Flower-Loving Punk
In Debt to a Tanuki
Hello Everyone!
I finally, finally, FINALLY got a new 3DS and I've been playing Animal Crossing New Leaf for about 10 days now. It is the final title in the Animal Crossing series I'm playing, and I can now officially say I have played every single AC game, including Pocket Camp, Amiibo Festival, and Happy Home Designer. (I did not play AC on a real Gamecube, so I suppose technically I'm missing out on the GBA Animal Island "minigame" from the original title.)
I was most excited to play New Leaf out of any of the versions I've played. Growing up I had a copy of Wild World on my DS I played fairly regularly for about 4 months until I left it in a hot car and it got corrupted and became unplayable. I then played Pocket Camp when it came out and got bored pretty quickly; then got New Horizons about 8 months after release and played it obsessively for a year until college life forced me to lock in and I stopped playing regularly from lack of things to do since my island was "done".
After college I bought a new copy of WW and played it until completion (for me, fully maxxing out my house, which I did use a duplication glitch for at the end... money is hard to get in that game.) And then I got a modded Wii and played City Folk for a few months (and stopped because my town grass looked awful) and then switched to play Animal Crossing GC for another few months until I got bored and committed to buying a 3DS so I could actually play the "best" Animal Crossing game everyone keeps talking about.
Everyone in those early NH days was lamenting the losses of New Leaf and it's minigames and it's fruit and from footage I've seen it seemed really fun and beautiful so I was so excited to play.
10 days in. I've completed 2 bridges for public works projects and I'm halfway through paying off the second floor of my house. And I'm already bored. And I'm frusterated at myself for getting bored.
The levels at which things are content-walled off in this game are currently griving me crazy. I haven't been able to buy a watering can, or a slingshot, or an axe. I can't eat fruit and move trees; I can't move my rocks around into better locations. I can't buy flowers or pine trees. Luckily I was able to get the beautiful ordinance quick so all my current flowers don't just wilt up and die but for the first few days a lot of them turned brown and then vanished and there wasn't a thing I could do about it.
Kapp'n's Island had made it so money isn't an object anymore. I just get a bunch of rainbow beetles and horned elephants for like an hour and then I go home and pay off the bills and do it again tomorrow.
Every day I go into Nooklings and buy out the store but I'm still not at the money limit for that first upgrade yet, I guess.
But because of all of this I find I don't really have anything to do but grind.
I get all my fossils, find the money rock, shake all my trees for the furnture and the bees, talk to everyone in town and do their quests. I'm then out of things to do because I've caught all the seasonal bugs and fish so then I go to the Island and play a minigame to try and grind out medals to save up for a wetsuit or a fun hat but the games get repetitive so I quit and then grind out beetles and then end the day.
I know late game is where New Leaf really shines, I fully plan on sticking with the game until I complete all possible town ordinances and fully upgrade all my shops.
But there's a soulless emptiness to New Leaf that I really can't shake as I play it. It's all about money. It's almost too easy to make money; but they couldn't make it any harder because then it would be miserable to pay off all these projects in a timely manner. I'm sure if online functionality still existed and I could get the items I need from other towns I wouldn't be so bored. But I hate how everything is done with Bells.
For me it's not just that there's not enough to do; it's that I'm overwhelmed by choice but I don't particularly like any of them. Re-Tail is cute, I like that Reese and Cyrus are there... but it's strange to me that there are two special options of places to sell your junk. You can either sell your junk for money at Re-Tail or sell your junk for less money at Nooklings. It just seems reduntant and unnecessary to me. It's the same with the campsite. Here's another place where you can buy furniture except it's special money that's hard to get (unless you have amiibo cards and the magic lamp).
The minigames are cute but I don't particularly like any of them enough to want to play more than one round at time. It's nice they're there but at the same time they really have to be there because there's nothing else to do.
