My take on Animal Crossing (GameCube.)
Super Mario Sunshine
Developer- Nintendo
Publisher- Nintendo
Type- N/A
Players- 1
Difficulty- Easy
Released- 9/17/02
When Animal Crossing hit the U.S. gaming scene, no one had no idea what to expect. Nintendo did a great job of shrouding this game in secrecy, and it paid off. When you buy this game, you will have no idea what you are getting into. However, once you put the game in your GC, and fire it up, you will be treated to a game with more life and personality in it than any other game on the market. It starts off simple enough, you meet a cat on your train ride to your new town, which you can name. This cat, as small a part as he plays in the game, is still given a lot of personality. Merely based on the five or so minutes that he is in this game in the beginning, you will be able to see his personality. He’s a quirky little fellow with a funny walk and small legs, and he’s as goofy as could be. He laughs at his own jokes, and does everything he can to make you happy.
He’s a warm, compassionate soul, and when you tell him of your plight (see, you kind of forget to make housing arrangements before moving, just a SMALL problem, and yet another example of the hilarious logic gaps you have to overlook when playing a Nintendo game, although, to their credit, Nintendo pokes fun at themselves quite a bit in this game, making it even more entertaining), he hooks you up with a place to stay. Now isn’t that nice of him? Of course, he kind of forgot to tell you that you would be paying through the nose for your housing, but it’s the thought that counts. If you think that little adventure was something, just wait until you get deeper into the game, keep in mind that this review is based on seeing a limited amount of the game, as is every review on the game. This game, just judging by the events calendar, has years of things for you to see. Of course, since this, or some other review, will cause you to rush out buy the game, that won’t be an issue, since you can see it for yourself and all.
Anyways, Animal Crossing is all about living the life of the character you create in the game. When you first start out, things might not quite seem so cool. You won’t be wearing the snazziest duds in town, nor will you live in a palatial estate. Instead, you will be busy working part-time in an effort to pay off your debt to Nook, the man that the cat gets you in touch with to find you lodging. After finishing up your part-time work, and paying off chunks of a debt that makes NASA’s bills look minute by comparison, thing really start to open up for you. While you will have access to two random NES games relatively early in the game (thanks to a letter from Nintendo which you can only receive if you are using the memory card provided with the game, renting the game will NOT allow you to get this letter), you won’t really be able to enjoy them until you are done working for Nook. I’m just going to harp on about the inclusion of the NES games for a minute here. Nintendo’s inclusion of these games gives a younger generation of gamers who may not have experienced them a chance to enjoy them. The Big N has seen fit to include some bonafide classics in the game, such as Punchout and Excitebike, while at the same time, balancing it out with oddities like Donkey Kong Jr. Math and Clu Clu Land. There are at least one dozen NES games in Animal Crossing, happy hunting.
You might be thinking to yourself, ”So, you spend the whole game doing boring stuff like work, and then playing a bunch of ancient games? Wow, that‘s amazing…” If you are thinking this, you need to A. open your mind up, and B. play the game. Remember that part where I said you get to live the life of your character, and how things will pick up once you are done working for his Nookness? That’s kind of a wee bit important. Living your character’s life means that you can do all sorts of things you have never been able to do in any other game. Living a life in Animal Crossing consists of visiting the towns of friends (thanks to a secret password system) and sending letters to your friends. This kind of interactivity has never been offered before in a game, and it only gets better.
In Animal Crossing, you have the ability to customize the daylights out of your town. You can teach animals to say things (pretty much any word up to seven letters); you can also make friends with the animals in your community by running errands for them. Conversely, you can make some pretty good enemies if you aren’t social. As long as you aren’t a hermit, you will be fine. To further the personalization of the game, you get to customize nearly everything about your character, and his dwelling (I would call it a home, but at the beginning of the game, that thing is barely a closet.) You can customize what your character wears by creating a clothing texture, which can also be used around your dwelling as a wallpaper or a floor. If, for whatever reason, you don’t like the texture you have created, you can just change it to suit your liking. This addition of a personal touch that you, the player, can add to the game whenever you so desire really helps make the game a more enjoyable experience. It may be a small detail, and since you are reading this, you probably haven’t had a chance to try it out for yourself, but believe me, this single addition to the game adds quite a bit to the overall feel of the game. Since you will probably spend quite a bit of time in your dwelling (it becomes a home later on, don’t worry) playing NES games, musical compositions, and/or rearranging furniture so well that Christopher Lowell would blush, you will want it to be something that reflects YOU.
