So, do you think we will ever get improved dialogues?

[Jyurei]

I also don't think the basic dialogue will ever be changed at this point, but I agree that at least the Snooty and Cranky villagers could be less watered down and nice from the beginning. Honestly what I miss the most about the older games regarding dialogue (mainly PG and WW) is not so much the fact that they were rude, but more so the fact that you had to earn their friendship. They were rude to you because you were a stranger and new to the town, and as time went by and you became their friend they would start saying nicer things to you. On NL and NH I get the feeling that everyone is already sucking up to you from the start, and so I don't really feel that they started treating me better because of something I did, but rather just because I am Mayor/Island Rep.

Another thing that I wish they did at this point was events between certain villager personalities, kinda like what we see in games like Harvest Moon/SOS and Stardew Valley. Imagine something like the kind of dialogues we see when villagers talk to each other, but they actually follow some kind of storyline. Like when two normal villagers talk about baking something and ask for your opinion, you can actually go to one of their house some other time and see that they are baking what they said they would.

 

[JKDOS]

I don't think so. They are baked into the game. We could see some new additions, but the system itself likely will not improve.

 

[Cloudandshade]

Do I think the dialogue is repetitive? Yes. Do I also think this game has the most dialogue? Yes.

After a year of playing what I’ve noticed is that if you don’t change your play style, you’ll always get the same dialogue. Of course villagers will always give the repetitive lines of dialogue first unfortunately, but after that they have so much to say and so many unique things.
For example they have dialogue based on...

• where they are on your island
• buildings around them
• what you’re holding
• what they’re holding
• if they are sitting
• if they have a villager over their house
• if they are at another villagers house
• what clothes you are wearing (this is a huge one because they comment based on your style, if the outfit works or doesn’t work, if it’s season/weather appropriate or if it’s not, etc.)
• how often you have been wearing that one outfit
• if they are wearing clothes you gave them
• if they are near certain furniture items (and this one I want to exaggerate because they talk about base game items that have always been there fairly generically, but then they talk specifically about basically any item that has been introduced since release. They notice if you put out Bunny Day furniture out of season as well as if you put it out in season. They comment on the wedding furniture in a unique way. Again, all furniture from update for the most part has specific dialogue)
• the special characters that are visiting your island (you can basically find out if Celeste is in your island by talking with your villagers instead of running laps to find her)
• who has visited your island
• things that you liked that you have mentioned in the past
• if they are in a certain shop
• what personality type they are taking to when talking to another villager
  
  I’m sure there’s more but I just wanted to try to explain how there is SO MUCH dialogue but a lot of it is very specific and requires you to speak to your villagers multiple times a day, that unless you are often changing the way you play and the world around you, you won’t really notice it.

EDIT: I thought of a few more

• Dialogue based on the weather
• Dialogue based on if they like or don’t like gifts. This dialogue is different depending on if you have them the gift or if they got the gift from another villager.
• Dialogue based on you telling them about a delivery you did for them

This is it exactly - it isn't that NH has less varied dialogue, it's that it's presented to you in the wrong order. There's a TON of dialogue in this game, but the first time you talk to your villagers each day, it's almost always the same thing, and I agree that that's frustrating. You have to have several conversations with them to see the variety, and there isn't always time for that. If Nintendo would just go as far as to expand the possibilities of your villagers' 'opening line', that alone would improve things enormously!

I also sort of miss the sass of the dialogue from previous games. It made your villagers feel like more rounded personalities with varied feelings and emotions depending on how you interacted with them, and I do think they've been left feeling a bit more bland and one-dimensional as a result. I do understand why they made the change though, and I don't think they're likely to ever revert it.

 

[Starfish10]

Overall, I like the dialogue in NH and think it’s pretty good, certainly much better than in New Leaf when my villagers each had like two lines they would say forever and ever.

But I also really miss the hilarity of my cute little kitty cat neighbor in my adorable little animal village telling me I’m a waste of space

I think the series has taken a turn away from that kind of dialogue, though.

 

[JKDOS]

The opening dialogue when you first greet them for the day definitely needs work. Peppy for example may say something like "Hmm, what should I do tonight?", and that's that.

Spoiler: Peppy opening diagloue

https://twitter.com/x/status/1358583501314875393

Some things that should be removed or reduced are

• Asking you about another player resident's hobby/interest.
• Mentioning a recently visited player, even though they didn't interact and possible just traded items at the airport.
• Mentioning what you did yesterday (cliff/river/fence building, fossil digging, etc)

And the most annoying thing of all, please reduce how much love for trashcans villagers have. Every time I carry a trashcan, I get asked a hundred times if I'll sell or trade my trashcan to them.

 

[Etown20]

I had Bianca move in fairly recently, and for the first time she mentioned however many miles away the moon is and said she was going to walk around the beach that much, and to just call her Moon Tiger. Now I don't know if that's a Peppy villager thing, but if it is, none of my other Peppy villagers I've had have ever said anything like that. Bianca is my first "tiger" villager though, so I'm wondering if it might be a species thing? But I feel like not, because I know that Snooty villagers say something about being up early because "the early (insert species here) gets their to do list done."

