Animal Crossing
October 6, 2002

     Animal Crossing is a unique game that let’s you create your own life.  As you progress in this game you can obtain items to decorate your house and get house upgrades be by paying off your debt to Tom Nook.  There are many things you can do in the world of Animal Crossing such as, fish, collect insects, collect fossils, rare items, talk to your animal friends, beautify your town, send letters to fellow villagers, visit another town, and much more!  There is no valid objection to this game; you have total freedom in controlling your life!  Whether you become a bum, a clean freak or a contemptible person among your villagers, it’s all up to you!  The game works by the Gamecube’s internal clock, so if it’s 12:00 am on December 18, 2002 in real life, then it’s 12:00 am in Animal Crossing.

     The game starts off with you on the train heading towards a new town.  A cat named Rover will ask you for the time, your name, determine your gender, and ask which town you will be moving to.  Now it’s off to start your new life.  When you arrive at your town, you will be greeted by the local store owner, Tom Nook, who will let you choose a house from one the four other houses (the other houses can be occupied by 3 other players).  You are then asked to pay off your load, and work temporarily at Nook’s store, ‘Nook n’ Cranny’.  Then, the fun begins.

     Each town’s layout is random, instead of a basic layout for every town like in Harvest Moon.  All towns have a store, dump, train station, post office, police station, Museum, a clothing store and a wishing well.  Also, in every town there is a native fruit, which also random, these will sell for 100 bell (Animal Crossing currency) each, while other non-native fruits will sell for 500 bell each.  There are over 100 villagers in Animal Crossing, but you can only have a maximum of 15 at a time, though some will decide your town isn’t good enough for them and will move out, which villagers you get, are totally random.

     Whew!  I covered most of the basic ideas, now you’ll have to find out for yourself how great a game Animal Crossing is.

     First off, I’ll say that you should never judge a game by it’s graphics.  Animal Crossing, by far, is not pushing the Gamecube’s graphical capabilities, but is rather a bit of a ‘clean-up’ from being a Nintendo 64 port, with a lot more additions of course.  Though, I do not mind at all the graphics, in my honest opinion, they absolutely fit the world of Animal Crossing, the whole atmosphere, and cannot imagine it’s graphics any other way.  Though it does not help at all for Nintendo’s reputation… but do not let this factor deter you from experiencing this great game!

     So far, I’ve played this game for almost a month, and since then, I’ve been playing it almost everyday.  The gameplay does get redundant and monotonous, but that’s the whole point.  It’s not meant to played for hours on like Zelda and other such games, but rather, as a side-game, to vent out your frustrations of attempting to beat the expert level of Super Monkey Ball (which I still, have not done yet), and whatever game your stuck on.  Although, you will find yourself playing it for several hours during the time you purchase it, but your time will slowly but surely, dwindle, but there’s still a lot of interesting things to do with occasional events and such, with provides plenty of replay value even so.

     The controls are simple and easy to get the hang on.  The control stick is obviously used for walking, and while holding the B/L/R button you can run, the start button is the inventory, and well, figure out the rest for yourself.

     At a glance, many would surely say Animal Crossing is a ‘kiddy’ game and the graphics would put off the average teen and adult gamer from purchasing, but you have to base your judgment on your preferences.  Animal Crossing is a fun game, literally to last a life-time, and if you liked Harvest Moon, and even The Sims, you sure will like Animal Crossing.  For philosophy’s sake, I hereby don you with ultimate knowledge with this beautiful statement, ‘Never judge a game by it’s boxart.’

     Oh yeah, did I mention that you can collect those good ol' NES games and actually play them?!?!

- Bobo

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