Digital Entertainment NewsNews and reviews from the perspective of the average gamer.

Subscribe to DigNews

Animal Crossing

There are people who won’t like Animal Crossing. People who can’t get past the game’s childish theme and archaic graphics, don’t like open-ended games with no actual ending, or need action in their games- these people may want to steer clear of Animal Crossing. But everyone else is gonna’ frickin’ love it.

Animal Crossing is very difficult to accurately describe, so I’ll start with what’s obvious. The first thing people will notice is the graphics. They’re clean and have a good framerate, and those are the only good things I can say for them. Animal Crossing began its life as an N64 title, and even the Gamecube version released now would have been seen as a graphically terrible first-year N64 title. It really is that bad.

The characters are mostly blocky, extremely low-poly depictions of barnyard animals. Textures are terribly fuzzy, environments are simple, and although environmental effects like rain and changing light conditions are a nice touch, they’re nothing we haven’t seen before. Top it all off with a very childish and cartoony look and Animal Crossing is bar none the most graphically unimpressive GameCube game released.

The sound is unimpressive as well. While not archaic like the graphics, everything is minimalist and simple. Animals talk in distorted English, pronouncing the sounds of the letters in the words they speak at a fast speed that ends up sounding like gibberish. Sound effects are mostly just there, and the music is good but nothing incredible.

Did all of that scare you away? I hope not, because there’s something new and refreshing buried underneath the layers of ancient dust. Animal Crossing marks the full emergence of a genre that’s seen small strides through numerous games in the past years- simulated life. Now I’m not talking about AI or anything like that, but rather a game whose sole purpose is to let the player lead a life in a game world, living from day to day.

The game starts you out on a train ride to your new home. A conversation on the train lets you set up the basics- the your name, your gender, the name of the town, and so on. When you arrive, the local shopkeeper, Tom Nook, lets you pick out a house, and as you’re unable to afford it, you start the game with a seemingly astronomical debt.

To start you paying off your debt, Tom Nook has you run a few errands for him, which is essentially a way to teach you the basics of the game. After this, you’re free to do basically whatever you want, and pay the debt off at your discretion. This is where the game really begins.

There are countless ways you can spend your time in the game. In addition to paying off the debt for your house, you have an incredible amount of freedom to decorate it however you want, fill it with whatever you see fit, and later expand it to fit even more stuff.

Right now, my house is huge- it has a basement, and is filled with all sorts of little musical creatures that warble and croak to the song I chose for my house’s background music. There are themed sets (A blue set, a Halloween set, a nature set, etc.) and functional items as well, like the much-publicized inclusion of working NES games you can play like classics such as Excitebike, Donkey Kong, Tennis and the like.

Of course, everything is collectable, so you’re always searching for the next perfect chair to add to your collection, or the wallpaper that compliments your carpet. If any of this decorating stuff sounds stupid to you, you need to remember it’s been done before in The Sims, one of the best-selling games ever created.

If that’s not your bag, you can go out and talk to the town’s residents. Each has their own unique character traits, like different wandering habits, sleeping habits, and personalities. You can do favors for them (Most of which are basically just fetch quests requiring you to retrieve something from someone else), catch up on current events, occasionally teach them a new catchphrase… You can correspond with them too, mailing letters to which they’ll respond, exchanging gifts, building friendships, among other things.

You can go fishing, plant trees, dig for fossils, catch bugs, play your videogames, design clothes, check the dump and lost and found for anything of value, donate rare specimens to the local museum… all activities that can swallow up a great deal of time, and each with its own little intricacies, schedules, and hidden features just waiting to be discovered.

Things get an even greater depth with the implimentation of time. Time in Animal Crossing runs parallel to that in real life, thanks to the Gamecube’s internal clock. If it’s 7:45 AM in real life, it’ll be 7:45 AM in the game. If it’s April 23rd in real life, it’ll be April 23rd in the game. Time of day and seasons change appropriately, and everything in the game reflects this, with different fish and insects at different times of day and year, and changing weather conditions affecting the town’s daily activities.

It goes farther though, because your town’s calendar has special events happening all year. Just in the past two weeks, my town has celebrated a Sports Festival and the Harvest Moon, and had a carpet-merchant, a fashion designer and fortune-teller come for a visit. In a few months when Halloween runs around, the animals in my town will be celebrating it just as we are.

The game is set up in such a way that events happen and the town evolves even when you’re not there. Coming to play the game after a month of absence might find that your town has completely changed, with new residents moved in and old ones moved away, old trees now dead and young ones fully grown, and everyone wondering just where you’ve been all this time.

The game gets even deeper when other people get involved. Up to four people can play the game within the same town (Though not all at once), and with their actions affecting the town just as yours do, you’ll find changes they’ve made coming into effect while you’re playing. It could be one of the animals swooning over a present they’ve sent, a tree you planted cut down, or you can even trade letters and items directly with them.

In addition, people playing the game separately can exchange memory cards to visit each other’s unique towns, where they’ll find items completely foreign and unavailable in their town, as well as interact with an entirely different community. Later on, those animals you met may decide they got attached to you during your visit, and move out of your friend’s town and into yours at the same time (Using the GameCube’s internal clock to synchronize the move, despite it happening across two different systems).

Finally, this is the first GameCube game to really make extensive use of the GameCube/Game Boy Advance connection, letting you use the GBA to call a boat to take you to a tropical island, create clothing patterns, and of course, there’s the game’s interaction with the GBA’s new e-Reader. For now, it just lets you temporarily bring your NES games to the Game Boy, and also allows you to interact with a series of Animal Crossing e-Reader cards that you can scan to bring new designs, furniture, music and other stuff into the game (By this point, four different sets have been released).

All in all, this game is probably one of the most unique and innovative title to ever get released in America, and there’s sooooo much to do. By it’s very design, it’s intended to be played by whatever style the player sees fit, for whatever duration, and over long periods of time, too. You’ll want to see what your town’s doing for Thanksgiving, for Christmas, for New Years…

[ Post the first comment | View related posts ]

Tags: Animal Crossing

Posted by Jake McNeill on Jul 31st, 2003 and is filed under Game Cube Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.

Enter your email address:

Related Posts

• Animal Crossing
• Animal Crossing

Post a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.