This is a peppy thing I think - I've had one of my peppy ducks say to call her "Moon Duck". I think there was a thread about new dialogue being added in one of the updates a while back, and I think that line may have been part of that update because I also hadn't heard it before, but I'm not sure.

That said, there are a few lines that are specific to certain species. I know normal villagers have a bit of a dialogue about which of their features they like best, and I think their answer varies by species. I don't think I've noticed other instances of this, though there may be some I am missing/forgetting.

 

[lexy_]

I wish they could bring back some dialogue but I don't think they will dot it, right now the update are small and I don't think dialogue is a priority for nintendo, the game is lacking so many things so I am not optimistic about the dialogue...too bad though because I really miss the interaction from the old game.

 

[mocha.]

I would love for there to be more interaction/dialogue between villagers. I really miss them showing up to your house or having you visit theirs! My fondest memories are with WW and especially with Resetti (although he scared me at the time I can look back and laugh now haha), I’m not sure if that’s just nostalgia speaking and whether or not the game had the same kind of variation? Also I think the current climate wouldn’t accept the harshness of the GameCube days, it would end up cancelled lol.

at the same time, I have played this game so much I don’t know if it’s me - have I just worn out the dialogue? It would still be nice to get some new options either way!

 

[SpiritofAce]

No because todays society are all a bunch of pansies. Theres a reason why times were better back in 05. Nowadays everyones offended and cry at everything. Maybe smaller changes but 100% no rude dialogue as in WW
I mean who tf gets offended by a video game animal.I was 10 when I played WW and i never got offended by anything

This sums up my thoughts pretty succinctly.

 

[sushicatlikesart]

No. While I really want better, more unique dialogue, I think they would have added it from the start if we were gonna get it.

 

[Licorice]

It will never happen but I just want my villagers to roast me like they do on the gamecube game. Why are the crankies and snooties so nice?? Call me ugly, insult my clothes, call me a freak, I love it lmao

 

[Ganucci]

The opening dialogue when you first greet them for the day definitely needs work. Peppy for example may say something like "Hmm, what should I do tonight?", and that's that.

Spoiler: Peppy opening diagloue

https://twitter.com/x/status/1358583501314875393

Some things that should be removed or reduced are

• Asking you about another player resident's hobby/interest.
• Mentioning a recently visited player, even though they didn't interact and possible just traded items at the airport.
• Mentioning what you did yesterday (cliff/river/fence building, fossil digging, etc)

And the most annoying thing of all, please reduce how much love for trashcans villagers have. Every time I carry a trashcan, I get asked a hundred times if I'll sell or trade my trashcan to them.

Jeeeeeez that's rough dialogue. Why would they approve that?? It did make me laugh out loud though at how ridiculous it is.

 

[Etown20]

Jeeeeeez that's rough dialogue. Why would they approve that?? It did make me laugh out loud though at how ridiculous it is.

I think the normal villager version of this is "Let's make this our best day ever!" One of my normal villagers said it to me just the other night when I logged on at 11 pm

 

[satine]

It will never happen but I just want my villagers to roast me like they do on the gamecube game. Why are the crankies and snooties so nice?? Call me ugly, insult my clothes, call me a freak, I love it lmao

UGH same. I remember at one point when I was playing the GameCube game (when I was about seven years old or so), Tom was so mean to me that he made me cry hahah. I didn't like that at the time but honestly the big variety between personalities was very neat. I loved how the snooty villagers I had were legitimately snobby and rude, and the cranky ones were actually CRANKY. It gave so much life. And I cannot see this ever changing. they would never make them suddenly meaner again. And that really makes me sad.

I would absolutely love for them to at the very LEAST add more dialogue options. But I don't have my hopes up for that now. Nintendo is doing a few things right with the updates but by large its a hit and a miss. They paid attention to like 1 or 2 things that people were requesting and everyone is saying they "listen to fan suggestions" but the reality is, at least in my opinion, they listen quite halfheartedly. If they really did listen and they took everything into account they'd have done something more than a cake with acknowledging the one-year anniversary for example.

I mean, it's only been a year of course. There is still time and still hope that things will be different and maybe they'll surprise us and actually add in gyroids/more dialogue/other quality-of-life updates in the future. But I have learned that getting my hopes up for updates and their potential contents is a little wasteful and leads me to feeling disappointed. So I don't want to expect anything anymore because I don't want to be disappointed. I guess it is just self preservation.

