5 Things that New Horizons did better than the old games

In the grand scheme of things, I do think we gained more than we lost but, ultimately, it still feels like we lost something and, unfortunately, what we lost was definitely part of the charm of the previous games.

My personal bias is showing but I think some of those feelings could be dealt with if they brought back The Roost. Keep in mind that this is technically all just a vacation getaway package that Tom Nook sold us: Timmy and Tommy, the Dodo airlines dudes, Isabelle and even the Label sisters, they're all just employees or under contracts to Nook's vacation company. I think having The Roost into the game, where we could act as baristas and serve those employees coffees, would be pretty interesting. Maybe they stick to the counter and start talking about how they feel about this whole thing, maybe Orville and Wilbur complain about having to do so many back-and-forths on plane with a single passenger, maybe Isabelle hints at her past life when she held the noble position of aide to the mayor of a city instead of a weird secretary on this island with no government or something. Just feels like The Roost would be a good way to provide some meat and story to these characters, y'know?
 
True, lot of criticism (valid one) is something, in some aspect every product deserves. But, what I truly believe most players, including myself only want to have ACNH better and better. Despite the criticism, obviously there are more than 5 thing this game is better than predecessors.

1. Exterior - decorating, terraforming - it something finally arrived and its really good. This should be implemented and it was.



I may be wrong, but if my memory serves me well, it was possible in NL as well as NH.

3. Villagers not moving out without permission. Not so sure if it's good or bad. From player perspective it's probably nice to have favourite animals forever, but for me it looks like taking away their freedom, where final decision is mine, not theirs.

4. Inventory management has been improved, but I would personally expecting more work towards it, but agree it's much better than before.

5. Pocket inventory is bigger, true. Good decision.
I replayed New Leaf and I can say you cannot shake trees while holding the net. As for the villager moving out. I can see what you're saying but know this. It can be bad because suppose if its a villager that you really like so much but then if you don't play for so long they just leave you a letter saying that they moved out. I feel in my personal opinion that is a bad thing because would it make more sense for them to tell you that they are moving out rather than just pack their stuff and move out the moment you come back online? Besides if you had your villager move out you would be forced with a new villager randomly that could someone you don't like, which is why in New Horizons that if you have an empty plot you can go villager hunting using nook mile tickets to see which villager you would want to move in. Thats just how I see it.
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In the grand scheme of things, I do think we gained more than we lost but, ultimately, it still feels like we lost something and, unfortunately, what we lost was definitely part of the charm of the previous games.

My personal bias is showing but I think some of those feelings could be dealt with if they brought back The Roost. Keep in mind that this is technically all just a vacation getaway package that Tom Nook sold us: Timmy and Tommy, the Dodo airlines dudes, Isabelle and even the Label sisters, they're all just employees or under contracts to Nook's vacation company. I think having The Roost into the game, where we could act as baristas and serve those employees coffees, would be pretty interesting. Maybe they stick to the counter and start talking about how they feel about this whole thing, maybe Orville and Wilbur complain about having to do so many back-and-forths on plane with a single passenger, maybe Isabelle hints at her past life when she held the noble position of aide to the mayor of a city instead of a weird secretary on this island with no government or something. Just feels like The Roost would be a good way to provide some meat and story to these characters, y'know?
Again I know there is stuff missing I get it but realize that New Horizons has made stuff better than the old games. Could you imagine if they didn't change that?
 
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1. Bigger Inventory.

It's not much considering in past games we could use our letters to store 10 extra items. But this was a bit of a hassle to remember which tool was being stored in which letter, and it made checking the mail harder.

2. Shop NPCs dialogue

Shop NPCS no longer halt the game to say "Welcome" and "Goodbye" when you repeatedly visit them throughout the day. I remember complaining about this before the game released. So seeing it fixed is amazing.

The ever so unneeded, annoying prompts and dialogue still plague the game. (Please, Nintendo, fix these)

When Entering/Exiting a store:
Dialogue: Hello, welcome blah blah blah
Dialogue: Thanks, come again.

The dialogues should be replaced by emotions. Just wave to the player. Dialogues halt gameplay, and get annoying real fast when going in and out of shops frequently.


3. Hairstyle and Face.
In previous games, you had to get the face you wanted by selecting the correct dialogue options at the start. You were then forced to keep that face or reset the game.

