Thoughts on picking up NL for the first time after NH

[Etown20]

I didn't own a DS when New Leaf came out, so I never played it. I have really enjoyed playing New Horizons over the past year. I have read the praise from NL from other users, and it sounds like there is a sizable portion of people that even prefer NL to NH.

My question is - if I've never played NL before, is it worth buying a DS and playing for the first time after playing NH? I have no nostalgia for the game and am concerned things like graphics or the small screen may weigh it down for me (I'm used to playing on the TV). That said, I can't help but be curious about it after all the talk I see about it.

Curious to hear your thoughts!

 

[Jam86]

see NH has better graphics and the ability to decorate outside plus a few cute funiture & clothing items

whereas NL has amazing clothes, characters, furniture, hourly music, mini games, shops etc
i literally spent ages in kicks' shop just jamming along to the music

my only problem with NL is that u can't put furniture outside but other than that, it's a way better game lol
i've been playing it a lot recently, it's a really good game to go back to and totally worth getting

HHD is still the best ac game

 

[Hresvelg]

It’s definitely worth getting. It has a lot more content than NH and the villagers have better dialogue, they feel more alive. A big plus is that you don’t need to pay for a membership to play with your friends, visit dream addresses, scan custom designs etc. You can also buy another copy of the game and get another town so you can make as many towns as you like rather than one copy per console like NH.

You are a bit limited with what you can do in regards to outdoor decorating, no terraforming for example. Aside from that, I agree with Jam that it’s superior to NH and very much worth it!

Oh, and as for graphics - I came back to it a month ago after playing NH and it was a bit jarring at first, but after you adjust it’s fine. I’d say NH goes for a more realistic look whilst NL has it’s own cute cartoony charm.

Hope this helps! Before I bought my DS I watched a few lets plays on youtube of NL just to see what it was like, maybe you could give that a go before deciding?

 

[kiwikenobi]

I like New Horizons well enough, but I loved New Leaf.

If you want to check out a Let's Play of New Leaf, chuggaaconroy did a very nice one on Youtube a few years back, very thorough and entertaining.

 

[MyDanes]

I am a brand new New Leaf player and have 2 ACNH islands (2 switches). There are sooo many things that are even better in NL that I can’t understand why they removed in NH - it’s the little things - such as the ease to save and continue or save and quit for one example. Another is for those of us who time travel changing the date is a dream in NL. Furthermore, and this is huge - loading the game and doing things at the train station are much quicker than NH - Also the music as others stated is awesome. I am still way to early in play to be able to argue in depth at the validity but I am thrilled I found my old 3DS and spent the 20 bucks on this wonderful little game. OH I also LOVE LOVE the Re-Tail shop. Yes graphics are not as sharp as NH but who cares I can live with that and am very much enjoying my little “Paradise” town!!!

 

[wildworldtraveller]

I've picked NL up last week after becoming weary of the slow updates NH is getting, and becoming curious when lurking a bit in forums (due to my disappointment with the last NH update), with many NL players praising the game.

So far (after 1 week only though) I find NL to be much closer to Wild World in overall feeling and design, and I gave WW a decent chance but didn't play it as much back then as I've been playing NH during the past year. So I really have no nostalgic feelings towards earlier entries of the series too. The design and UI of NL have a lot of quirks that are difficult to return to if you are coming from the, in comparison, extremely polished New Horizons. In NL, you can't try different outfits with various colour options at the Able Sisters (and the clothing, including your own designed one doesn't look as good too), villagers can move out if you don't return regularly (which is stressful), you have a really tiny inventory with very limited stacking (and you have to stack fruits manually one by one), and you have to use the touch screen all the time, which breaks gameplay flow. I couldn’t buy a new fishing rod for days because it appears randomly in the shop. It overall feels more grindy. Fossils collection is slow because randomly gyroids (which have no use..) and traps will appear.

There are huge limitations in what you can customize outside your house. I realized that the creativity and self expression that NH allows were actually very important to me. The museum is just a shade of what they made of it in NH, and I did not feel the wish to visit it late at night so far (which I often did in NH, nights at the museum are cool). I don't think that the dialogue with the villagers is more interesting than in NH yet, but maybe it will become better with time. The home visits and the errands for the villagers have felt rather boring and superfluous to me.

