I recently revisited ACGC, and it made me do a real hard think on New Horizons

[Crowsie]

I got bit by an Animal Crossing-flavored nostalgia bug last week.

I'm currently revisiting some of the early games - DnM e+ and ACPG for the Gamecube, specifically. I usually return to the latter every few years (still got my very first town on my very first memory card, still running fine after 20+ years!) but this time I did something a little different. Instead of just running around to check out how nothing's changed since 2001, maybe playing a few days then putting it down again, I tried checking out my long-abandoned island. Now, I've long since lost my link cable and I sold my GBA over a decade ago, so it took some fussing, but when I finally figured out how to (legally) get there without a physical GBA and link cable, I was thrilled to be back.

My town's islander is Dobie. He's been my favorite villager ever since, so it was wonderful to see him in his original incarnation.

All the guides I've seen list pre-Villager Dobie (so, before NL: Welcome Amiibo) as having a 'lazy' personality... but Islander Dobie is nowhere near the sleepy, food-motivated lazies you see on the mainland. For the longest, I believed his personality was unique to his character. But now I'm wondering if islanders have a completely different set of island-exclusive personalities that were just called 'lazy, snooty, etc.' for simplicity's sake. A little research later leads me to the conclusion that while the islanders technically do not have unique personalities, the personalities they do have differ greatly from the ones we see on the mainland - to the point of being almost inverse to what we're familiar with.

You know what feels like a totally missed opportunity? If they re-introduced these islander-exclusive personalities back into New Horizons. Like, as variations on the defaults. I think it makes sense, considering the tropical island theme of NH and how it already made plenty of callbacks to features we hadn't seen since the Gamecube era. OFC Nintendo, being the control freak masters of their IPs they are, would never introduce the kind of variety you can't soft-reset for. That, and they'd risk having villagers you'd actually -want- to talk to and not just have ambling around as living decor (and also the fact that NH is 6 months out from its final content update). But a gal can dream...

TBH, I just found the villager's dialog too interesting to waste. It's a shame, really. I know GC is known for having the best dialog of any era of AC, so it feels extra bad knowing that it only got vapider from there. During the start of the post-release NH hype, I was one of the main folks shouting to "Stop complaining about [insert missing feature here] when you can still go play [the game they introduced it in]!!". I'm not quite to the point of eating my words, but I've been givin' 'em a good, long lick lately. I'd like to think I took New Horizons for what it was and didn't let the near-decade AC drought turn me into an acquiescent little Nintendrone (because I'm certainly not like that with other Nintendo IPs), but now I'm starting to see what's up. For the record, NH is still a great game and I don't regret the embarrassing number of hours I put into it in the last 2 years... But it is very dull after a while. I may have front-loaded that 'after a while' by playing hours a day for months straight... But I did the same with NL and didn't come close to getting bored within the first two years.

Anyway, this post has veered way off-point. New Horizons is a good Animal Crossing game. I just wish it tried a widdle bit harder.

 

[TheWildShadow55]

I never played the original Animal Crossing enough to ever get to visit the island, but I can fully agree with you in saying that they should've tried a little harder with the personalities and dialogue in NH, I never thought about it until now, but the islander differences was definitely a missed opportunity. NH is a great game and I would agree, it does have some bits of good dialogue but even I have come to terms with the fact it is a bit...lacking. I can relate to the many hours clocked in the past 2 years, that has also made the game veeeery stale and dull for me (I played yesterday with a friend and it was fun, but playing on my own got so boring so quickly)

 

[Introspective Onlooker]

I have no idea why they decided to turn a Cranky NPC, who looks like a Cranky NPC... into a Lazy Villager. Crankies, especially in the later games, give off an "old man" impression, so it's just weird that they decided to turn one of the oldest looking characters into a personality that doesn't fit his rugged appearance. I know of at least another Cranky Islander that was changed to a Smug — which actually makes sense, because the Smug personality was supposedly based on that variant.