New Horizons has it's flaws. For sure it does. But in early game when I got bored I could turn on a radio inside my tiny house and listen to a fun selection of music, or make some DIYs and set up a cute little area on my island, or completely replant all my trees into an orchard, or make terrible custom design outfits. I could play music with a little pan flute or take pictures or feel no guilt destroying a small island for resources to make my island better, or even farm out flower varients.
I don't spend time in my house in NL even though the first floor is awesome (humble brag, I know) because it's quiet aside from my gyroids so I hate spending time in it. It's miserable to dress up so despite all my clothes I find myself not really doing that either. And the villagers in NL are just as boring as in NH. They have better quests/activities but their dialogue feels really no different because they have to be nice to me because I'm the Mayor. I haven't earned anything by spending time with them.
New Leaf to me struggles from being too in between ideas. In games like Wild World you didn't really have much of a choice about your town, but that was fun because you were just another villager and the fun was with your neighbours. In New Horizons you can choose anything, which is fun because it's only limited by your imagination. In New Leaf you have some choices, but most of the time you have to pick something another villager wants, and you don't really have free reign to do much of anything outside your home.
I think my favorite AC game is Wild World. I love how mean and unpleasant some of my villagers were at first; I loved that I could choose the color of my roof and switch it up between upgrades if I wanted. I like the "festivals" and the dandelions and the clovers and the weekly visitors who tell me I have no sense of style.
But I don't think I like New Leaf more than I like New Horizons. I know I'm not getting the full intended "New Leaf" experience because the online play is dead. But in my opinion if losing something like that makes the game this stale perhaps the game just isn't that great. The giant empty rows of houses behind the shops sit so uncomfortably vacant it makes me feel like something's wrong. Image share is dead. Dreamsuite is dead. I'll probably never get a real authentic streetpass from a stranger.
Maybe in 6 months when I've unlocked everything and the pretendo servers come up and I can have fun online with everyone I'll feel differently. I really really hope I do. But right now I'm just kind underwhelmed. Anyone else feel similarly or is this truly an uncommon and unpopular opinion?
I finally, finally, FINALLY got a new 3DS and I've been playing Animal Crossing New Leaf for about 10 days now. It is the final title in the Animal Crossing series I'm playing, and I can now officially say I have played every single AC game, including Pocket Camp, Amiibo Festival, and Happy Home Designer. (I did not play AC on a real Gamecube, so I suppose technically I'm missing out on the GBA Animal Island "minigame" from the original title.)
I was most excited to play New Leaf out of any of the versions I've played. Growing up I had a copy of Wild World on my DS I played fairly regularly for about 4 months until I left it in a hot car and it got corrupted and became unplayable. I then played Pocket Camp when it came out and got bored pretty quickly; then got New Horizons about 8 months after release and played it obsessively for a year until college life forced me to lock in and I stopped playing regularly from lack of things to do since my island was "done".
After college I bought a new copy of WW and played it until completion (for me, fully maxxing out my house, which I did use a duplication glitch for at the end... money is hard to get in that game.) And then I got a modded Wii and played City Folk for a few months (and stopped because my town grass looked awful) and then switched to play Animal Crossing GC for another few months until I got bored and committed to buying a 3DS so I could actually play the "best" Animal Crossing game everyone keeps talking about.
Everyone in those early NH days was lamenting the losses of New Leaf and it's minigames and it's fruit and from footage I've seen it seemed really fun and beautiful so I was so excited to play.
10 days in. I've completed 2 bridges for public works projects and I'm halfway through paying off the second floor of my house. And I'm already bored. And I'm frusterated at myself for getting bored.
The levels at which things are content-walled off in this game are currently griving me crazy. I haven't been able to buy a watering can, or a slingshot, or an axe. I can't eat fruit and move trees; I can't move my rocks around into better locations. I can't buy flowers or pine trees. Luckily I was able to get the beautiful ordinance quick so all my current flowers don't just wilt up and die but for the first few days a lot of them turned brown and then vanished and there wasn't a thing I could do about it.
