City Folk in 2020 - How is it in retrospect?

[Belle T]

About four or so months ago, I bought a good handful of games at a yard sale. Once I got home, I pretty much immediately shelved them and haven't gotten around to playing them since. As New Horizons was ever slowly approaching release and hype was building up, I kept thinking "Oh, I want to play Animal Crossing so badly!" At the time, I didn't have New Leaf, so my only real choice was Pocket Camp. And I'm "decently" enjoying that. But I knew it was just a really bare bones, stripped down version of the real games, and even that's being a bit generous. If only I had looked on my shelf, where I keep all my games. Fast forward to today, I now have Pocket Camp, the GameCube game, and New Leaf. I'm doing some routine house cleaning when suddenly I spy on my game shelf... an almost "like new" copy of Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Nintendo Wii.

And in great disbelief, I smack myself on the forehead, realizing what an incredible dunderhead I am. All this time, I had a copy of City Folk and I was not even remotely aware of it.

In all seriousness, it's probably good that I didn't play it first, because I've heard it's a pretty bad introduction to the series and was just kind of bad in general. But before I dismiss it entirely, I thought I'd ask you guys' thoughts on it. Is it as bad as I've been told it was? Has it aged better? Worse? Are there any tips and tricks that make the game more bearable or even fun than it was over a decade ago? Any thoughts you might have before I dive into it would be appreciated!

Also, as I'm still a newcomer to this series, please kindly speak under the assumption that I was born yesterday, and thus won't be familiar with any fandom specific terminology or extremely or obscure esoteric gameplay elements. Thank you!

 

[frenchip]

City Folk was my first introduction to the Animal Crossing series back in 2008, and I very much enjoyed it. Sure, it may not have as many features as previous and future games, but I feel like it generally still shows what the whole series is about; making friends with villagers, decorating your house, and being apart of a community.

I've never played the GameCube version or New Leaf, so I can't say how it ranks between those two games. However, I still think City Folk is a pretty good game, though the controls can take a lot of getting used to (having a nun chuck attached to the Wii remote will be very helpful). The game also has the city, which is always a fun journey.

 

[pochy]

city folk is a huge hit or miss. the first time i played it was at my grandparent's house when i was 8, and i was totally clueless on how to play it. all i did was run through the town, shake trees and eat fruit lol. (this was before i was gifted my first copy of acww) i'm not even sure i was aware i could travel to the city by bus? the game felt kind of pointless to me, and i think that's how new players who haven't played other animal crossing entries would feel the same way about it, too.

i don't think it has enough to distinguish it from previous entries- even the city feels sort of empty and pointless, even though it's supposed to be the main selling point. animal crossing fans would play it and enjoy it though, because it's animal crossing. new fans who only played acnl or acnh might be interested, but i don't think they'd enjoy it too much because it's just kind of boring compared to newer games. but it's still fun to play. i do really like how the villages are structured, with the natural slopes and inclines, i think it makes the layout more interesting. you should try it out!

 

[Belle T]

Yeah, one of the main complaints I've heard is that even if you're able to overlook most of its faults, it really doesn't do anything new, so it's hard to justify buying and spending too much time on if you have any previous entries.

 

[pochy]

yeah... it's really only a game to play if you're really bored and have no other games xD

 

[MapleSilver]

I'm actually really enjoying City Folk in this current decade. I basically stopped playing it once New Leaf released so now it actually feels fresh again. Maybe part of that is nostalgia, but I think it still holds up today.

 

[Introspective Onlooker]

City Folk isn't a bad game. What holds it back, though, is that the game is barely distinguishable from what came before, and I could make the case for the written dialogue being neutered, but the truth is that the dialogue system, itself, is busted. Dialogue options for the player don't show up unless it involves a favor, an event, or Saharah visiting the town. This also means villagers aren't able to diverge into different topics, meaning if a villager tells you something, and you talk to that same villager again, they'll give out a few lines of dialogue on that topic, but that's it. You can't make them talk about anything else unless you stop talking to them for a bit. It's a bit hard to explain, but hopefully, I'm not the only person who sees this as an issue, because it wasn't in any of the other games.

I also hate how irritating the Valley Girl speech is for Peppy Villagers in this game. The localization takes it way too far by constantly having them add and end their sentences with "or whatever"/"and stuff". The frequency in how often they used the word "like" is taken to ridiculous degrees, as well. I know Peppies had this before, but it's so much more forced and unnatural in this game.

While I'm glad a lot of the holidays in the first game returned, some of them lost their charm here. Turkey Day just isn't as lively because Tortimer is the only one standing outside the Town Hall with food and drink on the table. Previously, we had villagers sitting on the table, laughing and eating! How could they not add this detail in? And as for Halloween: since villagers moved way faster in the original than they did in any game since, going outside was even more of a risk because they could run almost as fast as your character's normal speed. It helps that the first game was isometric, I guess. Although I do enjoy the fact that some villagers sit out the event to hand you candy.

I find it a bit shameful that they didn't bother to change the music from Wild World, and just slapped whatever was already in it, but didn't bother to bring back the many episodes which characterized most of the special characters, or the villager writing that game had. I'm especially annoyed that CF removed villager pics, and a mechanic in which villagers would celebrate their birthdays — villagers would invite you to their birthday party a week in advance! Why did they take this out? Why were most of WW's events axed entirely?

What's the point of having this city when we can only visit a small portion of it, and can't interact with it, aside from entering buildings? WHO thought it was a good idea to have grass deteriorate as soon as you stepped on it? Why is this game so BLAND?