You can make it look futuristic, elegant, rustic, or nearly anything. You are bound to either find, or create something that adds a little bit of your personality to the game. If you get bored of the game, just try to add a bit more of your personality to the game. Make use of the bulletin board in your town and post messages to your fellow townspeople to add a little flavor to the mix. Or, to add to your social standing in town, offer to help out others. There’s always something to do in Animal Crossing if you make use of the tools provided to you in the game. Speaking of tools, Animal Crossing gives you the chance to, literally, dig for buried treasure, and even plant a MONEY TREE. Now how cool is that? You can buy a fishing rod to fish, which will enable you to really rake in some dough, if you are good at it. You can also take up bug catching, which can net you some dinero as well to help you upgrade the look and status of your ever-so-fancy dwelling.
Now that I’ve explained to you just how the game works, I’m going to tell you why it works so well. I believe the key to the greatness of this game lies in what it gives back to you, and what you add to it. You can add touches of your personality in it, for example, and your reward will be a more enjoyable game. You can also choose one of the activities in the game, such as bug catching or fishing, and make that your primary source for an income, depending on which one of the two you enjoy the most. This game has a very unique charm that carries over into each and every aspect of the game. Each character in the game has a personality, not one of the characters resembles any of the other ones. Odds are, you will find at least one character with personality traits close to those of someone you know, which can, and probably will, give you more enjoyment from the game. It will also give you the chance to add yet another personal touch to the game. I believe that the key to enjoying a game is to find the one thing you can connect to, and using that trait to its fullest. This game gives you many opportunities to find this single thing, and, if you are lucky enough to find more than one thing that latches you onto the game, you will be good to go for quite some time. Now that I am done explaining to you the finer points of this game, which the game showcases wondrously, it is time to give you a general overview of the game.
The control in AC is spectacular. The button layout is logical, and really does add to the game. The control scheme works with the player, and makes everything as simple as pushing a button, or moving a joystick. The C stick is used logically to give you a closer, more personal view of the action unfolding in the game. This is one of the few times I can think of where it is actually used well. The controls are responsive, and will aid you in your journey in this game.
The graphics in the game certainly won’t amaze you when you first fire up the game. At first glance, you will see a game that could have been done on the N64 (which makes sense since this game WAS originally planned to be an N64 game.) However, after giving the game some time, you will see that there are a lot of little things in this game that simply couldn’t have been done on a lesser system. Little things such as the many different kinds of emotions shown by each character in the game. You will see, through the course of your journey, each character use body language to convey their emotions, and their personality. You will see citizens laugh hysterically for no apparent reason, and see others get angry at you if you do something that they don’t approve of. The sheer volume of emotions exhibited in this game is amazing. However, not all is splendid with the graphics. While these lesser details probably couldn’t have been done on a lesser system, most everything about the game could have been. The game’s many environments lack a level of detail that will knock your socks off, the same goes for nearly everything else in the game.
The sound features in the game, much like the graphics, won’t win any awards, but more than serve their purpose. The music could have been done on a SNES, as could the sound effects, but and this is a big BUT, none of that matters. You see, the music in the game, even though it could have been done on a SNES, is fantastic. Much like the music in many SNES RPGs, you will be astounded by the sheer volume of quality music in the game. The sound effects follow that same lead, yet, again, their technical deficiencies are moot due to what they provide the player. The sound effects go hand-in-hand with the emotion and personality displayed by the game’s many characters. You will hear each character in the game give off little quips here and there that help define who they are since they are done at just the right time. The sound effects also have a unique charm about them. They make simple things such as the letters being called out to you as you type them a joy to behold. This game thrives on simplicity, and once you play it, you will be able to enjoy it due to that attribute.
The replay value of AC is, as you can imagine, limitless. You have got a game that never ends, and a near-limitless supply of things to do in it. It is a game that gives you many reasons to love it to death, and rewards you for your actions. What more can you ask for?
All in all, Animal Crossing is a game that you will never forget. On a technical level, it is sub-par, yet it transcends that to become an unforgettable game. It combines everything with meaning in gaming, and takes out the superfluous crap that doesn’t need to be made the focus of in a game. Keep in mind, this review has only covered what you can get out of the game using only a GameCube, if you have a Game Boy Advance and a GC/GBA link cable, you can get EVEN MORE out of this game than you ever thought possible. You can get rare items, more money, or even free customization to your character (it costs 800 bells (currency in AC) to customize a texture without the GBA/GC link-up. If you want a game that sucks you in and never lets you go, pick this game up as soon as possible.
Graphics- 5
Sound- 6
Gameplay- 10
Replay- 10
Grade- A