Still, I already understand those who would like to have NLs content back in NH. The game indeed gives you the feeling of living in a small town from the beginning. I already found a number of things that should have been in NH from the beginning, e.g. actual information boards at the museum (I wish I could read some trivia about the exhibits during visits, at the moment only the art gallery has this..). Maybe I will change my opinion in the next weeks. But so far I think NH is the much better game by comparison, but lacking several functions and content from NL that it really should have by now.

I think NH is brilliant in that they went full into providing the most stress-free and relaxing experience possible. They seem to have removed everything that could cause even the smallest amount of discomfort. Although I'm usually not a graphics enthusiast, I found that the smooth, adorable, beautiful and detailed NH graphics (and the optional TV mode) contribute a lot to its relaxation effect. I can't even play NL without turning 3D on because the graphics look so dated, even for its release date. I've had to think "3D was a mistake" (Playstation 1 era) several times.

I think Nintendo has been following an 'identify, focus and double down on the most important elements' strategy with the development of the Switch, and many other games like AC, and their current success is due to this. They don't provide menu themes, StreetPass and other gimmicks in order to have resources to focus on the actual games, and not waste energy on maintenance of nice-to-have-but-unessential functions. For NH they fully went into the idea of AC being a series of sandbox games. And this worked out very well, I love exploring what people came up with during dreams and on the web. I often get back into designing my island when spotting a neat little idea somewhere.

IMHO a New 3DS (if you can get hold of one) is worth picking up nevertheless. I got it for the N64 Zelda remakes, but it has an amazing library. It collected some dust after I got my Switch though, so definitely check out whether there are other exclusives (DS & 3DS libraries) that are interesting to you first, and don't get it for NL alone.

@MyDanes: Doesn't NH save automatically? I found NLs manual saving quite annoying, especially after getting Resetti only because my battery ran out.

 

[MyDanes]

"wildworldtraveller, post: 9828585, member: 154941"

Hi, Yes technically you are correct but for anyone who has lost battery and missed a save or accidentally closed the software and only found out the last things you did are gone I love that reassurance of clicking save and continue - only choice in NH is save and quit[/QUOTE]

 

[Feraligator]

New Leaf really does have less QoL features than NH and you will feel them when you play. The small screen also does put me off, I wish there was a way to play on TV.

The lack of outdoor freedom, the much smaller town, and the risk of villagers moving wherever they want or moving out whenever they want is also quite off putting after playing NH.

But NL does have so, so much charm to it. The dialogue isn't fantastic, but there a so many little details in NL that were just forgotten about in NH. The music is also much calmer and more akin to background OST that you can easily tune out, and there is just so much more to do. It also feels cosier because you're in a town, not a remote island.

I feel NL has a better sense of progression too, because there's so much to unlock.

House customisation is better than island customisation too, that's for certain. While half tiles don't exist, the furniture is better as a whole and there are a few more customisation options with Cyrus. The exterior of buildings also have more to them.

This is why I wish NH and NL merged together to make one fantastic game. The graphics, QoL, and outdoor customisation of NH plus everything from NL would've had my play time soar to 2,000 hours in less than a year, honestly. I think I expected too much after NL, but then going back to NL is hard without the QoL stuff from NH.

Either way, I'm thinking of starting another town in NL at some point. I have 2 copies of the game because I loved it so much when NL was it its peak. But since I know everything inside out (even the villager dialogue), it's a little hard to enjoy like I used to.

 

[MyDanes]

Jez - you totally should so i can be your friend in NL hahaha I agree with so much of what you said but I am enjoying NL - so far my only complaint besides the obvious about graphics which is no biggie i have NH for that - is it seems the villagers are harder for me to run into on my daily adventure. - It seems in NH you would literally have to ‘try’ to avoid them.

 

[Bluebellie]

I would watch a couple of videos on YouTube to see if the graphics is something you won’t mind. Although I loved new leaf, I would not necessarily go back to playing it because it just looks very blurry and pixelated compared to new horizons.

 

[nudgenudge]

New leaf is the best game I've ever played. New Horizons isn't even in the top fifty. Bottom line, NH isn't finished, and NL (especially with the 1.5 update) has such a ridiculous amount of content that its no contest. Plus, Kazumi Totaka's amazing soundtrack for NL just absolutely crushes NH's forgettable stuff. The villagers feel ALIVE, there are so many more activities and interactions, and ultimately, it just feels like the superior game.

I don't understand why developers so rarely finish their products these days. The saddest part of all is that NH sold like CRAZY and was many people's first Animal Crossing, so they don't see any kind of downgrade and just blindly praise NH. It's tragic. RIP interesting interactions.

