Ep 59: Animal Crossing Tutorial

Topic: Animal Crossing

 

Like alot of people right now, we've seemed to amass a great bit of time on our hands.  Those fortunate to still be working maybe not, but alot of us have been stuck at home and have been really wanting to find something new to do.  Thus, we offer this topic on Animal Crossing, specifically Animal Crossing: New Horizons, a new game perfect for people who don't necessarily like video games, but also a game perfect for people to relax with.

 

 

Nintendo Switch

Affectionately called ‘The Switch’ or just ‘Switch’, is Nintendo’s latest console released in 2017.  Unlike Nintendo’s main line consoles for the last few years, the Switch merges the comforts of a home console with that of a handheld console, two markets Nintendo is unique in their mastery in.  What makes it unique is that the console starts as a hand held, with controller on either side of the game screen, but can be docked in a cradle at home, allowing you to connect your device to a larger Tv monitor.  The controllers on the side of the switch can also come off, allowing you to use them as either a new controller mode, or use them as smaller controllers for two people to play at once.  The system itself is just behind the power of a PS4 or Xbox-One, but makes up for it with a classic Nintendo titles/games that can’t be played anywhere else, but also a robust 3rd party and indie game market place.  Right now, it’s the console to have, especially as it’s very portable and inclusive for all. 

 

As Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a Nintendo exclusive title, you can’t this game for any other video game console but the Switch.

 

If you are new to the console and/or don’t have one already, but are interested in getting started, there are two major models to keep an eye out for: The Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch Lite.  The major difference is the Lite version has missing features, primarily that the controls on the side of the game screen do not come off and are permanently attached to the main unit.  As well, there is no docking option for the console, so you can’t connect it to a larger TV or monitor.  The Lite version is ideal for children and those without ease of access to a TV, but is more compact and mobile.  If you are not a serious gamer, and don’t mind the reduced screen size, the Lite version is a good compromise and decent price point.

 

As of writing and recording: a regular Nintendo Switch will typically cost $299 at retail, and the Nintendo Switch Lite around $199. Beware of Bundles or Special Editions, as they will charge you more for the base unit than necessary.  Bundles often also include a game or added tools, like a carry case, for your system; as where a Special Edition are merely additional decorations on the console, which may or may not matter to you.  In either case, expect to spend a lot more money for either cosmetic bonuses, which can be purchased cheaply, or additional items that purchased separately wouldn’t cost as much. 

 

In Mom’s case, she was able to purchase a Switch Lite for the actual retail price via www.gamestop.com.  Other retailer may have it available, but we found Gamestop selling it for the actual intended price. 

 

Also Keep in mind that Animal Crossing: New Horizons itself is a $59 game as of this writing and recording.

 

 

 

What is Animal Crossing?

Anima Crossing is a life simulator, similar in vein to other games like The SIMs or other simulators like Sim City or an Airplane Simulator. 

 

Developed by Katsuya Eguchi, a level designer and programmer at Nintendo, he relocated from the Chiba prefecture to Kyoto prefecture shortly after college, leaving behind all of his friends and family.  After moving, he realized how lonely he was after leaving all of his friend and family behind, and how being close to them was a great and important thing for him.  Thus, this was the impetus for creating the game.  He later recounted that he and his family loved to play video games, but never actually played them together.  He wanted to create a game that his kids could play, and that he could play too later in the day, seeing their progress and leaving stuff for his kids later on too.

 

All Animal crossing game follows similar gameplay experiences and roles.  You start as a villager arriving to an area, and after meeting with Tom Nook, you are given a place to live, but must pay off the rent/ownership of the house to him over time.  You do this by collecting various objects from around your island, town, or village, and either selling it back to Tom Nook or using it to decorate your house with.  You meet other anthropomorphic animals that act as fellow neighbors and villagers in your area, who you can communicate with.  They can come and go as they please, with new one appearing later on to take their place.

 

While the game has no root ending or endgame element, your encouraged to make your village, area, island, or town in to the best darn place possible and to decorate it as you see fit.  As the game has no base requirements for completing it, you are allowed to focus on individual goals to your leisure.  While many would ask what the purpose of Animal Crossing, the game has been described as a ‘Healing’ game.  In Japan, ‘Healing’ media are just media that are good and wholesome, and makes you feel good afterwards.  In terms of Anime, ‘Healing Anime’ have no real agenda, and typically follow characters as they live their lives and find either happiness in the mundane or little delights of life.

 

Examples of Healing Shows in America might be:

Golden Girls

Friends

Black-ish

Grace And Frankie

Gilmore Girls

30 Rock

Cheers

The Big Bang Theory

 

 

History of Animal Crossing?

