What got you into animal crossing?

[Imaginetheday]

We bought a GameCube for our son when he was in kindergarten. One of the games we got was animal crossing. I played it, too. My daughter got into WW, but I I didn’t as much. I then got into CF, but then absolutely loved NL. I am now hooked on NH. I am a die hard fan of this series. I don’t really play any other video games.

 

[Hilbunny]

I started playing the original Animal crossing for Game Cube when I was 8 years old. My brother got me the game because he thought I’d love it and I did. It has been my favorite game franchise for 19 years!

 

[faerie]

My friend got it for me for my birthday. I remember asking what do you do in the game? He's like you live in in. I was so confused by that statement since I knew nothing about the game. Now he's right... I live in it lol Since City Folk I've lived in it.

 

[Mairmalade]

My brother, technically.

He had a N64 and I used to watch him play games, which piqued my interest in them. He moved on to other things while I fell in love with it, my Gameboy Advance, and the GameCube soon after. I received a GameCube as a joint birthday/Christmas gift two years after its original release with a copy of Animal Crossing. I didn’t know anything about the game, but it developed into one of my favorites. I was extremely disconnected from school and “friends” during the time from being bullied, so it was always great having this world to come home to.

In 2005-06 I had access to a computer. I used it to look up heart events for Harvest Moon, and ended up stumbling onto NSider, Nintendo’s official forum at the time. I discovered a dedicated space for Wild World and was excited to talk about it with other people. I made a bunch of friends this way and poured hundreds of hours into the forum and Wild World before eventually finding The Bell Tree and its Animal Crossing community in 2009. I had previously bought City Folk after loving and talking about the previous entries, but didn’t have a dedicated space to share the experience until TBT. It also inspired me to make an online Animal Crossing journal, which was a lot of fun (New Leaf was the same way pre and post-release).

By 2010 I was always online. I watched online events with friends, talked about the series’ future direction, and looked at news sites for other game releases. If there was something connected to Animal Crossing - games or otherwise - I was excited about it.

 

[Snek]

I have been a Pokémon player for as long as RBY. I started to get burned out around Gen 6 and wanted to play something different and low and behold: ACNL. It was fun, relaxing, and most importantly I didn't have to worry about game mechanics. I could just do my own thing and escape

 

[LittleMissPanda]

WW was my first AC game. It's back when I began to become more open-minded of different game genres, such as simulators and fighting games, and not just stick to what I knew, which was mostly Mario games.

If I had been more willing to try new types of games ACPG would have definitely been my first AC game. Same thing with Pikmin. I used to see the commercials for ACPG and Pikmin for Gamecube over and over but it just never clicked for me. I got to play the games for the first time as a young adult at least, because I ordered them online. I'm incredibly grateful I gave Pikmin a chance because it really did look interesting. I'll be picking up Pikmin 3 Deluxe on the 30th for sure, seeing as though I didn't get a Wii U.

I'll be picking up the port to SM3D World too ❤

 

[Silkfawn]

NH is my first AC game.

I used to see some NL stuff on tumblr but I was not interested!
Mostly because I'm not really a gamer and I haven't purchased any gaming console since the gameboy advance.

But then covid happened, and I saw too much hype online so I ended up giving in and bought the AC Switch (which came w/the game).

I've been playing it everyday since I got it mid June, very addictive!

 

[~Kilza~]

I got into the series through my parents and my sister through the very first game in the series. We got our first console + game (N64 + Banjo-Tooie) back in Christmas 2000 because of my parents, and with the N64 fading out and the Gamecube having been out for a year, my sister and I took interest in some of the new games coming out for the Gamecube, including Animal Crossing (which she was more interested in at first, admittedly). My parents ended up getting us the Gamecube and 3 games in Christmas 2002 - Super Mario Sunshine, Sonic Mega Collection and, of course, Animal Crossing. My sister and I both ended up playing it and shared a town together, and my enjoyment in the series grew as I continued playing it. While my sister's interest in video games has faded over time (though she was interested in playing New Horizons but didn't want to share an island with me nor get her own Switch, lol), they have been a cornerstone in my life, and so I've always stuck by a lot of the series I played as a kid, including Animal Crossing. So I kept getting the main series games (WW, CF, NL, NH) and have kept enjoying them to varying degrees, and will continue to get any future AC games that come out.