I would love to see this sort of characterization back in later installments. It's understandable why these variations of the personalities wouldn't exist in WW or CF, but the dialogue in NL and NH most likely would've benefited from having an alternative version of each villager archetype. I suppose New Horizons does have something similar to this; there was a thread about it some time ago; I don't remember the details, though

I generally tend to think of Animal Crossing's dialogue as never being particularly good (it was always repetitive and one-sided), but I'm gonna have to disagree with the series' dialogue being more vapid starting with Wild World. I believe WW ultimately had the better writing between it and Population Growing!. It was nice reading about the hobbies Villagers partook, with their dialogue reflecting that. They still have a lot that PG! bite with how they treat you, but it's much less obnoxious frequent, so there's more of a balance, and people would be less likely to avoid villagers as a result. And because of this characterization, it made them giving you their photos more of a reward because there was actually a pay-off (being that it was their only one), even if they continued on treating you as they did when you (or they) were new. It also introduced Episodes — scenes detailing the lives of Special NPCs. That, alone, seals the deal for me. Those are something that NEED to return, too. These new Special Characters in NH should have some sort of backstory to them.

 

[michito]

I'm not able to visit the ACGC's islands, so I had no idea about this! It kind of reminds me how in Magician Quest every personality type has a few sub-types, adding more diversity to the dialogue.
The staleness and lack of dialogue in ACNH is what made me lose interest in it in just 2 months, it really was a missed opportunity to add the islander personalities.... Even after the 2.0 update I get repeated dialogue 90% of the time unless I talk to the villager a few times in a row, and the dialogue usually is "I'm just reading a book. I hope you're having fun today ^^"

It seems like Nintendo just focused on the decorating aspect of the game and left aside the social ones. I wish they could've at least brought back some dialogue from older games (like they do with the fish/bug puns) to add some variety if they don't want to come up with new things. On ACNH villagers just feel like another piece of furniture...

 

[Olimar]

You know what feels like a totally missed opportunity? If they re-introduced these islander-exclusive personalities back into New Horizons. Like, as variations on the defaults. I think it makes sense, considering the tropical island theme of NH and how it already made plenty of callbacks to features we hadn't seen since the Gamecube era.

The Islanders are one of the best parts of this entire series, and I totally agree that it was a missed opportunity in a game set entirely around islands, lol. Imagine taking a Nook Miles ticket and instead of the pretty generic islands you usually find on a tour, you come across a special/themed island around the Islanders, and you meet one of these special folks? It would have definitely added a cool layer to the game and some neat interactions between them and other, non-Islander villagers back on the main island.

It seems like Nintendo just focused on the decorating aspect of the game and left aside the social ones. I wish they could've at least brought back some dialogue from older games (like they do with the fish/bug puns) to add some variety if they don't want to come up with new things. On ACNH villagers just feel like another piece of furniture...

NH is for sure a decorating game first, but I will add that returning to New Leaf over the past month... I'm so over being bothered 24/7 to deliver a missing package or apology present. And I can't tell you the amount of times Agnes has told me she thought I was a nighttime raid coming to her home (whatever that is supposed to imply) when I visit her in the evening. I've heard plenty of people complain about the dialogue when compared to NL, but I must have some broken villagers in that town bc I see all the same stuff after a couple days of revisiting my old town and doing some mayor duties.

 

[Roaldisthebest]

The Islanders are one of the best parts of this entire series, and I totally agree that it was a missed opportunity in a game set entirely around islands, lol. Imagine taking a Nook Miles ticket and instead of the pretty generic islands you usually find on a tour, you come across a special/themed island around the Islanders, and you meet one of these special folks? It would have definitely added a cool layer to the game and some neat interactions between them and other, non-Islander villagers back on the main island.



NH is for sure a decorating game first, but I will add that returning to New Leaf over the past month... I'm so over being bothered 24/7 to deliver a missing package or apology present. And I can't tell you the amount of times Agnes has told me she thought I was a nighttime raid coming to her home (whatever that is supposed to imply) when I visit her in the evening. I've heard plenty of people complain about the dialogue when compared to NL, but I must have some broken villagers in that town bc I see all the same stuff after a couple days of revisiting my old town and doing some mayor duties.

while i do agree that NH has expanded the decoration capabilities more than ever before, I don't neccesarily agree that it is a "decorating game first" like many people say. example: whenever my younger cousin gets to play the game they don't think about decorating at all (aside from wanting to get a house), it's mainly just fishing, and some bug catching on the side. I think we might get our opinions on how the game is meant to be played from social media and people showing off their islands (many of which are so cluttered there's no room for actual gameplay) and it can be easy to assume that's all there is to it. Obviously this is subjective.