I could rant for paragraphs about how lackluster NH is, but that won't do anyone any good

 

[thimes]

I think that most people who prefer NH either forgot what NL was actually like or didn't play enough to experience all of the features and find out that the flaws they mentioned have actual solutions within the game, it's just that they require a bit of research. Most of them have barely touched the surface of all the content NL has to offer. I have played this game for over 6 years now and i still find new things every week.

For example, i have seen people mentioning you can't choose where villagers move, but you actually can with plot resetting. I have seen people saying there is no way to stop villagers from moving out, when not only you can, but you can also prevent that from happening, even if you don't play for a long while, by talking to villagers about 15 times in order find out who wants to leave and then accepting or decling their request. After that, the game is programmed to not let anyone leave on the next day you play it, so you can take a break for whatever amount of days, weeks or even months you want. If you don't mind a bit of tt, you could also simply write down the last day you played...

Another complaint that is common between people who barely played it is that there isn't a way to decorate the outdoors. But you can actually do a lot with just projects, paths, bushes, trees, flowers and dropped items. Some projects are far prettier than your average furniture and they look much better outside, a lot of people haven't even unlocked 25% of them, because they don't know the diving trick is a thing. If they took the time to visit Dream Towns for inspiration, they would see how to work around the limitations and use their creativity to make a beautiful (or even scary) town.

At the end of the day, NL is a lot more than just a decorating simulator, it offers such great dialogue, villagers interactions, minigames, stores, soundtrack and characters that are missing from from NH. Even when it comes to decorating, it's superior in some aspects, like the houses' interior and exterior design, the ability to customize the Museum's exhibits, the catalogue which has 2x more items and so on...

 

[ForgottenT]

I’d say yeah go for it, if you can get past the dated graphics it’s the best AC game there is in my opinion.

 

[Plainbluetees]

If you are up to it, I’d definitely go for it. New Leaf has quite some charm and I’ve gone back to it a few times after getting bored of New Horizons. You get can a 2DS for about $70 from a pawn shop/site like eBay, so if you are up to paying that. You can get New Leaf used for about $10 too.

 

[Bilaz]

I think that most people who prefer NH either forgot what NL was actually like or didn't play enough to experience all of the features and find out that the flaws they mentioned have actual solutions within the game, it's just that they require a bit of research. Most of them have barely touched the surface of all the content NL has to offer. I have played this game for over 6 years now and i still find new things every week.

For example, i have seen people mentioning you can't choose where villagers move, but you actually can with plot resetting. I have seen people saying there is no way to stop villagers from moving out, when not only you can, but you can also prevent that from happening, even if you don't play for a long while, by talking to villagers about 15 times in order find out who wants to leave and then accepting or decling their request. After that, the game is programmed to not let anyone leave on the next day you play it, so you can take a break for whatever amount of days, weeks or even months you want. If you don't mind a bit of tt, you could also simply write down the last day you played...

Another complaint that is common between people who barely played it is that there isn't a way to decorate the outdoors. But you can actually do a lot with just projects, paths, bushes, trees, flowers and dropped items. Some projects are far prettier than your average furniture and they look much better outside, a lot of people haven't even unlocked 25% of them, because they don't know the diving trick is a thing. If they took the time to visit Dream Towns for inspiration, they would see how to work around the limitations and use their creativity to make a beautiful (or even scary) town.

At the end of the day, NL is a lot more than just a decorating simulator, it offers such great dialogue, villagers interactions, minigames, stores, soundtrack and characters that are missing from from NH. Even when it comes to decorating, it's superior in some aspects, like the houses' interior and exterior design, the ability to customize the Museum's exhibits, the catalogue which has 2x more items and so on...

I'm sorry but I don't really agree with this. I don't really think it's fair to say that those who like certain NH features have forgotten New Leaf or didn't play enough. I got New Leaf at launch (have been an animal crossing fan for a very long time) and I still have my first town on it, and I last played it yesterday.

I don't think plot resetting counts as choosing where your villagers move. In New Horizons, if I want to build Fang a garden in the bamboo forest, all I have to do is move his house and choose exactly where I want it. If I wanted to do the same in New Leaf I'd have to kick him out, amiibo him back in, and spend maybe hours plot resetting, or hours laying down custom designs. A game is supposed to be fun and such a limitation isn't exacly fun to me.

