Animal Crossing
 When most people hear the words "life simulation," they think of virtual reality much like The Matrix or The Sims. When it comes to gaming, true life simulations are neither. Harvest Moon is probably the series that broke out the genre of life simulations, and many have followed behind it. The most notable is of course The Sims, but there is so much more life simulations have to offer. In Harvest Moon for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, you were able to farm several crops, raise cows and chickens, have pet horses and dogs, upgrade your house and farming equipment and even get married and have children. Ever since then, there have been Harvest Moon games for many different systems including the PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and my most recent Harvest Moon purchase was for the PlayStation 2. There are sure to be many more for the next-generation consoles in due time. Meanwhile, over in Japan there is a game known as Animal Forest. This soon evolved into Animal Forest Plus. Now it is Animal Crossing - only this time it’s in North America and on the Nintendo GameCube. For fans of the genre, Animal Crossing can best be explained as a mix between Harvest Moon and The Sims, and it’s just so damn fun. This review was written with two things in mind: giving a very detailed look at Animal Crossing and also some good strategies for the struggling Animal Crossing fanatic. I do hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s see what Animal Crossing is all about.
Kiddie Console
From pretty much the very start, the Nintendo GameCube was considered to be the ‘kiddie console’ of the next generation. While that is true to some extent, it has seen a lot more great games for adults than the other two contenders as of late. AC may look like a game for kids, but I assure you that this is one game the entire family will enjoy. There is so much to a life simulation that it is very hard to consider it a kid’s game, especially when it is hard for children to understand everything that’s going on (which can be proven with the Harvest Moon series - what 8 year old wants to get married to a g… g… girl). Let’s take a closer look at this great game, shall we?
Welcome To Your New Home
The first thing you must understand is that AC takes place in a time system identical to your own. A day in real life is a day in AC, a month is a month, and a year is a year. AC is also a never-ending game. This means that while there are many different objectives you can accomplish, you may find yourself playing the game for 5 years and still not being able to beat it. Scared yet? Good, now you get to see why this game is so great.
As you start AC, you will be riding on a train to your new home. A friendly little guy named Rover will come and sit across from you and get to know you a bit better. He will ask about your age, sex (and is he ever tricky with that question), your name, what village you’re moving to, and if you have enough money for a new home. After finding out that you don’t have nearly enough, he will head to the back of the train and make a call to the very friendly Nook at the village you are moving to. He will come back, let you know that everything is taken care of and will let you get along on your adventure. As a word of advice, I would keep an eye on Rover, he smiles a little too much, I reckon he’s up to something.
Once you arrive at your new village (which is totally random, all villages are different), you will be greeted by Nook - the friendliest Racoon you will ever meet. He will take you to the four unoccupied homes and let’s you decide which one you want to purchase. After you have decided, he will ask you to come help him out over at Nook’s Cranny to pay off your debt (or at least some of it). He will get you to do a few errands and then send you off to do your own thing in your new village. Up to four people can live in one village at a time and while you can’t play at the same time, what each of the players does will always affect the others. Also, if you feel like checking out a new village altogether you are able to with the help of an extra memory card with village data on it (one village takes up a whole memory card, fortunately AC comes with one).
A few other things that you will notice around your house are the bulletin board that will be updated with the latest events and sometimes buried treasure notices, your gyroid which will allow you to save (and trust me, you want to save), and the fact that you are able to paint your house if you have bought the paint.
Meet Your Neighbors
Another feature that you will soon learn about is the map, which you always carry with you as you go on your adventures. The map is made up of a 6x5 square grid (for those confused, that equals 30 squares - or does it?). There are also some squares on the grid that will be in every village (of course, in different places). These squares are for the dump, store, post office, wishing well, police station, tailor, museum and dock. I will explain each a lot more later on in the review, but the remaining squares on that grid are what we should talk about now. These empty squares are there mainly for one reason - neighbours.
Your village starts off occupied by just a few other animals that each have their own house, name, furniture style and personality. As you progress through the game, more and more animals will move in with new houses, names, personality and the like. Some of your neighbours may feel at their prime in the morning while others seem to enjoy the afternoon and late nights the most. At first you won’t be sure which likes what, but it will soon become obvious (especially when they start getting mad at you). If they are asleep they usually have a sign posted on their door, but some will decide to take a nap outside that soon turns into an all-nighter. It isn’t always best to wake them up. Besides their sleep schedules, you may find some animals like receiving letters while others crave fruit or fish. There is a wide range of animals in AC so you can expect to see everything from penguins to goats and even man’s best friend, the dog.
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The best way to earn an animal’s friendship is to talk to them everyday (a few times a day if possible) and run errands for them. They may ask you to pick up or deliver certain items for them in exchange for money, clothing, furniture or décor. At first you may receive a lot of paper for writing letters, but as you gain their friendship you will get better and sometimes more expensive or even rare items. Most animals will have 2 or 3 deliveries each for you to do per day.
