I'm Not Connecting With the Game

[moon_child]

I'm actually incredibly surprised because most of my villagers have awesome, rich dialogue... particularly those who I talk to a lot. I can't say I relate to OP because I adore this game. I normally wouldn't comment, but seeing so many people talking about bad dialogue is very strange to me, because the dialogue is one of my favourite parts, particularly Erik who says some absolutely bonkers stuff and makes me laugh out loud pretty much every time I talk to him XD

I feel you. My villagers rarely repeat dialogues. And I always get into group conversations with any two of them and they were all talking about different stuff each time. It’s strange. Are we the only ones?

I feel the dialogues in NH is very rich and the relationships extremely deep. Weird. I even had Zucker confiding to me about his insecurities just a while ago. He was sad because he was playing and got tired so easily and he blames himself for it because he doesn’t eat healthy. Awwww. Poor boy.

The other night, Ed and Molly got into a fight. I asked Ed why (in NL, you can’t do this you just see them in a sour mood and they’ll be like don’t talk to me I’m not in the mood but in NH, you can find out why they’re on a certain mood) and he said Molly gifted him a pencil case and it made him mad cause it’s like she doesn’t know him very well. I scolded him and told him it’s still a gift anyway (there were options to either scold him like that or sympathize with him) and he was like oh you’re right fine I won’t be mad about it and he stopped being mad.

The other day Zucker was singing and I asked him and he said cause Billy cooked something for him. Audie was dancing a while ago and she said it’s because Deirdre watched her practicing how to be a pop star and she thinks Deirdre is her first fan. Lol.

If those dialogues and villager relationships aren’t rich enough, I don’t know what is.

 

[Saga]

I think the dialogue CAN be super high quality, but it's fairly uneven. Like, two villagers interacting is almost always hilarious or touching. And certain personalities, like peppies, seem to have a lot to say and will hold long and involved conversations. But then other personalities, like normals, hardly talk at all and usually only have one or two sentences. It's very strange, though perhaps I'm just unlucky.

I think that all in all, I connect with my villagers pretty well (aside from Bunny Day dialogue, which really ruined the past 12 days).

The aspect of the game that makes me feel like I personally don't collect is the lack of customization options and the fact that I feel like I HAVE to trade online to get the colors I want if I want to enjoy my favorite aspect of the game - decorating. It feels like the game is trying to force me to be outgoing and socialize, and it makes me feel anxious.

I don't mind getting items slowly just from trees, balloons and DIYs, but I would like to be able to customize them. Otherwise most of them are colors I'd never use, and it feels unrewarding. Like, what's the point of hunting balloons for hours or shaking 100+ trees if I'm just going to have to go online and find someone to trade with to get the version of my new item I can actually use? And there are so many color variations that it feels like I have almost no chance of getting the one I want if I just rely on RNG. It makes trying to complete your ideal house feel impossible, rather than merely a challenge like in WW and NL.

As of now, my house really doesn't feel like a home and in order to fix it I feel like I have to keep grinding bells and NMT so I can trade... It's making the game stressful for me and it's keeping me from fully enjoying the many other good aspects of daily island life.

 

[KnoxUK]

I really miss doing nothing in Wild World and still playing 10 hours a day on summer break.

The worst thing about New Horizons is when the characters are stuck in dialogue. The bunny hellweek was absolutely terrible, you go talk to them, they say egg and then you go talk to them again and then they act as if talking to them a second time is already annoying to them.

I absolutely binged new leaf when it came out. I think the issue a lot of people are having is being overwhelmed with items and the progression system being very slow. Once people can customize their island to their hearts content and being able to add fish to the museum instead of catching the sort after Water egg. People will start to sink their teeth into their game and social isolation

 

[JKDOS]

Anyone else feel this way? I think back on my experiences of playing GC, Wild World, City Folk, and New Leaf for the first time and remember how amazing everything felt.

Everyone is going to remember things differently than how you do, and not everyone started with the same game or even at the same age. So the experience is different for everyone. Some of what you're feeling is probably directly related to you just getting older.


For me nothing is as special as my first AC game I played about 15 years ago. Getting to experience the mechanics for the first time and not knowing what the game all had was fun. And sometimes disappointing (Not being able to place outdoor furniture items outdoor). As for NH, this game is really good, A LOT better than any AC game in history. It does however fall short of a masterpiece, but is nonetheless a good game. I cannot put the game down, I has my full attention.