Stopping villagers from moving is also something I always do, and is also something I actively dislike. I often took 6 month hiatuses from New Leaf because I didn't feel like I could pick up the game for only 5 minutes, because I'd have to go and find the mover, which was really tedious imo. In New Horizons I can load up the game just to show my friends my house if that's what I want.

I also have all PWPs and while I agree they're gorgeous, and I wish I had them in New Horizons, placing PWPs on a flat ground with limitations isn't as satisfying as free decorating. Especially while dealing with all the housing plots, having to make paths out of custom designs, having to deal with bushes dying if there are too many in a row and having to deal with flowers either dying or spawning everywhere (in New Horizons I just put clear custom designs around my flowers that I don't want to clone. In New Leaf there aren't clear paths) is just not as fun as sculpting cliffs and waterfalls with my imagination bit by bit.

New Leaf is definitely more than a decorating simulator. I do miss villagers visiting my house, getting them fruit or having to go get another villager for a conversation, that was great. But I don't think the dialogue is that good. I often got the same lines many times in a row, or tutorial lines I'd read many times before. Minigames were great but I feel like I've seen them all. I've also decorated every house I could ever want to have using New Leaf's furniture catalogue. At the end of the day, there were many buildings and NPCs in New Leaf, but none of them had the dialogue they had in the old games. :/ They're just like New Horizon's menus but cuter. I wish they'd take the all the NPC backstory elements of Wild World and expanded on them, I wish they'd taken the dialogue and hobby system from Wild World and expanded on it. But sadly in New Leaf they took it all out. :/ New Leaf was a fantastic game but I feel like it's ready for me to move on. I wish New Horizons had brought back the life simulation aspects of the first two games but sadly it didn't. So for now, I'm choosing the game that gives me the most fun and relaxing decorating experience and that is New Horizons and I visit my wild world village regularly to chill with my villagers.

Thanks for reading this long ramble I hope it was at least somewhat interesting or entertaining. xD But yeah I think every game is great but disagreeing doesn't just mean you haven't played something enough/the right way. I hope everyone finds the game they love and enjoys it to its fullest. Perhaps some day we'll get the ultimate animal crossing game

 

[thimes]

I'm sorry but I don't really agree with this. I don't really think it's fair to say that those who like certain NH features have forgotten New Leaf or didn't play enough. I got New Leaf at launch (have been an animal crossing fan for a very long time) and I still have my first town on it, and I last played it yesterday.

I don't think plot resetting counts as choosing where your villagers move. In New Horizons, if I want to build Fang a garden in the bamboo forest, all I have to do is move his house and choose exactly where I want it. If I wanted to do the same in New Leaf I'd have to kick him out, amiibo him back in, and spend maybe hours plot resetting, or hours laying down custom designs. A game is supposed to be fun and such a limitation isn't exacly fun to me.

Stopping villagers from moving is also something I always do, and is also something I actively dislike. I often took 6 month hiatuses from New Leaf because I didn't feel like I could pick up the game for only 5 minutes, because I'd have to go and find the mover, which was really tedious imo. In New Horizons I can load up the game just to show my friends my house if that's what I want.

I also have all PWPs and while I agree they're gorgeous, and I wish I had them in New Horizons, placing PWPs on a flat ground with limitations isn't as satisfying as free decorating. Especially while dealing with all the housing plots, having to make paths out of custom designs, having to deal with bushes dying if there are too many in a row and having to deal with flowers either dying or spawning everywhere (in New Horizons I just put clear custom designs around my flowers that I don't want to clone. In New Leaf there aren't clear paths) is just not as fun as sculpting cliffs and waterfalls with my imagination bit by bit.

New Leaf is definitely more than a decorating simulator. I do miss villagers visiting my house, getting them fruit or having to go get another villager for a conversation, that was great. But I don't think the dialogue is that good. I often got the same lines many times in a row, or tutorial lines I'd read many times before. Minigames were great but I feel like I've seen them all. I've also decorated every house I could ever want to have using New Leaf's furniture catalogue. At the end of the day, there were many buildings and NPCs in New Leaf, but none of them had the dialogue they had in the old games. :/ They're just like New Horizon's menus but cuter. I wish they'd take the all the NPC backstory elements of Wild World and expanded on them, I wish they'd taken the dialogue and hobby system from Wild World and expanded on it. But sadly in New Leaf they took it all out. :/ New Leaf was a fantastic game but I feel like it's ready for me to move on. I wish New Horizons had brought back the life simulation aspects of the first two games but sadly it didn't. So for now, I'm choosing the game that gives me the most fun and relaxing decorating experience and that is New Horizons and I visit my wild world village regularly to chill with my villagers.

