Does anyone else refuse to restart, even if you ‘finish’ your island?

[SpaceTokki77]

there’s no way i’d ever reset my island...I get that some people become bored when they “finish” their islands but i believe that there’s always more you can do. plus, i’ve put in 500+ hours into my current save file, i’d be really disappointed if all that hard work and effort went to waste. i’m also really attached to my villagers and would be heartbroken if they went away...don’t ask, i’m a baby

 

[thegunpowderincident]

I'm literally never going to restart my island, I'm just way too sentimental lol. I restarted my Wild World town once, probably like 10 years ago, and I still regret it and miss the original town. So I think that pretty much turned me off restarting in Animal Crossing forever. I still have my original day 1 town from 2013 in New Leaf. The one game that I *might* restart would be City Folk, but that's only because I got that game very late (after NL had already been out for a while) and barely played it, so there's not much of a sentimental attachment to that town.

 

[oranje]

Honestly, even if my island isn't perfect, I still wouldn't want to restart. I've made a lot of progress with my island and I'm generally happy with it, even if I'm starting to run out of things to do. It's a space that I've created for myself and put a lot of hours in to make it, so intentionally restarting would be awful to me.

 

[Halloqueen]

My island isn't finished, because after a year of playing, I've gotten the urge to move stuff around and sort of revamp things. I don't know that it will ever really be finished either, since I'm always working to fill the catalog as much as I can thanks to shops here on the forums.

I have no intention whatsoever of ever restarting. I've accomplished too much over the past year. If anything happened to the save and it wasn't recoverable, I'd simply stop playing the game permanently.

 

[Snek]

Yes, restarting would be the death of me. I have put in so many hours to better my island. To restart would be so wasteful of everything that I accomplished: all the photos I obtained, all the animals I befriended, all the decorating that I made, all the items I managed to catalogue, all the DIYs that I manage to learn. All of that would be for nothing. I hate wasting time and restarting now would be the ultimate waste. The ship has long been sailed. If I was starting a week ago, maybe, but never now.

 

[Nefarious]

I don't think I'd ever be truly "finished" with my island. Besides that, I put too much time and effort in my save file to just delete it whenever I get bored. Animal Crossing is not really the kind of game where you would speedrun and then restart, it was a huge pain completing the catalog and DIY list first time through as it is. The only time I can see myself resetting is in 7 years, after I've stopped playing regularly, just like I did with New Leaf and all the previous games.

 

[Agaphea23]

I actually considered restarting because I missed how it was when you began on a fresh untouched island and I wanted a more open terrain that made me feel like that again. Instead I just moved all the islanders to the side and emptied it out, save for a few places and now I am completely satisfied that I would not desire to start anew even if I completely finished with the game.

 

[stitchmaker]

Twitch streamers and youtube reset, level their island or buy a 2nd Switch for content.
Viewers will tune in to watch a Twitch streamers reset their island. Some have taken a week to find the right island and than 2 weeks later they reset again. Villager hunting for one villager brings in viewers.

I would never reset my island. For those that want to reset I wish they would add sell your island and keep your DIY/Catalog and everything in your house. When it was added in ACNL a lot of players sold their towns.

 

[Kattea]

I would never re-set my island, it feels too much like home. I didn’t know that re-setting to get a desired fruit/airport colour/pier was a thing, so I just stuck with the cards I was dealt at the beginning. I also doubt I would ever finish as I’m constantly changing my mind, tearing down and re-building sections. I much prefer to watch my island morph and change than to start over completely.

 

[FreliaCrossing]

i think i would be tempted to restart if it weren't for recipes! like i spent a whole YEAR getting all the ones i did-- i can see the appeal of starting fresh, but at the same time it would be so frustrating to want to build something and not be able to because you didn't have the recipe that you used to have

 

[Perfektion]

I would never restart when I finished my island or another towns for that matter. The times I restart is when I am just not connecting to it at all. For me a good map is pretty important. I am not picky or something like that at all. But when you play and it is never like "Oh I love this spot so much". Yeah don't see any point in that.
But this did not happen to me in New Horizions and it probably never will because I like almost all the features which are not changeable. So when I am bored of my island I would probably just alter it. It happened to me in New Leaf and City Folk and in the end it was better idea to just start over those two games.