 

[Lady Timpani]

I really miss doing nothing in Wild World and still playing 10 hours a day on summer break.

On the one hand, I can relate to this, but also, at the same time, everyone who was playing WW at release is over a decade older. If we weren't adults at that time, we're adults now, and even with the pandemic and a bunch of us quarantining priorities and interests change. I keep thinking I'm gonna stay up real late one night to listen to all the late night hourly music, but by the time 10 pm rolls around I'm like "nope, can't do it."

As far as dialogue goes, I'm not noticing a decrease in quality from NL, more that the personalities of a lot of the villagers have shifted. But I've also found myself not talking to a lot of the villagers multiple times a day due to their "what, you again?" reactions, so I might try some more and then see how the dialogue compares.

 

[meggtheegg]

ive felt this way most of bunny week. the egg dialogue during bunny week caused me a BIG disconnect to villagers i had previously already connected with. i dont want to hate the event, bc surface level it's very cute. but it's so overwhelming and all consuming on the island that it was working really hard to ruin my immersion and in game connection. thankfully it's over, and im excited to get back into normal dialogue today.

because ive experienced actually really good dialogue with my villagers outside of bunny week. even just yesterday actually, i eavesdropped on FOUR conversations in a half hour span, each of them really super cute and interesting. two of my villagers talked about where they love to read and ended up setting up a date to read together by lanterns under the stars with tea and cookies. better believe i ran off and built them a little area for tea and reading under the stars with lanterns LOL

and honestly i loved NL for years and years and years but i've gotta try to not like.... combine my nostalgic romanticized memories of NL with false memory of great dialogue and compare it to NH. because just in my own opinion, NL had the worst dialogue compared to this game and previous games. idk if its an unpopular opinion, but just from what i've seen so far, i'm really hopeful for the dialogue in this game now that we've finally passed through the event

 

[namiieco]

The dialouge is better than NL and I personally don't have any problem with villager interactions. But I do agree that I don't feel as a deep connection to NH than NL. Though I can't really pinpoint what exactly it is. Maybe it's because it's been such a long time between the releases and the expectations were set so high.

 

[Underneath The Stars]

they made the villagers do a lot of activities to cover the fact that they talk robotic now i feel like. pretty sure it will improve overtime, and once this bunny event is over. there's soooo many things still missing, and we just keep saying "maybe on next update" like...

I am finding that the dialogue improves as the relationships develop, but I'm getting really sick of them complaining that I talk to them too much! I'm sure they weren't this sensitive about it in previous games?

I've just spoken to Canberra for the third time today, and she asked whether she needs to move to another island to get away from me... and she was one of my starter villagers! It's funny, but it does put me off interacting.

right? like i will just talk to them for the second time and i feel like they're already annoyed (though it's usually the uchi's) how am i gonna develop a friendship lol

 

[textlingo]

I feel like this sometimes mainly because of the stuff missing from the game (I personally think reviews were way too positive, there's a lot missing from the game that probably should be in there). The villagers are just so disappointing though; boring, repetitive, there's no reason to really talk to them at all and I usually don't anymore, I just wait until they run over to me to talk to teach me a new emotion or something.

It's pretty commonly accepted villagers get less interesting each game but they took an absolute nose dive in NH.

yes omg finally someone who agrees that the reviews are too high!!! ive seen some reviewers give it a "game of the decade" title already even though there's maybe 15% of the content in this game than even GAMECUBE. Yeah big whoop, you can customize furniture. But Cyrus did that in new leaf, with a bigger selection of items at that. Building your own map is the only thing cool/unique about this game! (not to mention how criminal it is taking out gyroids. since the spawn rate is now 100% fossils for buried items, i have two fossils left to complete the collection. TWO! that's shameful. I still haven't completed my fossils in new leaf. All i ever end up doing is running around in circles and maybe re-placing a flower or two. No mini games, no art collection, no unlocking emotions via the grind from shrunk, no katrina, no gracie, no further store upgrades, no deep sea diving, no dream suite. It doesn't even have any of the new buildings that were teased in HHD like a restaurant or another store! It literally has 5% of the features that the previous game released 7 years ago had from DAY ONE. Sure you can wait for updates, but like, this is a 60$ game. This content should already be in the game!! Nintendo finally fell victim to the whole "buy a 60$ game that's half finished and we'll add the rest of it in later (possibly for paid dlc)" strategy that most big name game companies do nowadays. It's sickening.