You also had to do a little quiz to get the hairstyle you wanted, which means you had to look up guides next to a 2D image of the hair. You really had to try the hair out and quit without saving if you didn't like it. You were also limited to only 1 haircut per day, and lost the hair cut due to bed head.


4. Placing items outside.
This feature is huge and is something I've always wanted since playing my first Animal Crossing game nearly 15 years ago.


5. Villager House placements and move outs

Villagers no longer place their houses chaotically, and they now stay in your town permanently until you let them leave. New Leaf was terrible because once they were in boxes, you couldn't stop them. In games such as Wild World, you could change their mind once they were in boxes. So I'm glad this has been improved.
 
From my personal expereince, playing from wild world to New horizons, my take:

1, The setting of the game, I love the island theme. It feels organic and new. Its not repeating the city/town feel that previous installments of animal crossing has done. Since the island isn't contained to a town, you have pretty much a 360 area to use.

2, The graphics of this game looks amazing, especially for an animal crossing game. I honestly love just looking at it and seeing how far technology has come from the previous games. Smooth rendering, more details like the character moving their leg up when standing on an incline. Even the season changes look amazing, with the leaves changing or the characters wearing the appropriate clothing for the season. Just little features like that really add to the atmosphere.

3, The villagers are so alive in this game. Sure the dialogue might be very lacking which could hopefully be updated. But seeing a villager sniff flowers, sitting under a tree or hell even doing 'aeroplane mode' where they run around the island with their arms out. Just little things like that adds so much life to the game. I've never seen them so animated like that, aside from them doing emotes of being gleeful, angry or sad. (Or fishing/bug movements).

4, The crafting mechanic is a really good feature which allows the player to create their own furniture from items they've found. Like adding rocks or making wooden furniture. Plus being able to customise those items or even the ones in the nook store, just allows you to create a one of a kind furnishing.

5, Being able to move/place villagers houses, your own house or shops whenever you want is just a welcomed feature. I've never had more annoyance when villagers just moved in whenever they wanted and then bulldozed a tree or flowers that I had placed down. Meaning I had to then work around them to fill in the area they took. It just annoyed me to no end and it really made me wish the City Folk/Lets go to the city mechanic came back to rescue me from villagers moving where they want. Plus it helps if you want certain villager houses together or want an area strictly for something, without the risk of someone moving in. Something as simple as that can really help.
 
I agree with your post and glad you made it to remind everyone of all the positives! All of these things run through my mind whenever people go on about how much older games are better than this one. Personally the whole items not stacking thing in previous games I've played brought down my level of enjoyment SO much. I actually would avoid playing my game because of how irritating that was to me. It was so much more time consuming just to gather fruit. I remember the hours spent gathering fruit got cut down to like 10 minutes with new horizons. Such a huge improvement.

I also don't see this talked about much but Saharah was improved a lot in this game. I didn't like how she straight up redecorated your house with random stuff in new leaf (even if it was kind of silly how she'd go about it).

I found it way easier to earn bells in new horizons too. I've never made over a million at a time in new leaf (I remember making 40k in one day was a REALLY good day) but I've reached over 50 million in new horizons pretty easily.
 
And you didn't even have to mention terraforming and outside furniture. Remember when the trailer came out and it was the best thing ever?
 
ok, it may have been something added in v1.5. Download the update (if you want it) and see if it works after that.

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Okay so I downloaded the Welcome Amiibo Update and I can confirm that yes you can now shake trees while holding the net. It only took until 2016 for them to add that in which surprised me.
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And you didn't even have to mention terraforming and outside furniture. Remember when the trailer came out and it was the best thing ever?
Yes I know its great but that is what its known for. Of course its not perfect but it was still great being able to make your island the way you want and move buildings where ever you want. That still takes days to do unless you time travel to speed up the process.
 
anyone else remember when the most beautiful villager known to man would appear in the campsite in new leaf but you couldn't invite them because your town was already full? those were the days of mental torture
 
Lol I'm a fan of all of these except for the first one. Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I feel like not being able to use each individual dresser item like its own storage unit is not only something that makes it feel less special and immersive but also actually takes away from the storage. Near the end of NL's life, we had that update with the storage room we could access and add onto our house. It functioned pretty much the same way that the current in-house storage works, but this was on TOP of the different dressers and etc in our house. If they would let us use the dressers as genuine dressers that would make it easier to organize things and I think it'd even maybe give more storage too.
 