 

[littlewing]

like most people in this thread i don't think we'll ever get rude dialogue back. i can sort of see why; i think nintendo wants ACNH to be an "escape" from the real world, a game with heavy emphasis on relaxation, and i guess i can understand why some people have a hard time relaxing around neighbors that insult them... still, i do think it's a shame. it really did add a lot of personality, and i agree that snooties and crankies at the very least should have more bite to them.

on another note, i see a lot of players blaming "PC culture" for the ACNH villagers being de-fanged, and speaking as someone who's accused of being a "snowflake" pretty often, i've never seen anyone in the "PC gaming sphere" complain about AC's particular brand of rudeness.

older AC games employed a style of cheeky humor that was very equal opportunity, if you catch my drift. they took shots at the player no matter what kind of person you were behind the screen -- like when a neighbor called you loud and irritating for talking to them too much, or when they insulted your in-game fashion sense, or your avatar's big head. their jokes didn't target any specific group of people.

i'm pretty sure most folks concerned with social justice can agree that style of humor -- while not for everyone -- isn't especially harmful.

 

[maria110]

There have been some small improvements and tweaks, haven't there? It seems to me like the dialogue has improved a bit and some flaws were fixed. Like jocks no longer say "Like that shirt" and instead say "I like those threads." Also Marina's dialogue is pretty good and better than I remember some of my other normal villagers having. Maybe it's just that I talked to her more, though.

 

[windwake-me-up-inside]

I feel alone in saying that getting a lot of rude villagers in the original Gamecube version turned me off from playing the game entirely when I played it. I don't like to think I'm a pansy, but why should I invest time into a town where the majority of the people are actively nasty to me for no reason? It doesn't make me want to stay and get to know them; it just makes me want to pack up my things and move elsewhere, lol.

I totally get how the challenge of making friends with the actively hostile ones can be engaging, though, I just personally hope it doesn't come back.

 

[LuluLove102]

In the end of the day everyone has preference. The only thing is that I don’t see the reason for cranky or snooty to even exist in this game. Cranky are cranky because...their joints hurt? And snooty are snooty because...they compliment you more often on your clothes than normal villagers? If the main idea was to have overall lovely villagers then they could have named the personality in a different way. None of them make sense. Lazy have been turned in weird bugs whisperers, normals were never too interesting but at least they overall look cute. Smugs used to subtly flirt with you in previous games, while cranky and snooties were usually not very friendly. Jokes at least had different interests, they would talk about fishing and bugs catching, not only about how massive their muscles are.

 

[McRibbie]

First off, I'm just gonna say that @luckytrait has pretty much NAILED how I generally feel about villager dialogue post-NL (ie. villagers are nicer now, which is kind of a shame, but there's also lots of blame on people that haven't done anything because the world is changing and AAAA SCARY instead of, y'know, probably the localisation team itself)

But at the same time I feel it's a little more complex than that.

I think there should be some kind of trajectory when it comes to friendship in AC, in that they shouldn't INSTANTLY be your friend. However, I also don't think that should necessarily be mean. Meanness should be for when you flake on meeting up with someone, for when you open someone's package and sell the contents so that you can pay off your mortgage, or for when you decide to gift them fancily gift-wrapped trash. Not for "you're new, and I don't like you, but if you talk to me 6 million times I'll start being nice to you", because honestly? Both of these extremes are unrealistic. I don't want villagers that constantly smile at you, only hype me up and only move out if you give them permission to, and I also don't want villagers that steal your money, drink all your Pepsi and call you a *****, and impulsively decide to give you a new roof out of spite.

I do want villagers who give you advice when you're new and give you good reason to get to know them and earn them calling you their bestie, but who aren't afraid to chew you out if you screw up. Who sometimes just want me to catch something or deliver something, and other times want to do little timed competitions. I want villagers who are deeper than just one-word summations of their personality, who aren't JUST crabby or stuck-up, but have friends, partners and relatives outside of the area you live in. Interests, hopes, aspirations, fears, distinctions, hobbies.

Unfortunately, this is Animal Crossing, and they've honestly been kinda inconsistent on this between games (but never COMPLETELY terrible), and I'm now just describing a weird mushed-together cross between Wild World, New Leaf and New Horizons, because there's actually some great stuff in there, especially about their lives off-island, and they generally add (or sometimes rewrite for various reasons) stuff with each update, so yeah, they will improve the dialog.

Just, y'know, say what's actually wrong with it instead of leaning on buzzwords and hyperbole, that's just asking for trouble.

 

[VanitasFan26]

In the end of the day everyone has preference. The only thing is that I don’t see the reason for cranky or snooty to even exist in this game. Cranky are cranky because...their joints hurt? And snooty are snooty because...they compliment you more often on your clothes than normal villagers? If the main idea was to have overall lovely villagers then they could have named the personality in a different way. None of them make sense. Lazy have been turned in weird bugs whisperers, normals were never too interesting but at least they overall look cute. Smugs used to subtly flirt with you in previous games, while cranky and snooties were usually not very friendly. Jokes at least had different interests, they would talk about fishing and bugs catching, not only about how massive their muscles are.

This creates an issue when the Cranky and Snooty are not as mean as they were in the past games. Now in New Horizons they seem to be more friendly even when you invite them into your island. There needs to be a balance between friendly and rude villagers.