 

[HollySeeker]

My brother bought me NL for the DS for Christmas the year it came out.
In all honesty, if he hadn't done that I probably wouldn't have chosen it off the shelf. I remember saying to him "what on earth is this?" He didn't really know himself other than "It seems to be popular" hahaha.
Makes me wish I had it on GameCube back in the day.

 

[KittenNoir]

I had been looking for some good games to play on my Nintendo 3ds when I saw an ad for New Leaf and thought it looked so cute so I waited for it to come out and watched a few videos of gameplay on YouTube and fell in love. And that was the first game I played that got me into the animal crossing franchise.

 

[Klauser_Bateson]

I would say watching the trailer for New Leaf. I had never heard of AC before that but the trailer piqued my interest a little. At the time I was mostly playing games on the iPad and New Leaf reminded me of one town building game in particular where the residents happened to be animals.

On the day of release, I decided to go to the Nintendo World store in Manhattan (called Nintendo NY now) for the New Leaf launch event they were doing. I went down there with this idea that the turnout wasn't going to be huge but I was dead wrong. The line was much longer than I expected, I almost didn't get a copy, they were flying off the shelf. I played it on the three hour bus ride back home and was hooked instantly. I've been in love with the franchise ever since.

New Leaf managed to be the game that would get me to stop playing on my iPad for a long time, that's how hooked I was on that game.

 

[EmmaFrost]

I remember just seeing a bit of gameplay of New Leaf and thinking it seemed relaxing. I liked that the clock used real time and not some type of arbitrary speeded up days. That time style gives me anxiety in games lol.

 

[Jassiii]

I was an odd case, because I started with pocket camp and worked my way backwards before jumping to new horizons! Pocket camp was cute and Nintendo so I thought why not, had a blast and then found NL on ebay for super cheap so I bought it. I fell completely enamored with new leaf, I spent hours just roaming around and talking to my villagers! Went back a step and played wild word and city folk simultaneously because my mom was like !! you play that cute animal game (which I got her into eventually, like big time! she's surpassed me in hours in new horizons and I'm beginning to push 700 hours on mine-- and I started playing new horizons a month before here to top it off LOL) and she bought me city folk like a week after I bought wild world. I never owned the original but my uncle did, so whenever I visit him I'll roam his town! But I absolutely fell in love with the franchise, and when new horizons came out it was just like "yeah I'm buying that, duh!". I think animal crossing is beginning to overtake my love of pokemon, which speaks volumes because I've bought every single game since ruby and sapphire (it's still gen 4 supremacy though, sorry gen 2 starters are great but gen 4 starters are legendary to me).

TL;DR: Started with pocket camp and worked backwards before jumping to NH <3

 

[Jessi]

Man its been awhile. My story is pretty simple my mom got it for me when I was younger, cause she thought it was a nice kid friendly game with cute animals (which I mean it is) so which led to me always playing on the gamecube until 2am. Since then I've always been addicted

 

[cococay]

I love reading everyone’s stories! For me, I had no idea what animal crossing was until I saw it someone playing ACNL on YouTube around November 2011. Then again growing up we were a PlayStation house, so I never really had anything Nintendo or GameCube! I am in love with games like Animal crossing so I was really surprised when I only found out about it when I was like 18 haha.

I was just about to be on winter break in December 2011 and was so excited and intrigued to play that I bought ACNL and a 3ds at once. I played until I made my perfect dream town! That’s all I did during winter break. It didn’t take too long but eventually I went back to school and didn’t really play anymore. I even sold the 3ds at some point.