Cold, Hard Cash
As is the way of real life, most of AC revolves around money and lots of it. Most furniture items cost upwards of 1000 bells (which is the AC currency), as you upgrade your house, you will pay upwards of 750,000 bells and if you ever run into a rare items dealer you will be paying big bucks for the best items in the game. So what is an animal to do? Well, there are many ways to get money (which I will go further into throughout this review) but the most important ways are shaking trees which will get you the occasional 100 bells moneybag and sometimes furniture, digging up random spots with the Golden Shovel (more about this later on) for yet again 100 bells moneybags and probably the most important way is selling stuff to Nook at the local store. There are fish that can cost anywhere between 50 to 15,000 bells and a lot of furniture will sell for at least 500 bells. In no time you should be making large amounts of bells and paying off debts left and right.
Nook “R” Us
The local store, which is run by your friendly neighbourhood raccoon Nook, will go by many names over the time you spend in your village. It will start off as Nook’s Cranny and will upgrade many times (as you support him by purchasing more and more items) to stores such as Nook ‘N Go, Nookway, and even Nookingtons. Each upgrade has different opening and closing times and allows more and more items for you to purchase daily. Yes, that’s right, each day will showcase new sets of items for you to purchase, collect, keep or sell. The main items would have to be the furniture, which is needed to bring more animals to your village, and so you have a nice home to go home to.
Other items for sale are wallpaper and carpet for your home (which is usually part of a furniture set), plants and flowers to brighten up your village, tools such as axes, shovels and fishing rods, and even clothing so that you don’t have to wear the same thing everyday - something that the animals in your village like to bother you about.
Other than all the items listed above, you are also able to play the stock market, or more correctly the turnip ("stalk") market. Every Sunday morning, a turnip salesman named Joan will wander through the village selling her turnips at a certain price. The turnips come in bundles of 10, 50 and 100 and can stay fresh for a week. During this week, you are able to go to Nook daily and see just how much he is buying turnips for. You can then decide if you want to sell or hold off another day - just remember to sell them by Saturday evening.
Another great feature is the personal catalog. If you ever end up selling an item that you wish you didn’t later on, it is possible to order that specific item through your personal catalog via Nook. As long as the items are not rare, you are able to purchase them and have them delivered to your mailbox for use.
Digging Through The Garbage
If you find yourself running low on bells, a nice stroll through the dump might be your best bet. Two new items will show up in the dump daily and will stay there until trash pickup on Monday and Thursday at 6 AM. You will find any item in the dump that you could find in Nook’s store, in another animal’s house, or any other way you end up collecting items. Sometimes when you go fishing though, you end up with cans, boots and tires - this is why there’s a dump there in the first place. Fortunately, if you are a clean freak you can always just give it to Nook so he can get rid of it. Just remember that the guy is getting old and too much trash is harder on the stomach these days and Nook just can’t say no to you.
Another great way to make some bells is to visit the local police station and look through the lost and found. For some reason, your village has an odd law that states you can take any item from the lost and found, even if not your own, and keep it for yourself without any backlash. Good deal for you, bad deal for the guy who’s running around outside in the snow with no shirt.
Gardener At Heart
If you feel like doing some gardening around the village then you should first buy a shovel from Nook and maybe a few flower seeds and trees. There are many ways to use your shovel around the village, so let’s see what we can dig up (you can expect puns as bad as these scattered throughout the game).
Each village has a default type of fruit. This can be apples, oranges, pears, peaches or cherries. Selling these to Nook will get you 100 bells each, whereas foreign fruit (any fruit that is not the village default, excluding coconuts) will get you 500 bells each. This means that the best strategy is to plant a few fruit trees until one of your villagers is kind enough to give or trade you some foreign fruit. If you then plant it, let it be for a few days and go back where you planted it you should have some new fruit in your village. Instead of selling it all to Nook, the best thing is to plant a few more trees so that you soon have an orchard of foreign fruit and are raking in large sums of money every three days (the time it takes for more fruit to grow after picking).
Unfortunately, not all places can harbour trees. If other trees are overshadowing it, it may have a stunted growth or not grow at all. This also happens if it is beside buildings or too close to certain objects around your village. If you are unsure of where to plant, an open area is probably your best bet.
If you don’t feel like picking and planting fruit trees, you can always liven up your village by planting some flowers. Unlike trees, flowers are grown instantly for your viewing pleasure. Unfortunately, flowers seem to be more or less just there for decoration and have no real purpose like the trees do [Though certain insects that you may wish to catch are drawn to flowers - Bane].
There are two other ways to make money with your new shovel. One is to find the rock around your village (which changes daily) that contains the moneybags. If you hit it enough times in a row with your shovel, you will soon start getting 1000 bells per hit. The second way is to find the shining golden spot around your village (also changes daily) and dig up some bells that will range from 100 bells to 10,000+ bells. This is also the way to get the Golden Shovel, which I will explain in more detail later on.
