asks you to draw her face for her!
The only thing that really bugs me about this game is the mole that pops up if you don’t save. I’m not one of those people who don’t save when I get upset or if I don’t win, but the mole doesn’t really understand obviously. The first time he came out was kind of interesting but now it’s annoying. It’s a good feature to stop online gamers from cheating, but other than that, it is not really an advantage.
Another thing that some people said they didn’t like how the landscape is in a globe shape so that it seems like you’re walking on an orb, but I actually like that feature. It makes me feel like the boy from “A Little Prince” walking around on his tiny planet! Also, the train station that was in the game cube game isn’t there anymore, but I didn’t think it was a big deal since now there’s a portal!
If you haven’t tried this whole DS Wi-fi connection thing, you should try it! It connects to any wireless connection nearby and lets you play online! You can go to Starbucks and play! When you have visitors or go to a friend’s town you can play games and chat too. Also, each town is slightly different – I have cherries in Narnia, but my friend has peaches in Midgar. Since different fruit sell for five times more than the local fruit, I planted a bunch of peach trees to help pay for my second mortgage! =D You can also meet your friend’s neighbors and sometimes they can send you letters and presents too!
If you like games that are laid back, interactive, or just plain cute, you should definitely get your hands on this one! Maybe Aka-san will even give you his friend code if you’re nice. ^_^
