At first, I wasn't quite interested in Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer when they first revealed it for the aging but still profitable Nintendo 3DS. Much like pretty much every single first trailer for each game revealed, there is so little information that it's hard to get overly excited for it, and this game is no exception. I was already content with Animal Crossing: New Leaf with just enough home customization, even though I'm not playing it anymore. With the recent news surging up starting on May, it's shaping to be a pretty solid and competent spinoff title. Surprising, right? Well, I've got two reasons on why it grabbed my attention.
The Animal Crossing franchise has a penchant for its customization aspect, yet it isn't as comprehensive as most of the other simulation games. Though, New Leaf upped the ante by adding more types of clothes and being able to place a furniture on a wall. Heck, you can even modify some furniture with a pattern, a gem or even choose a different color. Therefore, they justified the use of StreetPass in form of Happy Home Village, which collect houses from people whom you came across and owned the game.
Of course, Happy Home Designer decided to add even more customization on both inside and finally the outside!! On the former, windows, doors, larger rugs and even more variety on furnitures were added for inside, while outside let us add furnitures as well of what were already possible in New Leaf. If this was such a thing for the next main Animal Crossing installment, this might be a sign of the best game in the entire franchise.
Another reason on why Happy Home Designer is appealing me involves the overall pacing. This is one of my biggest issues I had with every single Animal Crossing game to date that would greatly dampen my enjoyment after playing the game for more than a few months the first time around. I know it's inherent of its genre, but there are some design decisions that are there for the sake of heavily slowing the pacing down, which could be easily alleviated.
A typical Animal Crossing session would usually last at least 15 minutes just to quickly check for everything, considering you have to walk around the town just to do everything. I don't have any issue with that, as we glance what's new in our town and meet other villagers. However, it can and will last longer, not just because that you've suddenly got something more interesting to do at that moment, but then a questionable design decision rear its ugly head. For example, a classic situation of having my pockets getting full so soon I had to spend time on managing my inventory on a regular basis. It doesn't seem to waste my time much, but it still would happen much more often than it should just because the inventory is always very limited. That breaks the game's flow for me, which makes it a chore to actually enjoy a main Animal Crossing title and is among the primary reasons why I quit New Leaf after a year or so. Ironically, it also made the game a less ideal option for a quick handheld gaming session.
Even though it seems to be unfair to compare the main Animal Crossing titles to the spinoff title, the latter quite certainly does a much better job on handling the pace seamlessly. It didn't have to deal with the clunky design decisions that plagued every mainline Animal Crossing game to date. The interface in this game streamlines so much on the home decorating that it made me wish that it existed in New Leaf in first place, instead of needlessly fumbling around town to place furniture and unintuitively dealing with Isabelle when it comes to Public Works Projects.
I'm surprised to see myself ecstatic over a spinoff title since a long time ago, which was the Mario Kart franchise that spawned after four different platforming Super Mario games were made. Sure, it may not have the same degree of interactivity between villagers as the mainline titles, but its streamlined gameplay and expanded customization got me reasonably hyped up. Who knows it might another addictive title?
So yeah, how did you felt about the game when it was first revealed? How does the game fares today after a few more details unveiled since May and June? I'll let you speak.
The Animal Crossing franchise has a penchant for its customization aspect, yet it isn't as comprehensive as most of the other simulation games. Though, New Leaf upped the ante by adding more types of clothes and being able to place a furniture on a wall. Heck, you can even modify some furniture with a pattern, a gem or even choose a different color. Therefore, they justified the use of StreetPass in form of Happy Home Village, which collect houses from people whom you came across and owned the game.
Of course, Happy Home Designer decided to add even more customization on both inside and finally the outside!! On the former, windows, doors, larger rugs and even more variety on furnitures were added for inside, while outside let us add furnitures as well of what were already possible in New Leaf. If this was such a thing for the next main Animal Crossing installment, this might be a sign of the best game in the entire franchise.
Another reason on why Happy Home Designer is appealing me involves the overall pacing. This is one of my biggest issues I had with every single Animal Crossing game to date that would greatly dampen my enjoyment after playing the game for more than a few months the first time around. I know it's inherent of its genre, but there are some design decisions that are there for the sake of heavily slowing the pacing down, which could be easily alleviated.
A typical Animal Crossing session would usually last at least 15 minutes just to quickly check for everything, considering you have to walk around the town just to do everything. I don't have any issue with that, as we glance what's new in our town and meet other villagers. However, it can and will last longer, not just because that you've suddenly got something more interesting to do at that moment, but then a questionable design decision rear its ugly head. For example, a classic situation of having my pockets getting full so soon I had to spend time on managing my inventory on a regular basis. It doesn't seem to waste my time much, but it still would happen much more often than it should just because the inventory is always very limited. That breaks the game's flow for me, which makes it a chore to actually enjoy a main Animal Crossing title and is among the primary reasons why I quit New Leaf after a year or so. Ironically, it also made the game a less ideal option for a quick handheld gaming session.
Even though it seems to be unfair to compare the main Animal Crossing titles to the spinoff title, the latter quite certainly does a much better job on handling the pace seamlessly. It didn't have to deal with the clunky design decisions that plagued every mainline Animal Crossing game to date. The interface in this game streamlines so much on the home decorating that it made me wish that it existed in New Leaf in first place, instead of needlessly fumbling around town to place furniture and unintuitively dealing with Isabelle when it comes to Public Works Projects.
I'm surprised to see myself ecstatic over a spinoff title since a long time ago, which was the Mario Kart franchise that spawned after four different platforming Super Mario games were made. Sure, it may not have the same degree of interactivity between villagers as the mainline titles, but its streamlined gameplay and expanded customization got me reasonably hyped up. Who knows it might another addictive title?
So yeah, how did you felt about the game when it was first revealed? How does the game fares today after a few more details unveiled since May and June? I'll let you speak.