ive been playing since wild world and feel almost no connection to any of my villagers, even snake, who is my favorite of all time. The peppy dialogue is really good IMO though, but hearing it from two different characters makes me feel like each villager isn't unique (i mean, i guess they aren't, but you can click with one more than another and they have the same personality). I've already seen the same dialogue multiple times, which didn't happen until at least a year into the game. New leaf was JAM PACKED with dialoge and content. It's so sad to see people do a 180 and dump all over it just because New Horizons is out and like. Has better graphics? I don't know. I don't know how anyone can say NH is better than NL, they've obviously not played it or not for very long. It breaks my heart but this game is such a big let down.

sorry for going on a tangent lol i've just been really upset about this for a while now and was also tired of people giving it too high reviews for such a content-less game..

 

[Aleigh]

I thought I was the only one. It's part of the reason I say I prefer New Leaf over NH. The GC and WW were still technically my mom's games (because I was still little and she did buy them for herself) so getting to play it was such a big deal. Then CF came around and it was finally a game of my own and I loved it. Then New Leaf came out but I wasn't able to get it for a couple years since I didn't have a 3ds, but eventually I got it and it was AMAZING. With NH, I feel like everyone hyped it up so much and now so many people are playing it as their first ac game and are like, idk. I don't wanna sound rude. Anyway I'm bad at explaining things but I understand

 

[textlingo]

Also, is anyone else super upset at what they've done with Snooty and Cranky villagers? They've lost ALL their sting in their dialogue. Neither are rude off the bat then soften up as you befriend them as they did in all the other games. I know AC games have gotten "softer" over the years, but even in New Leaf did they have some passive aggressiveness to you initially. Now the snooty villagers act like "dignified older ladies", which I mean they are, but they're like sweet southern bells. And crankys' just act like dumb old men instead of your cool uncle that buys you alcohol when you're 19. What's with their sudden southern accent and talkin' all dern like dis? It bothers me so badly. Hearing Apollo say "i don't know how I got outside, the sun's makin' my bones feel better, etc" makes me feel really weird.

 

[mocha.]

I understand how you feel, I go through phases of feeling like that too. It’s like the villagers lack depth at the beginning. I’ve reset 3 times and I think I’ve had to deal with such repetitive dialogue but I’m hoping it becomes less stale the more you progress? I’m on a TT ban at the moment to fight the burnout and I’m finding that helps a lot - and if things do feel overwhelming then you can always take a break and come back to it once you’re ready.
I think there was a huge amount of hype for the game and it’s the first AC game I’ve been able to play on release, so it’s no wonder we’re feeling a little underwhelmed because we’ve all been speculating for months haha.

 

[Verecund]

I feel a connection with a couple of my villagers, but I think it's just because they're my first ones and I don't think I'm going to connect differently with future villagers whether they're my favourites or not. I'm not sure yet whether I prefer NH's villagers over NL, but it's definitely not even close to WW, which was what I was hoping for in this game in terms of dialogue. NL got to the point where even if I restarted a town I'd get sick of it in a week because the dialogue was so repetitive. In NH, I get a lot of repeating dialogue as well, but it seems more interesting, although maybe that's because I haven't had the game for several years like I have NL. Villagers also have conversations with each other a lot more than in NL, which is good (although I haven't seen any funny ones like in WW/CF). NH's villagers are a lot more immersive than any other game in the actions they do around town as well - like in my town, I remember that Ava likes to sing a lot and Cobb's always looking at plants with a magnifying glass, so it's nice that they stand out like that.

I haven't had a snooty villager yet, but my cranky villagers definitely aren't cranky - they're way too nice and are just old guys who occasionally complain about their back and stuff like that. All my lazy villager does is talk about the bugs in his house, which was funny at first, but it's going to get old really fast. I can't recall anything interesting a normal villager has said to me, and I have two of them.