Thanks for reading this long ramble I hope it was at least somewhat interesting or entertaining. xD But yeah I think every game is great but disagreeing doesn't just mean you haven't played something enough/the right way. I hope everyone finds the game they love and enjoys it to its fullest. Perhaps some day we'll get the ultimate animal crossing game

I didn't say everyone was like that, i said *most* of the ones i talked to were.

How does it not count as choosing? You can literally place the houses where you want. Is it more difficult than just paying 50k and waiting a whole day to move each building? Yes. But it is possible if done right.
It really shouldn't take you that many hours, if you know what you are doing. I doubt i spend more than 1 hour and a single day doing it.
"Oh but it is not fun that way". Some say terraforming is not fun either, it's tedious, time consuming and you have to do it tile by tile. But the sense of accomplishment when you finally finish is great. The same thing goes for plot resetting and PWP, you have a far greater sense of accomplishment after working to unlock the pwp, finding the right spot, paying those hefty bells and waiting a day than you would have just going to NH's lame store with 6 items (3 of which rarely change), paying 4k and just placing it wherever. The pwp also gives an actual use for your bells, as it seems NH has so many broken ways to make money, but very little options on what to spend on. Yes, i would still would have enjoyed to place furniture outside aswell, but if that is NL weakest point, then there are a lot more positive things compensating it than there are negative.

The dialogue being good or not is debatable, but a few things should be noted: 1) the difference between personalities is far more evident than in NH, the dialogue in NH is basically "hey hope you are great today, you are so wonderful bye" for nearly every single personality 2) the script for NL had more words than the 7 Harry Potter books combined and King James bible, so you are far less likely to get as many repetitive dialogue as in NH.
I personally found it funny and charming, i also still enjoy playing minigames with my friends and visiting the many stores to this day, but to each their own, no need to start picking on each other taste.

 

[Bilaz]

I didn’t mean to pick on anyone I just thought you’d might be interested why someone who does know New Leaf might like New Horizons better, that’s all. I know long posts might come across as ranting over the internet, and I do apologise if that seemed to be the case, but i just enjoy discussing the games because I like them so much. I’m glad you’re happy with New Leaf and I hope you enjoy it for many years to come ^^

Also forgive me for saying it doesn’t count as choosing. That was a case of me thinking faster than I can type. I meant to say I don’t think it counts as choosing as a feature, like coded in. It’s a bit of an exploit in the feature of making a new character

 

[thimes]

I didn’t mean to pick on anyone I just thought you’d might be interested why someone who does know New Leaf might like New Horizons better, that’s all. I know long posts might come across as ranting over the internet, and I do apologise if that seemed to be the case, but i just enjoy discussing the games because I like them so much. I’m glad you’re happy with New Leaf and I hope you enjoy it for many years to come ^^

Also forgive me for saying it doesn’t count as choosing. That was a case of me thinking faster than I can type. I meant to say I don’t think it counts as choosing as a feature, like coded in. It’s a bit of an exploit in the feature of making a new character

I know you weren't, i am just trying to avoid a repetitive debate about the dialogue if possible, since we already expressed our opinions about it.

I do understand why some people would have preferred NH. I am sure i would have too if i cared more about decorating and graphics. It's just that a lot of the people i talked to weren't aware of many features and tricks that made the gameplay so much better and when i would give them tips, they would often end up preferring NL. Not to say everyone is like that tho.

 

[Bilaz]

Awesome ^^ I’m glad, have a good day

 

[Kristea]

I love New Leaf and New Horizons.

Sometimes, the way people put ACNH down makes me feel badly for enjoying it since sometimes I feel like it's lowkey implied that people who enjoy it enjoy cookie cutter stuff. I don't think ACNH is cookie cutter. I just think it's different, and I hold out hope that we'll see more ACNL stuff in ACNH at some point. I say this, because think you should try New Leaf. If you end up liking that better then cool! but if you like New Horizons more, that's okay too.

You might end up like me, where you love both for different reasons.

I just restarted my ACNL town because I missed the game, but that doesn't mean I stopped playing ACNH either, yanno?

You should try new leaf! In the end, it's the same series and AC in general has always been a game that made me feel good to hop on and play.