The Sadness of Old Animal Crossing Games

[Anblick]

I hear people all the time saying “NH is missing a ton of stuff! Go to NL, you’ll get more bang for your buck!” I’ve been replaying it for a bit, and while I agree that there’s a lot more in the furniture and mini game aspect... it’s kinda duller than NH. One big complaint is that Isabelle is useless in this game but really, REALLY-once you’ve plopped down all your public service projects you’ll probably never talk to her again except for setting up to start a session. And even with the furniture-how many series’ are you going to use? How many are really appealing (the creepy harvest series comes to mind)? Nintendo has a vision for this game, and while we’re going to have to wait on a lot of stuff, I’m sure we’ll have just as much, if not more, fun stuff to decorate with.

Ahahah omg I *love* the harvest series XD but my entire town was Halloween/fall themed forever. TOO FUNNY. I had gravestones and mushrooms and creepy stuff all over. The harvest set went along with it all really nicely. XDDD

I actually thought about booting up my NL game again since I've been having so much fun in NH but I actually made a pretty solid choice when I stopped playing because I didn't want any of my villagers to move out... I just wanted my town to stay like it was when I had the time to put the energy in like I had been. I'd been playing NL for like 3.5 years when I finally fizzled out which I mean, you can't deny the love there <3 and if I turned it on and something had just really gone wrong that mattered to me I'd be so upset. I'd rather it stay like it was(/is D:< ) and really enjoy the new stuff going on in NH WOO

 

[Cat_fish]

I think for me, one of the reasons I love the Animal Crossing series in general is because I grew up playing it and I too have fond memories of the older games. The older ones certainly can be more difficult to get into, especially since one of the things I love about this community is getting to interact with other people (trades/visiting other islands/etc.). While it certainly was pretty busy back when NL launched those forums are mostly dead now, and it can be harder to get into the older ones as like you said it can be taxing to play (City Folk was a lot, imo).

The other thing for me is that I dropped over 450 hours on a single town in NL, and I got all my dream villagers. I think I would have too much anxiety dropping back in and seeing that my favorite villagers had moved away, especially since the thought of cycling though 16-some villagers to be able to get them back sounds excruciating. There are ways of loading up the game to check without saving of course, but it's not a game that's easier to pop in and out of if you're at all attached to your villagers.

 

[MapleSilver]

I'm lucky that I don't really have this feeling. I grew up playing the series and have a ton of good memories from it, but I can still enjoy the older games. I have a City Folk town which I play on occasion, and it's been a wholly pleasant experience.

 

[Fisher]

It’s like this with all older games for me, I love the elder scrolls games and I tried playing Oblivion the other day and I just couldn’t get into it. I absolutely loved it when it first came out when I was younger but it really aged poorly.

Think we just get use to the new features and graphics of new games it’s really hard to play older games. Only really old games I can play and still enjoy is older Zelda games like OoT and Majora’s Mask, but those of course were masterpieces.

 

[MidnightAura]

I can’t relate to this. I have all the main animal crossing games and i still play them daily. City folk probably gets the least amount of love but I do check in. I play the original animal crossing, wild world and new leaf every day or every second day. Of course graphically they aren’t as nice as NH. But IMO they have better game play, the villagers are way better, and the games have soul and charm that’s lacking in NH. Sure I miss not being able to say jump across rivers but I don’t miss my villagers being soulless robots. Graphics aren’t everything.

 

[Michelangelo]

I personally don't mind the look of older graphics and I feel like each game has it's own unique charm and features that make them worth coming back to. I love this series, it's definitely one of my faves ever so a little jankiness isn't gonna change that or deter me from enjoying past iterations.

New Leaf graphics are fine for what they're worth. I like how textured everything looked. The game took advantage of the system it was made for.

Post automatically merged: Jul 10, 2020

I can’t relate to this. I have all the main animal crossing games and i still play them daily. City folk probably gets the least amount of love but I do check in. I play the original animal crossing, wild world and new leaf every day or every second day. Of course graphically they aren’t as nice as NH. But IMO they have better game play, the villagers are way better, and the games have soul and charm that’s lacking in NH. Sure I miss not being able to say jump across rivers but I don’t miss my villagers being soulless robots. Graphics aren’t everything.

That last statement is true: graphics aren't everything. To me, it might start feeling overwhelming playing them all everyday. It'd be cool to combine all the best features of all AC games and make the ultimate game!

 

[Bugs]

I find it surprising how many games that I remember being so good and amazing are not so much on replaying them now. I'm also in my mid-20's, so maybe it's just the rosetinted glasses coming off as we get older.

I recently replayed the GameCube version of wind waker, and while there's still a lot of magic there and the controls still feel smooth, the game isn't nearly as challenging as I remember. I remember getting so stuck in the Tower if the gods, and I have no idea how because it was just so easy playing it again more than a decade later.

Before NH came out, I started a town on the GameCube version of Animal Crossing, and it was fun for a couple of days but the lack of variety of fish, bugs and fossils really stuck out to me. Although yes, the villagers are great in that game.

I think a part of it is nostalgia making us remember things being awesome, and then we don't play them for so long that when we get back to them we realise they weren't the best things ever.

It's sad, yes, but I still enjoy the memories I have as a child discovering those games for the first time, and it makes me excited for future Nintendo games as at least they've never really lost that magic.