Animal Crossing - Worth the time?

[ShadowTiger]

I was thinking of getting Animal crossing. Is it worth the trouble that I've heard about it? Remember, it's in my sister's room that I'll be playing with Animal Crossing, so we won't have any online access. .. not that I even know if the GC even supports such a thing. :sweat:

So what are its upsides, and downsides? If it's an interactive Sims / Digipet kinda thing, ... it might sound interesting.

[Mak-X]

It doesn't have any online features, to try items you use passwords.

It was fun for me for about a month or so before it became repetitive. It was fun because it was a unique game. You could go around planting trees, that you can later harvest the fruit for money. There hundreds of different items you can collect and decorate your house with. Some of the game deals with going around your village and interacting with the other villagers to earn some items. The game also involves frequently writting letters to people to be sociable, although this gets slow and old after a while since you have to use the GC controller to write them. The game is probably best played with 2-4 people since each person gets a house and can effect things in the village, like writting a message on the village's message board or digging up stuff. It's a good game, but it's probably not a game for everyone, probably appealing to casual and younger gamers.

You might want to check out some reviews online
http://www.1up.com/article2/0,4364,1293123,00.asp

[AtmaWeapon]

After a hard day's work killing my neck, eyes, and wrists at a computer, I like to relax. Animal Crossing is a good game to relax to. There's no rush to get anything done, no real consequences for not advancing. However, if you want to customize your house to your liking, you must play once a day or you might miss that one piece of furniture you wanted. The only real frustrating part about the game to me is the clock. The game's clock is in tune with your GameCube's clock, so if you come home late every day (like me), you don't get to see most of the events that happen during the day. I end up having to fiddle with my GCN's clock, and it gets kind of aggravating.

I highly recommend the game, though. I can guarantee that if you don't get your money's worth out of it, your sister will.

[Archibaldo]

Animal Crossing is suprisingly addictive, I rented it once and me, and my two other brothers played all day the game cube was never turned off we played for like 14 hours straight! The only down side of it is that your sister might want to play quite often and it gets kinda boring when youve paid off you house totallly (with all the upgrades that is) and you have a house theme that you like. It's fun tho if you have a friend with AC cause then you can go visit their town and get stuff there tahts not in your game.

[Grasshopper]

Yeah, that often got me as well. I would be working or at school, and realize "Ah man!!!, I missed that sale!"

[gameguy032]

You missed a sale? I missed the turning the light in the Lighthouse ONCE last year... Won't happen again!

By the way, it's been a year and I'm still playing. That's replay value for ya. Of course, I've gotten 100k points for the HRA, paid off my loan, nearly have my "account" full, and have a LOT of NES games, including Punch-out!!! and other fun games. If you ever get bored of AC, play the NES games in it - if you can find them.

[goKi]

I rented Animal Crossing for a week, and then decided against buying it. The major flaw with the game is that it does become a little montonous, being that you spend most of your time doing errands for the other animals. Still a good game, though i would recommend renting it before you spend alot of money on buying.

[ShadowTiger]

Thanks everyone for the great advice! :kawaii: You've made it much more clear than I could have ever thought! ^_^

So.. If I:

1) Have $25 to waste, but not $35, I should buy it?

2) If I have about -most- of a full weekend (excluding saturday nights and half of Sunday..) to play it, how far do you think I'll get?

3) Is it anything like the Sims? I mean.. how is the money management?

4) How much do you get to interact with the other.... animals? :odd: .. :rolleyes: Wow. animals. That's a new one. :nerd:

5) How big is the world? Can you buy land? If so, how much does it cost?

6) What kind of monetary system is used in the game, anyway?

7) How do you interact with other people? Can you interact with other players? (At this point though, I think not.)

Thanks! :kawaii:

[AtmaWeapon]

1) Have $25 to waste, but not $35, I should buy it?
It's a good buy for any price, I recommend it.

2) If I have about -most- of a full weekend (excluding saturday nights and half of Sunday..) to play it, how far do you think I'll get?

You'll do OK, but you'll do much better if you can devote about 20 minutes every day to doing the minimum of things to do.

3) Is it anything like the Sims? I mean.. how is the money management?

Money is vital, but not important. There's no food to buy, and really you don't have to buy anything. But you'll have to be satisfied with a tiny house and only the furniture that people will give you, so that's no fun. You are in debt for home improvement for a significant portion of the game, but there's no deadline for payment. However, you cannot get a larger house or better town store without paying your debt.

4) How much do you get to interact with the other.... animals? :odd: .. :rolleyes: Wow. animals. That's a new one. :nerd:

Interaction is pretty good. The animals wander around the map on a schedule of their own, and each animal has a different personality. You can speak with each citizen of your town, and you can offer to do favors (deliveries and such) for them. Occasionally, holidays come around and there are different ways the animals participate in them.

5) How big is the world? Can you buy land? If so, how much does it cost?
Your first house costs you 19,800 bells, if I remember correctly. You start with either 500 or 1,000, I'm not sure. There are four user houses that you or your friends can buy, so a maximum of four humans can live in each town. Sharing a town can bite, though, because if your friend plays before you and takes all of the day's goodies, you are out of luck. It's better to have your own town. You can take a train to another person's town (1 town per memory card), so with a lot of friends the world can be infinite. The world is small enough that you can visit every square in less than 5 minutes, but exploration is not a big part of this game, interaction and collection are the focus.

6) What kind of monetary system is used in the game, anyway?
Bells are the currency. You get bells by running errands and selling the fruit and items you can find in your town and other people's towns. There is a town store that carries different items every day, and different numbers of items as you get wealthier. At first bells are scarce, but once you know what you are doing, you'll rake it in. I can make 20,000 to 30,000 per 5 minutes on good days. Playing the stalk market has netted me over 500,000 bells in one day before. You'll learn how to make money.

7) How do you interact with other people? Can you interact with other players? (At this point though, I think not.)

Other players can either live in your town or in other towns. You can visit other towns. You can store items in a special place and put them up for sale when people visit your town. You cannot steal items from within a person's house, but anything outside a house is fair game. If you give an item to Tom Nook, the storekeeper, and tell him the name of a friend's town, he will give you a password. When your friend enters the password at his store, he will get the item. You can even trade these passwords over the internet! :)


All in all, it's an incredible game. If you play it long enough, you will see the game get brighter as the sun rises and darker as the sun sets. You will celebrate holidays with your townsfolk. I think you'll love it.

[Dragon]

The main thing about this game is do you have an addictive personality? Because if the answer is yes, most likely you will be turned on to all of Animal Crossings little details. To truly love the game you will have to know at least one other person that has it, or in your case, get your sister to play. Pound for pound and dollar for dollar this game is worth just for the NES games you can collect and play... plus you get a free memory card, you just can't get much better than that.