Fast forward to when ACNH was announced and I was obsessed all over again. I preordered my ACNH switch, the game, and was soooo excited lol. When it released of course it was right around quarantine time so I was obsessed with playing after work. I got overwhelmed with all of the terraforming and eventually just took a break after 270+ hours lol. That was around mid-May of this year. I recently just decided to come back and it feels like playing it all over again. Not because of my islands progress lol but It’s just timeless and I love the vibes of this game and community. Happy to be back!!

 

[RETSAMDET]

An article in Nintendo Power first piqued my interest in the series. I got a subscription to the magazine (and a GameCube) in 2002, right around the time Animal Crossing released in North America. One of the first issues I received had several pages on the game, and the description of it left me intrigued. I ultimately decided to pick up the game for myself in October 2002, and started my first town, Tedston.

Up until that point, almost all of my gaming purchases had been games I had played at friends' houses, sequels to games I already owned and liked, or unexpected birthday or Christmas gifts from family. Animal Crossing marked a major departure for me in that it was the first game I researched and decided to buy on my own. (I had purchased a few other games using my own money before, including Pokemon Red Version, but all of those were ones I had some first-hand experience with through friends. I also generally avoided spending money, to the point that I would wait until my birthday or Christmas to avoid spending my allowance, even if that meant going without a new game or item that I wanted for months. So splurging on Animal Crossing was fairly unusual for me.)

Needless to say, I was nervous about the purchase, but it all worked out for the best, and Animal Crossing became one of my favorite series. I also picked up a guide for it (I loved reading those cover to cover), and remember reading up on all of the holidays, looking at all of the furniture series and planning out which ones I might want to decorate my home with, etc.

I loved the day-to-day routine (even though I mostly just played on the weekends), but I think what really sold me on the series was my experience hunting for Jingle the first Christmas I owned the game. My family hosted a party every Christmas Eve, and for whatever reason, everyone (including my grandmother, who generally didn't like games) decided to crowd around the tv at 8 pm and watch me hunt for Jingle that first year. To this day, I'm not sure what was so captivating about the experience for everyone involved, but I've found that even though I tend to be a single player gamer, it's some of those social experiences that make the greatest lasting impression.

 

[Selky]

I saw the GC game in-store back when it released and thought it was interesting. My parent bought it for me and I was hooked.

 

[Fridaynightcatlady]

I was lucky to stumble upon the GCN AC as a kid in a store and I loved it. When WW came out, I was still very obsessed but it was only years after it released that I started playing it again, as I met a friend who also was a big AC fan.

I also remember almost not buying CF but because a couple of friend had bought it, I ended up buying it as well and loving it. It was the most fun I’ve had online w AC - and it’s actually when I first joined this forum.

NL was an obvious purchase after that, but it’s probably my least favorite AC in the franchise (and the one I’ve played the least, probably). However, I was really looking forward to New Horizons and am currently 380 hours in and loving it

 

[acnh.eclipse]

My first animal crossing game was dōbatsu no mori, I was born in Korea and grew up there for most my childhood, as a child I spoke Korean and Japanese. My dad took MANY business trips to Japan and took me on some with him. I went on one with my dad a couple of days after my birthday, so he took me to a MASSIVE shopping mall and he let me pick out some games for our Nintendo 64, and I pick out the original animal forest, this was in 2005, so I was 4. Anyway after a while I forgot about the whole thing. My friend (we’ll just call her Anna) had just been diagnosed with something (I’m not sure what it was) and she was in the hospital, she showed me her DS and acww, I asked my parents to have a DS and acww and they said yes, I received a beautiful red DS lite with wild world. Me and Anna played together for hours on end with the online functionality and they were amazing memories! I remember the last time I played with her before she passed away, she told me she knew she was “going to have a long sleep” and that’d I’d never see her again. She came to my town and layed down flowers in a circle shape and we stood inside of it and she made me promise to flower them everyday, and I still do it to this day, I dedicate a little area for her in all my ac towns! After her I couldn’t stop playing ac!

 

[Mezzanine]

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