Animal Crossing is challenging. It doesn’t end with a weekend of Monster Energy and muscle memory. It ends in several months (or even years) with patience and love. It asks us to slow down the tempo to that of a vacationer, and in our stressful world, that’s a huge challenge.
This is also its greatest strength. The Animal Crossing player wakes up with a smile on his face because he knows that today is the opening of Tom Nook’s store, the museum, or that his house will finally be expanded.
I can’t think of a better release date than March 20, 2020 for New Horizons. With everyone confined to their homes and panic rising, nothing feels better than surrendering to the peaceful, conflict-free world of Animal Crossing.
New Horizons solved the show’s biggest problem: the lack of things to do. In the first Gamecube version, we arrived in a city that was already populated, with a store, a police station, a post office, a museum and a fashion designer. The long-term goals were just to expand his house and the store.
In the Switch version, there are countless goals, both long-term and very short-term. Basically, we’re always sure that our weekly gaming session will help us progress.
The major difference is that New Horizons starts on a desert island… well, almost deserted. A tent for you and the other two pets moving in at the same time as you, the airport you arrived at, and then a tent for Tom Nook. That’s all. You have to build everything else.
It starts with crafting, a new addition to the series. Before, trees were just vulgar fruit distributors, but now they allow us to harvest wood. The same goes for rocks, which can now be minted for materials (instead of a single magic rock spitting out coins). With them, you’ll be able to build tools and objects. It’s not enough for you to just own the resources, you need to know the recipe, thanks to sheets that you can buy from the store, order with Nook Miles, find on the beach, or donate through other villagers. You can even change the color of some objects!
As always, you can draw your own patterns and apply them to your clothes, walls or floors, swap those patterns using QR codes, and compose the music of your village, if you’re feeling creative.
A comforting routine
Here’s what a weekly routine looks like in New Horizons:
- Gather resources from trees (fruit, wood) and rocks (iron, stone)
- Picking shellfish on the beach (and a bottle in the sea with a recipe) -See new arrivals at the general store and at the couturier
- Use the ATM to see new items to order
- Find the 4 fossils buried on the island each day to donate to the museum
- Fishing and catching insects
- Say hello to the special visitor (carpet salesman, bug maniac)
- Paying off your home debt
You can definitely get 45 to 60 minutes a day, depending on your level of investment. You can just do some window shopping in about ten minutes, or you can go “all-in” with resource picking.
I know some of you will feel like Animal Crossing is repetitive and feels like a job rather than a game, but that’s part of the charm. It’s like a clicker game, Minecraft or MMO: it’s the pleasure of being efficient and the sense of accomplishment that these long-term tasks give you. It’s a toothpick sculpture, an aquarium, a puzzle of 5000 pieces: a cute and serene place to plug in and forget about everything else, if only for a moment.
Short-term
In the very short term, there’s “Nook Miles,” a membership card service that gives you points for virtually every action you can take in the world of Animal Crossing. It is with these points that you will pay back your first house, and that you will unlock the expansion of your inventory, the receipts for the best quality tools.
The Nook Miles are still ingenious, since it acts not only as a system of achievements/trophies rewarding the player, but also as a tutorial. Nook Miles + are small goals that can be generated infinitely (always 5 available). I suspect they are calculated to push you to do the actions you neglect: plant 5 flowers, cut down a tree, catch 5 fish, etc.
So even if you’ve done your weekly routine, you can still attempt to complete Nook Miles goals for hours, lengthening your gaming session if you wish.
Long-term
After Isabelle’s arrival in your village, Tom Nook will offer you the opportunity to undertake very expensive constructions to your village, such as adding bridges or levelling land. You’ll have to work for days to pay them back, giving you extra goals once all of your home additions are complete.
Whenever a new building is built (other villagers’ houses, shops, etc.), you choose its location. When Isabelle comes to help Tom Nook at the town hall, she also allows you to move buildings, or even dismiss some villagers. Basically, all of this gives you absolute control over your village, making it more creative and active than ever before.
Important detail: you can drop off items anywhere, including outdoors. Instead of just decorating the inside of your home, the entire island is your playground.
The ultimate goal is for your village to be populated and attractive enough for superstar K.K. Slider, the dog with the dry guitar, to put on a show in your home!
And then, a special moment from time to time
Your island isn’t the only one in the world of Animal Crossing! You can fly in and visit another one, and meet new villagers, pick a new kind of fruit, or visit and visit their shop.
You can also invite your friends to your island, or visit theirs, host a party, and chat with the Nintendo Online mobile app.
On the surface, you’d think it’s just another Animal Crossing identical to the others. In fact, this is the first time that the formula has been improved substantially enough to consider it as a new game in its own right, and not just a port with a few additions.
Nintendo has promised us that it will support New Horizons with regular updates containing new buildings and seasonal events. If the term “games as a service” can be applied to a franchise, it’s Animal Crossing!