My biggest gripe has to be how quickly the villagers get sick of talking to you, though. Diva's one of my starters and I've talked to her multiple times a day, and it seems like we have a decent friendship, but a day or two ago, I talked to her once in the morning and then another time several hours later and she was already asking me if this island was big enough for both of us or something like that. My other villagers don't seem to get irritated with me, though, so maybe it's just a thing with the uchis. Either way, it really gets on my nerves and makes me hesitant to talk with anyone more than once or twice a day whereas in previous games I'd talk to my neighbours all the time.

 

[FaerieRose]

I've found some really cute encounters. Shari and Mott had me help them come up with song lyrics the other day.

 

[kindheartedhog]

I agree, I was saying to my partner today that I wish things were like how they were in ACNL again. They just seemed to have made the villagers even blander - when they were already bland before

 

[aibo]

I don't TT and am 75 hours in. I unlocked pathing two days ago and am "best friends", according to the Nook Phone, with three villagers. Obviously, I play slow. But I've done a lot of nothing- and talking- in that time.

So far, my experience with the game has been that when the dialogue is good it's really good, but when the dialogue is bad, it's really bad. Even when I talk to the villager I've known the longest, I usually get a one-line response with no additional context. I haven't been asked to run any errands yet and received one letter at an in-game milestone, but that was it. If there is bounds more depth to the characters, I haven't seen it yet, but I'm excited about it.

I'll admit that I don't remember much of the villager dialogue in NL (my memory isn't great and I spent too many hours to count in that game) but the experience with the villagers in that game felt richer just because they were more hands-on, it seems. The timed meetups, 'chores', tasks, and games were more common. The contextual remarks are cool, but I don't really like the repeated one-liners from my villagers (I've had this experience with all personality types, but I agree that normal villagers seem to be the worst offenders)

Honestly, I just want a good table.

 

[Fridaynightcatlady]

Anyone else feel this way? I think back on my experiences of playing GC, Wild World, City Folk, and New Leaf for the first time and remember how amazing everything felt. New Horizons is great, but I'm not feeling that deep connection like I did in the other games, especially to my villagers. I loved talking to them every day. Now I get excited to talk to them only for them to say generic lines I've heard before. Maybe the Bunny Day event caused it, because it made everything annoying for 12 days straight and my villagers won't talk about anything else. All of the eggs everywhere also really took me out of the natural, deserted island feeling of the game. I'm hoping it "clicks" with me soon now that it's over.

Nope, not at all. I've logged in over 130 hours so far and loving it.

I personally prefer villagers in this game over NL, CF and WW because they seem so alive and have great interactions! As far as dialogue goes, it's incredible and far better than NL and CF, imo (it's close to WW quality dialogue, I'd say). Looking back at NL, their dialogue was absurd. 90% consisted of villagers asking you for stuff (get me this bug/fish or furniture for my home?). I like how in NH your friendship actually seems to progress.Villagers (and NPC's) were butchered in NL and it's a shame really. I've actually laughed out loud with some of the dialogue in NH and it's reminded me so much of GCN. Sure, it's not as great as GCN but people need to consider that GCN AC didn't have many other features, so it relied primarily on villagers (even then, the interactions weren't as good as now, but dialogue was of course on another level).

I don't mind that they get annoyed when you talk to them. It makes sense to me (sure, maybe it shouldn't happen right away), but it strikes me as odd to see people annoyed by this, when generally, the community has asked for mean villagers again.

 

[grrrolf]

I just wanna say, after Bunny Day has ended my experience has completely changed. The dialogue is honestly pretty incredible now, somehow even better than before Bunny Day. I rarely see repeats. Villagers are asking for favors now. So I really think Bunny Day was ruining the experience for me. But I'm really happy now!

 

[Kaioin]

I just wanna say, after Bunny Day has ended my experience has completely changed. The dialogue is honestly pretty incredible now, somehow even better than before Bunny Day. I rarely see repeats. Villagers are asking for favors now. So I really think Bunny Day was ruining the experience for me. But I'm really happy now!

More likely than not, you just got past the initial awful "pre-friends" stage with your villagers!

 

[tybalt_cake]

I personally think that my villagers are quite repetitive after the bunny day event , yes Rolf I know the jacket Im using is nice , please say something else.

But I guess the more I talk to my villagers , the better their dialogues will get.