Animal Crossing (2001) Nintendo 64 / Game Cube

First game initially titled: Dōbutsu no Mori (Animal Forest)

It was initially intended to be released on the Nintendo 64’s 64DD expansion device, as it would have utilized the 64DD’s internal clock, but at the 64DD was a flop in Japan, the game was retooled and an internal chip was created for a cartridge version of the game in 2001.  It is considered the last N64 game released for the system in by Nintendo in Japan, and second overall. 

A few months later, a GameCube port was created, known as Dōbutsu no Mori+. This version saw added features left out from the original N64 version, including:

• Adding the Museum and Able Sisters
• Adding the second floor and basement to your house
• Adding more collectable Bugs and Fish
• Introducing Islanders (Similar to Nook Mile Islands)

 

This GameCube version of the game is the version we saw in the west as Animal Crossing.  Due to the localization processes, many elements of the games dialog, items, and events, had to be changed and altered for audiences.  This included:

• Various Japanese holidays being removed or edited, and new western holidays added to replace them.
• Reframing or removing cultural reference, and re-contextualizing them when unable to remove all together.
• Extensive re-writing of all the in game text, of which there was a lot. After localization was completed, it was found that there was more English text than Japanese.

 

Nintendo of Japan was so impressed with the results from the translation, that they re-translated the game back in to Japanese, leaving in the western changes, redubbing it Dōbutsu no Mori E+, or Animal Forest: English Plus.

 

 

Animal Crossing: Wild World (2005) Nintendo DS

The game is very similar to the original GameCube version, with slight additions and removals. 

 

The major feature of the game was its online abilities.  Nintendo’s Wi-Fi Connection would allow gamers to visit other players online, expanding the reach of the game.  While the game itself had to be scaled down somewhat, almost all the original features of Animal Crossing were there in the game, including even more characters, fish and bugs, and a whole host of features that expanded on the use of the secondary game pad on the Nintendo DS.

 

In 2014, the Nintendo’s Wi-Fi Connection was shut down to make way for new programs and services, meaning that players of Wild World could no longer connection via the internet.  Private servers and homebrew methods exists for those who play the game, as a means of connecting to the internet.  Local play is still an option as well.

 

 

 

Animal Crossing: City Folk (2008) Nintendo Wii

A Nintendo Wii Port of the major game, it carried over a lot of the added additions from the previous game.  The new major feature is the city portion, where you can hop on a bus to head to the city, where a lot of the shops and visitors that randomly appeared throughout a week had their own shops and stalls.  Previously, you would have visitors randomly stop by that would sell specialty goods or services, but now a majority of them could be found in the city.

 

A lot of players of the previous games found the newer title lacking in new features.  As well as the city being an element that you traveled to, only if you wanted to, and not a core feature of the game.  The added element of the Wii Speak module wasn’t as popular either.

 

 

Animal Crossing: New Leaf (2012) Nintendo 3DS

A return to the handheld generation, New Leaf was well received by the players for many new features added, the most since the original e+ version that was released back in 2003, 9 years prior.  Rather than a new resident moving in, you’re promoted to the Major of your town.  Some of the new features allowed more customization of your town and buildings, particularly where they could be found and placed, along with many new shops and stores for the player to use.  It also allowed more customization to the character and several graphical and UI updates to the game, giving the characters more human models and updating all the bugs, fish, and plants to more realistic proportions. 

 

The game was well received by fans of the series.  In 2016, a new version of the game was released, adding Amibo Support.  Players who already had the game merely had to download an update for free, while new players could buy the game outright.

 

 

Amiibo

Amiibo are Nintendo exclusive figure statues, roughly 3-4 inches in height.  Each statue has a chip in its base that allows the figure to read by modern Nintendo Consoles, including the 3DS, Wii U, and Switch.  Depending on the game, Amiibos can unlock new cosmetics or collectables for a game.  As Example, In Animal Crossing, Animal Crossing Amiibos unlock new villagers.  In other games like Mario Kart 8, Amiibos unlock new costumes for your Mii Racer.  In Smash Brothers, they store fighting data, so you can practice against targets that know your fighting style better and player better for practice. Amiibos were first released in 2013 for the Wii U version of Smash Brothers, with most, if not all fighters, represented by an Amiibo. 

 

The gimmick was first introduced in to the world by Activision and their Skylander series of games, with Activision originally offering exclusivity for the idea/technology to Nintendo, but they turned it down.  Other companies had done similar gimmicks: famously Disney did similar with their Disney Infinity line, using their various Disney properties and characters. 

 

 

Animal Crossing: New Horizon (2020) Nintendo Switch

Released on Nintendo’s newest device, the game a great success with players, as it released on March 20th, alongside Doom: Internal.  Similar memes with both games came out at the same time.  The game was also hugely successful, as they came out around the time of the Covid-19 Virus and many parts of the world being asked to stay at home, giving people ample time to play.