Lol I'm a fan of all of these except for the first one. Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I feel like not being able to use each individual dresser item like its own storage unit is not only something that makes it feel less special and immersive but also actually takes away from the storage. Near the end of NL's life, we had that update with the storage room we could access and add onto our house. It functioned pretty much the same way that the current in-house storage works, but this was on TOP of the different dressers and etc in our house. If they would let us use the dressers as genuine dressers that would make it easier to organize things and I think it'd even maybe give more storage too.
Hmm I guess if you really wanted more storage it can be its own thing so that be great if you want to store specific items and not have to go through the whole home storage it would be useful. Then again there is no way to store turnips or diys so I can see them adding a special item to do something like that.
 
I would like to add that we do not have to rely so much as to what personality villagers have on our island since pwps do not exist in this game. They were such a pain to wait for villagers to request! In addition we are not limited to the maximum of 30 pwps acnl had outdoors since we have the freedom to decorate as we please in terms of furniture outdoors now.
 
Hmm I guess if you really wanted more storage it can be its own thing so that be great if you want to store specific items and not have to go through the whole home storage it would be useful. Then again there is no way to store turnips or diys so I can see them adding a special item to do something like that.
yes I would DIE for a way to store plants or something. I was just thinking about that. I think it'd be really really great if Leif somehow gave the option or the DIY for like a greenhouse shelf sort of furniture piece that would let you store flower plants / other plants on it??? because it is the most annoying thing ever to not be able to store the plants lol. at least for me.
 
Landscaping
Terraforming really opened up a lot of possibilities making our islands unique. From outdoor decor and paths to river shapes and cliff placements... it's really great to have the sense of freedom over how you design your islands and make it truly you.

Expression
We have more customization options for the hair, skin tone, eyes. We also have a lot more reactions available. And these options seeming get more expanded in the future. We also have bigger variety of clothes. The custom designs also offer a lot more tools that makes things a lot more easier and efficient.

Control
Being able to control where to put buildings is a huge plus (Still, I wish we could move the Residential Services). I also like that we can decide whether the villagers stay or not.

QoL
While the game still lacks several QoL improvements to features like crafting, it definitely improved a lot on what the previous game had. Stacking items, moving fully-grown trees, breaking rocks. The tool ring and wands offered easier and quicker access to tools and clothes. The Nook Phone grouped everything in one place. Buying from the catalog is a lot more accessible, etc.

Storage
The massive increase in storage space is a blessing. I don't need to expand on this.
 
To add on to all those improvements:

1. The Bugs and Fish look infinitely better in NH, and the Model furniture make it worth catching multiples of them.

2. No Grass Wear - we control the paths, not our feet!

3. We can buy gardening supplies in bulk, as opposed to having only a few bags/saplings to get per day.

4. Harv's Island >>>>> Museum exhibit rooms. I used the exhibits mostly for storage.

5. The Museum looks way more awesomely designed in New Horizons.

6. Diving had the biggest upgrade. *Cringes at the Jellyfish in New Leaf* >.<

7. Better handling of certain villager requests, and the removal of the annoying ones. No more, "Fetch me a tarantula!", or "I need signatures!", or "I'd like an apple that is in the tree right next to me!"
8. The town in itself feels more unified in New Horizons. The city area felt too isolated from the rest of the town in new leaf.
9. Less AI cheese. Fish don't just nibble your rod and run away from it. Sea creatures don't just disappear out of nowhere after a certain amount of time.
10. As annoying as farming recipes from balloons can be, at least there's much more variety and meaning towards popping them than in New Leaf. The Balloon set speaks for itself, and being limited to furniture/walls kind of got old in New Leaf.
 
1. Being able to change things outside your house (placing items, moving buildings, terraforming).
2. Villagers not moving out unexpectedly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is huge because I don't need to time travel back to the last date I played to keep my dreamies.
3. Pocket space and inventory space, esp with the 2400 upgrade.
4. Inclusive skin tones and hair styles!
5. Harv's island. Okay this may not be the case for other people but I love the option of seeing what villagers look like in an outfit before giving it to them. I'm very particular about colors and tones. Like there are so many shades of black and some may clash in my eyes.
 
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