Kapp'n's Island had made it so money isn't an object anymore. I just get a bunch of rainbow beetles and horned elephants for like an hour and then I go home and pay off the bills and do it again tomorrow.
Every day I go into Nooklings and buy out the store but I'm still not at the money limit for that first upgrade yet, I guess.
But because of all of this I find I don't really have anything to do but grind.
I get all my fossils, find the money rock, shake all my trees for the furnture and the bees, talk to everyone in town and do their quests. I'm then out of things to do because I've caught all the seasonal bugs and fish so then I go to the Island and play a minigame to try and grind out medals to save up for a wetsuit or a fun hat but the games get repetitive so I quit and then grind out beetles and then end the day.
I know late game is where New Leaf really shines, I fully plan on sticking with the game until I complete all possible town ordinances and fully upgrade all my shops.
But there's a soulless emptiness to New Leaf that I really can't shake as I play it. It's all about money. It's almost too easy to make money; but they couldn't make it any harder because then it would be miserable to pay off all these projects in a timely manner. I'm sure if online functionality still existed and I could get the items I need from other towns I wouldn't be so bored. But I hate how everything is done with Bells.
For me it's not just that there's not enough to do; it's that I'm overwhelmed by choice but I don't particularly like any of them. Re-Tail is cute, I like that Reese and Cyrus are there... but it's strange to me that there are two special options of places to sell your junk. You can either sell your junk for money at Re-Tail or sell your junk for less money at Nooklings. It just seems reduntant and unnecessary to me. It's the same with the campsite. Here's another place where you can buy furniture except it's special money that's hard to get (unless you have amiibo cards and the magic lamp).
The minigames are cute but I don't particularly like any of them enough to want to play more than one round at time. It's nice they're there but at the same time they really have to be there because there's nothing else to do.
New Horizons has it's flaws. For sure it does. But in early game when I got bored I could turn on a radio inside my tiny house and listen to a fun selection of music, or make some DIYs and set up a cute little area on my island, or completely replant all my trees into an orchard, or make terrible custom design outfits. I could play music with a little pan flute or take pictures or feel no guilt destroying a small island for resources to make my island better, or even farm out flower varients.
I don't spend time in my house in NL even though the first floor is awesome (humble brag, I know) because it's quiet aside from my gyroids so I hate spending time in it. It's miserable to dress up so despite all my clothes I find myself not really doing that either. And the villagers in NL are just as boring as in NH. They have better quests/activities but their dialogue feels really no different because they have to be nice to me because I'm the Mayor. I haven't earned anything by spending time with them.
New Leaf to me struggles from being too in between ideas. In games like Wild World you didn't really have much of a choice about your town, but that was fun because you were just another villager and the fun was with your neighbours. In New Horizons you can choose anything, which is fun because it's only limited by your imagination. In New Leaf you have some choices, but most of the time you have to pick something another villager wants, and you don't really have free reign to do much of anything outside your home.
I think my favorite AC game is Wild World. I love how mean and unpleasant some of my villagers were at first; I loved that I could choose the color of my roof and switch it up between upgrades if I wanted. I like the "festivals" and the dandelions and the clovers and the weekly visitors who tell me I have no sense of style.
But I don't think I like New Leaf more than I like New Horizons. I know I'm not getting the full intended "New Leaf" experience because the online play is dead. But in my opinion if losing something like that makes the game this stale perhaps the game just isn't that great. The giant empty rows of houses behind the shops sit so uncomfortably vacant it makes me feel like something's wrong. Image share is dead. Dreamsuite is dead. I'll probably never get a real authentic streetpass from a stranger.
Maybe in 6 months when I've unlocked everything and the pretendo servers come up and I can have fun online with everyone I'll feel differently. I really really hope I do. But right now I'm just kind underwhelmed. Anyone else feel similarly or is this truly an uncommon and unpopular opinion?