 

Similar to New Leaf, the game offered many new features.  Rather than starting on an established plot of land, you actually start on an abandoned Island.  Once there, you go about upgrading your tent to a house, plotting the locations of important businesses and shops, and trying to make the island as successful as possible.

 

Along with graphical and UI updates, the game saw even more customization in characters and furniture.  The newer features include crafting, which allows the player to create their own furniture based of recipes found in the game.  Along with crafting, there’s the option to customize your items even further as well.   Added features also include Nook Miles, a specialty currency earned through accomplishments and milestones in the game, that can be used to buy upgrades and specialty items from Nook.  A more interesting feature is the ability now to dramatically reshape your islands layout, including moving or adding rivers and lakes, to making new cliffs or destroying them.  A much beloved feature as well is an automatic saving system.(in previous versions, a very angry mole, Resetti, would chastise the player if they didn’t properly save before turning off their system.  With New Horizons automatically saving progress, he has since been fired, but takes up new work else.) 

 

 

What do you do in Animal Crossing?

The majority of the game play in Animal crossing is fundamentally, trivial.  Nothing you do in game really matters, save for what you otherwise make of it.  The game was meant as a way to connect with others emotionally, rather than working toward a shared goal.

 

That being said, the game offers quite a bit of collecting and decorating for player to do.  A lot of what you want to do in game is meant to either decorate or sell for Bells.  Bells are the main currency of the game, and can usually be earned by selling items to the Nooklings Timmy and Tommy.  They’ll buy just about anything, from crafting materials, fish, bugs, shells, fruit, clothing and furniture.  Bells are used to upgrade your house, and in other games, used toward public works projects.  Bells are also the main currency for buying decorations and outfits. 

 

A major staple of Animal Crossing has also been updating the Museum.  Blathers, an owl that manages the Museum, takes donations of Fish, Bugs, and Fossils from the villagers.  So long as there isn’t one already in the museum, he’ll accept the donation.  Fish can be fished from rivers, lakes, and the sea with a fishing pole.  Bugs similarly, can be caught throughout the island as well.  Depending on the season and time of day, some fish or bugs only show up then, so it’s important to play frequently, otherwise you might have to wait a long time for them to come back in season.  Fossils on the other hand, can be dug up from cracks in the ground, which ones you dig up are random, and you will often come across fossils that have already been donated to the museum.  Anything you can’t donate can always be sold to the Nooklings as well.

 

Most decorations come in a few different types, but most don’t fit any standard.  Decorations can be widely classified as Indoor, Outside, or plants.  Plants like trees and flowers can only be outside, while Indoor and Outside decorations being able to mix and match as your leisure.   This can range from book cases, beds, tables, and chairs, to kitchen appliances, video games, fish or bugs you’ve caught, and so many more things.  Outside items are generally bigger and require more space, but can be statues, pools, even tables and chairs even.  A special care for flowers as well, as while you can only naturally get red, white and yellow flowers, mixing certain types of flower colors together will create variations on those flowers, causing Blue, Black, Pink, or Purple flowers to grow instead, which are rare and desirable from players.

 

Beyond the decorations and comforts of your home and island, meeting with and talking with your villagers is also important.  They’ll often talk about other people they’ve met, things happening on the island, and will occasionally gift you with items, like clothing, furniture, decorations, or even reactions.  Reactions  are little emotes you can make your character do, depending on your mood, with a total of 40 possible reactions.  The villagers do remember what you’ve done as well, and will mention your dealings on the island if they catch you doing stuff.  While some villagers will move away over time, you can keep them happy by talking with them, sending them letters, or even gifting them items, which you’ll see them wear or keep in their house from time to time. 

 

Some people have gone on to create specialty islands that have interesting themes or visions.  Some have created unique scenes, while others have created locations, like basketball courts or theme parks or even mazes for people to run.  A new type of youtube video has spawned of Island tours, which people visit other people’s islands to see what they’ve done with them.  Especially when the player gain access to the development tools to manipulate the island’s geography. 

 

 

Why Play Animal Crossing?

For someone like me, who has been stuck inside for the last two months, it’s nice to have something to do each day, but also rewarding to see my villagers come running up to me when they see me, if only just to talk.

 

For a lot of people, it’s a healing game, even TVTropes.com agrees with this notion, describing the game as essentially a healing Video Game.  It’s meant to be relaxing, pick up as you go, and enjoy.  The mileage for some will be greater for those who can spend more time at it, or those who wasn’t to get the most out of it, but with no inherent goal, it’s okay to relax and take one’s time. 

 

Animal Crossing Videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxvZwQPpPt8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO7WBWGOPzo