As for stale dialogue, personally I feel like this is a huge misconception at least when it comes to the number of dialogue in the game. Whether or not you find it stale is subjective but there is undeniably a lot. The "intro" dialogue for the day is repetitive, sure, but after that you'll get a better taste of what the game has to offer. This isn't the best design of course, because it's led people to think the villagers have 3-5 things to say. It looks like this:
1. Peppy villagers and single player hide and seek
2. Normal villagers talking about fools errands.
3. Lazy villagers wandering into your dreams
4. Jock villagers and their named abs.

But I'm just curious if anyone has seen the dialogue you can get after that:

1. Snooty villagers getting into woodworking, building a statue of themselves and burning it to cinders because there can only be one of them in this world.
2. Peppy villagers talking about the superhero (or fairy) with a beard comic book, and talking about how they can't grow a beard. I think there's another version as well with a grumpy fairy but I can't remember if that was a comic book or a fairy tale.
3. Sisterly villagers talking about their family members and childhood. There's actually multiple different versions of this but one of my favorites was my sisterly villager Plucky talking about the loneliness of growing up in the countryside and how she grew up with her best friend watching the stars at night and getting yelled at by these two old ladies.
4. Normal villagers dreaming about you, there's multiple versions. The first was getting ready for a trip on a boat with me, and the second was about being at a punk/rock concert and her getting up on the stage to do something (forgive me, this is from memory lmao)
5. Jock villagers and imagining if they opened a theme park for working out and reciting their motto.
6. This isn't tied to personality, but my villagers asking what skills I'm good at, or my favorite food, or my favorite genre for comic books and the like. I love that I can choose OR type the response, and later on another villager will tell me that they heard I like that thing, it's like they're getting to know me and it's an underrated interaction that as far as I know is unique to NH.


Anyways, personally i find these kind of interesting because I want to know my villagers better. I refrained from the more common dialogue that is shared online such as the lazy villagers breaking the fourth wall conversation and focused on the things I found interesting.

ALL THAT SAID! there is room for improvement. I get people complain about the NL requests being too frequent but I still think they shouldn't be as infrequent as they are in NH. The way that I play, on average I'll get 2-5 special requests per day (the thought bubble) and most of it is them selling stuff to me, giving a free item, trading, delivering present to another or coming over to my house. However it's very rare (but still happens) that I get requests to catch a specific bug or fish. Also adding back hide and seek in the next game would be amazing, as well as the stuff from wild world I mentioned earlier

 

[Olimar]

while i do agree that NH has expanded the decoration capabilities more than ever before, I don't neccesarily agree that it is a "decorating game first" like many people say. example: whenever my younger cousin gets to play the game they don't think about decorating at all (aside from wanting to get a house), it's mainly just fishing, and some bug catching on the side. I think we might get our opinions on how the game is meant to be played from social media and people showing off their islands (many of which are so cluttered there's no room for actual gameplay) and it can be easy to assume that's all there is to it. Obviously this is subjective.

Oh I didn't mean the decorating comment as a bad thing against the game, or in relation to social media (although I will agree with you on the over-cluttered and unplayable state of so many islands, lol). My opinion there goes off of how 9 times out of 10, it feels to me like elements of this game circle back to decorating. There is always someone crafting something and sharing the recipe with you, plus finding the DIYs in a bottle, having to decorate your first 3 plots of land for villagers and having to place items outside to get your island rating to 100%, etc. Even the bug and fish catching- get 3 of the same to give to Flick/CJ and what do you get? A reward to decorate with I personally love this shift in the series, and think it will only add to whatever they come up with next.

(all of that doesn't even touch on HHP, but I don't wanna throw in paid content

As for stale dialogue, personally I feel like this is a huge misconception at least when it comes to the number of dialogue in the game. Whether or not you find it stale is subjective but there is undeniably a lot. The "intro" dialogue for the day is repetitive, sure, but after that you'll get a better taste of what the game has to offer. This isn't the best design of course, because it's led people to think the villagers have 3-5 things to say. It looks like this:

I've not seen many of those dialogues! But I agree with everything you say here about dialogue in this game. I feel like I tend to get more diverse dialogues when I'm not playing every single day and/or not interacting with the same few villagers every time I play. But I have seen a few cool interactions between villagers (including Pancetti absolutely roasting Leopold after he tried to call her out for not taking advantage of living on an island lol)