 

[BalloonFight]

I definitely wouldn't fully restart my island. I have waaaay too many materials, NMTs, framed photos, etc hoarded, as well as a 95% catalog. What I have been doing though, is slowly flattening my island while deciding on a theme to go for. Previously I didn't really have a theme, and just had some Pokemon designs, terraforming etc around, but now I've gotten the urge to go for either a forest core, or city core type of design. Flattening by farrr is the quicker way to accomplish that than just full restarting.

 

[WolfyWolf]

this boggles my mind. “Worst” I ever did was revamp my entire island, but all I did was move houses to the beach, work an area at a time and voila brand new island. It feels really unnecessary to restart this iteration of AC unless you want different river ends or airport color. Everything else is pretty much changeable at all times I would have to say.

 

[ForgottenT]

I've never reset an AC game, and never will.
If they come out with a switch pro I might get a second copy.

 

[satine]

This sorta thing caused me a lot of turmoil for a really long time. I finished my island around Christmas time. I had collected all the DIY I would ever utilize, I had completely decked out my island and my house, and I had gotten very bored. I wasn't sure what else to do and I was very deterred to the idea of clearing all of my terraforming work and starting from scratch, because it'd feel wrong to undo my progress. I wanted to start over because I enjoyed the journey more than just staring at the end game every day. But I felt really guilty, because I had all of my favorite critters with me on that island, and I am a very sentimental person at heart.

But I payed $300 for this console solely for this game, and another $60 for the game itself. I had stood outside in the cold rainy wet for two hours the day of its release to get my pre-ordered copy from GameStop. I am not in the financial spot to buy a new switch just for a second island right now due to other large expenses that are more important. I ached to play again but I felt guilty because I was at a loss. So I did start over. Even though I had Bob on my island, I knew I'd get him again. In the end they're just pixels on a screen, and while it's easy to grow sentimental about it (something I definitely do), I don't regret my decision. I found Bob again, and all my other villagers too, and I'm having fun having something to do on my island once again finally. I made the mistake of rushing to the finish line the first time and that wasn't the best way to go. I'm going to take my time on this one. And I do miss my first island sometimes. But I'm having a lot of fun again. I know this is opposite to how most people answering this might answer this question but I thought I'd pop in and give my answer anyway since I had struggled with what to do about that for the longest time myself!

 

[~Kilza~]

There's zero chance I'll ever restart my island. I've put in way too many hours into it and too much work getting almost all the DIYs, completing the museum, getting most of the achievements, obtaining an almost complete catalogue and amassing a good chunk amount of bells and Nook Miles to ever throw it away. I'd lose all motivation to play New Horizons if I lost my island and was forced to start from square one again.

 

[Sheydra]

No way took me forever getting where I am, never restarting.

 

[Wiimfiuser]

No resets. Also I dont believe you can have a truly finished island. New items come out and some existing ones that you really want. Its gonna keep expanding and you're gonna want more of them.

 

[amylsp]

With City Folk, I restarted twice. It was a 'hard restart' because I wasn't able to save anything from town to town (although I had a friend bring hybrids to my third town). Without restarting, I would never have been able to play CF as long as I did (3+years) without getting really bored. WW and NL, that wasn't an issue as we could have multiple cartridges on the same console. So far in NH, I don't feel any desire to restart. For me, it's because the terraforming gives us so much control over the layout of the island. Maybe someday I will flatten my island and create a whole new layout. But at least I would not lose any of my items or progress. That's a real benefit of NH over CF. I don't think I would ever consider getting rid of my island completely. It took me awhile to get all the permanent layout options that I really wanted. I wouldn't want to go through that again!

 

[VelveteenCat]

I guess that Youtubers might restart to keep their content interesting - there's only so long until viewers may get bored with following a very developed island.

Personally, I would not restart. I hadn't played the game in months until a couple of days ago and am now very into it again, tearing down my whole island in order to reorganize it. It is great, but only because I have most of the decor and flowers I need readily available. Restarting entirely would suck all the fun out of it. I enjoyed the early game a year ago, but that's because everything was new and I didn't know what to expect. Now I'm aware of most villagers and items and I don't see how I could possibly enjoy living on a barren island, having to wait days after days just to unlock more content. There is just no way that the early game could be interesting to me a second time araound.
Also the villagers wouldn't be the same. Even with the same line-up they'd just be another version of my darlings instead of the ones I got so attached to over the months.