I bought AC: Welcome Amiibo but was wondering do I need the original game to play because where I go to buy a house tom nook house is no where to be seen.
Not too much this time of year or this early game. You probably don’t have a net, fishing rod or shovel yet so all you can do is collect up the local fruit by shaking trees and hand it in to Re-Tail for some money. You need to get these three tools as soon as you are able as they will let you make bells consistently every day to pay off your initial loan. Once you get an initial house, you can get full approval rating and begin visiting the island to make bells much faster. The game is slow to start in the first few days.
You could catch fish and bugs, sell them and upgrade to a house, then ugrade again to unlock Kapp'n and Tortimer island, where you can make a crapload of bells farming sharks and beetles.
One thing I wish I knew before playing New Leaf is that there are rare items that you can’t reorder, like the box of tissues... So be careful if that stuff matters to you. And then maybe grass wear... There’s a lot of good info if you google it but personally I’d recommend going slow, you don’t have to rush anything.