City Folk just feels... lazy. Honestly, calling it "Wild World on console", is a bit unfair... to Wild World, because it revolutionized the series, and is a lot more charming, despite its issues.

 

[thefallenfruit]

I do agree with that, City Folk kinda feels just like a port from Wild World except with better graphics. Meanwhile, I think the game has a very nice charm to it holding stuff from the previous games, which is something the new ones don’t have. I think it’s still a very good game for its time, except the two things that made me get a burnout with it was how easy the grass withers and the giant lack of villager dialogue.

It got so frustrating having to place paths down and only walk on them so that your whole town didn’t look like a desert from the destroyed grass. Also, I know people complain a lot about New Horizon‘s villagers having lack of dialogue and the villagers feeling like bots, but ACCF is honestly worse. When you speak to a villager, they’ll spew out a thing of dialogue and then go away. If you talk to them again, they’ll say that exact same line of dialogue except slightly altered.

Again, I think City Folk is an incredible game and it holds up to today with its graphics and nice features like the city, there’s just things like this that bug me when I played.

 

[Introspective Onlooker]

One thing I have to credit CF for is that barring NH, it's easily the best-looking game in the series, and framerate is as smooth as butter.

 

[StarlitGlitch]

I remember being in the community back when CF came out. There was a lot of unknowns about the game before it came out but there were a lot of high hopes. Once it did come up, within a week or so that changed to disappointment.

If you're looking back now it's easier to get into CF than WW in part because of the graphics but also having decent events makes a big difference and there are other things that were added that make it more worth it. However, the dialogue issue really weighs down the game. It also feels like more things are handed to you right away although you'll still need to do some fruit grinding.

 

[Regalli]

I played a lot of Wild World, but my heavy handheld bias means I never put too much time into City Folk, so I can’t speak to things like the dialogue. I like the ideas it had to add to the series - Labelle and Gracie as a boutique owner rather than a traveling designer? Great. Bringing back holidays after their absence in Wild World? Awesome, and Pave and Zipper are great additions. But it was pretty clear that things that worked with two screens, like constellations or shooting down UFOs, didn’t translate nearly as well on a single one with the Wii Remote as your controller, and the city was pretty underbaked as a concept - honestly, New Leaf’s Main Street felt like a better realization of the concept. And choosing to base it so heavily off Wild World meant committing thoroughly to the ‘rolling log’ cylindrical world, which feels REALLY awkward on the Wii and using cliffs. (Glad New Horizons figured out the balance there.) Generally I consider City Folk more of a transitional game, with ideas that were better executed down the line rather than a great example in itself of Animal Crossing, but at the end of the day, it’s still Animal Ctossing.

 

[Croconaw]

City Folk was pretty bad, in my opinion. It seemed like there was nothing to do. I even restarted every week to get a fresh start because it got so stale, so easily. That’s not an exaggeration either, I was restarting so much. It seems so stale compared to the other games. I personally didn’t enjoy it as much as the other games.

 

[Mr_Keroppi]

City Folk isn't a bad game. What holds it back, though, is that the game is barely distinguishable from what came before, and I could make the case for the written dialogue being neutered, but the truth is that the dialogue system, itself, is busted. Dialogue options for the player don't show up unless it involves a favor, an event, or Saharah visiting the town. This also means villagers aren't able to diverge into different topics, meaning if a villager tells you something, and you talk to that same villager again, they'll give out a few lines of dialogue on that topic, but that's it. You can't make them talk about anything else unless you stop talking to them for a bit. It's a bit hard to explain, but hopefully, I'm not the only person who sees this as an issue, because it wasn't in any of the other games.

I also hate how irritating the Valley Girl speech is for Peppy Villagers in this game. The localization takes it way too far by constantly having them add and end their sentences with "or whatever"/"and stuff". The frequency in how often they used the word "like" is taken to ridiculous degrees, as well. I know Peppies had this before, but it's so much more forced and unnatural in this game.

While I'm glad a lot of the holidays in the first game returned, some of them lost their charm, here. Turkey Day just isn't as lively because Tortimeier is the only one standing outside the Town Hall with food and drink on the table. Previously, we had villagers sitting on the table, laughing and eating! How could they not add this detail in? And as for Halloween: since villagers moved way faster in the original than they did in any game since, going outside was even more of a risk because they could run almost as fast as your character's normal speed. It helps that the first game was in isometric, I guess. And I do enjoy the fact that some villagers sit out the event to hand you candy.

I find it a bit shameful that they didn't bother to change the music from Wild World, and just slapped whatever was already in it, but didn't bother to bring back the many episodes which characterized most of the special characters, or the villager writing that game had. I'm especially annoyed that CF removed villager pics, and a mechanic in which villagers would celebrate their birthdays — villagers would invite you to their birthday party a week in advanced! Why did they take this out? Why were most of WW's events axed entirely?

What's the point of having this city when we can only visit a small portion of it, and can't interactive with it, aside from entering buildings? WHO thought it was good idea to have grass deteriorate as soon as you stepped on it? Why is this game so BLAND?

City Folk just feels... lazy. Honestly, calling it "Wild World on console", is a bit unfair... to Wild World, because it revolutionized the series, and is a lot more charming, despite its issues.

I AGREE SO MUCH WITH THE DIALOGUE. I hate it and I think thats what I hate about City Folk. Like you can talk to a villager 2 or 3 times and then they just repeat the dialogue. Its not very good....