A Good Home Is A Stylish Home
While you don’t spend a lot of your time there, your home is one of the most important aspects of the game. As you progress through the game, you can expand your house; add a basement and even a second floor. This is needed for not only storage but also so you can collect a furniture set. Furniture sets are certain themes of furniture that you try your best to collect which will improve your Home Room Academy score. The Home Room Academy is a club you are able to join that will give you a daily score of your house so you know what to improve in your collection. High scores are from 100,000 up, while averages are probably around 30,000 to 40,000 [Wow, the people that play in my village are terrible, scores in my village currently range from 700 to 20,000 - Bane].
To get the best score, your home must have the essentials (a bed, refrigerator, etc), complete furniture scores and matching wallpaper and carpet for the furniture sets. Your basement is not scored (used mainly for storage), but your second floor is. Other ways to boost your score are collecting gyroids that will act as instruments to go along with any music/stereo you may have playing in your house, rare items that you can collect from the village mayor or find as you roam around your village and of course certain set-ups. For example, if a table blocks the way to your bed, you will be deducted for the mistake.
Another use for your house is setting it up for feng shui. Feng shui basically gives you good luck by putting certain colored furniture in either the North, East, West or South portions of your house. Using feng shui can increase your chances of finding rare items and increase your chances of collecting larger sums of money. If you don’t clean your house (which means move your furniture around once in a while), you will soon have an infestation of cockroaches that you should probably try your best to get rid of by stomping all over them. All in all, it’s a good idea to keep your home looking good and clean.
Send Some Letters
Throughout your stay in AC, many of the animals in your village will decide it’s a good thing to pester you about sending them mail. You are able to buy paper from Nook, find it in the dump, receive it as a gift or gather it from the local police station’s lost and found.
The great thing about the animals you mail is that they will understand the letters you send to them. If you say something insulting, they will let you know so. If you aren’t using correct English they will get confused, frustrated and send you back a not-so-friendly message. If it is too short or too long, you’ll hear about it as well. If you do send some good letters to your villagers, then you can receive a large amount of presents in return for caring about them. The way to send mail is through Pelly or Phyllis (depending on the day or night shift) at the post office. If you have more than 5 letters to send, you will have to wait for Pete the mailman to fly over for a special deliver before you can send the rest of your mail (all you have to do is walk out and then back into the post office). Mail is also used for when you dig up fossils that you must send to the Museum to analyze (which I will explain later on).
Much like real life, you can expect some “junk mail” in AC. Nook will send you mail about the showcased furniture for that day, you will receive mail about certain rare items dealers coming to your village and other special events. Pete the mailman doesn’t just deliver your mail, but at 9 AM and 5 PM will let you in on the latest happenings of his love life. This is a great way to get your neighbours hooked on gossip as well. In conclusion, it’s a good idea to send some letters daily.
Fishing
As I said earlier in the review, fishing is a great source of income. Fish prices range anywhere from about 50 bells to 15,000 for the rarest of the fish. Selling isn’t the only way to go, though. The local museum is in need of donations from the villagers so that they can have a collection, which will help attract more animals to move into your village.
Fish can be spotting either in the lake, ponds, stream or ocean by the shadows they produce. The larger the shadow, the larger the fish. As you collect new fish, if you take them to Blathers at the museum he will add them to the aquariums while you go out and get more fish. Certain fish are available only at certain times of the year and some will only come out if it’s raining or snowing. Collecting all of the fish in the game for the museum will get you a golden fishing rod and great praise from Blathers.
Sometimes you will end up catching trash instead, and as I said before you can either throw it in the dump or give it to Nook. The fishing portion of AC is almost like a game inside of a game and produces hours of entertainment. Also, certain months will hold fishing tournaments for you to try your best to win at and collect prizes. This is a great way to collect some new items.
Catching Bugs
Much like fishing, picking up your bug net and taking a stroll can help out the museum greatly. Much like the fish, there is a large collection that you must find and catch and some are found in specific locations and times of the day, month or year. Among the insects you must catch are bees that you will find by shaking trees. Look out, because they will sting you, your eye will swell up and then the village will mock you until it goes away (next time you play your bee sting will be gone). As a side note, trying to catch the villagers in your net isn’t the smartest idea.
Digging & Fossils
Yet another way to collect items for the local museum is digging up fossils on a daily basis. Fossils can most easily be identified by the odd cracks found in the ground around the village. You can collect fossils for Triceratops, Stegosaurus, T-Rex and many other dinosaurs. Not only can you find fossils but you are also able to dig up collectible gyroids after rainy days and other items that other villagers may have buried and forgot about. If you find the gold, shining spot in the ground, burying a normal shovel in that spot will get you a golden shovel in a few days which will dig up moneybags containing 100 bells in random locations.
Art Time
The fourth section of the museum is the painting section. Paintings can be collected from the store, neighbors, and or from holes in the ground. Paintings have a detail in front of them which separates than from one another such as amazing painting or worthy painting. This is another way to make your village a better place to live.
The Wishing Well
Taking care of the village is a little more than most would understand at first. The Wishing Well is there to help you on your quest for the perfect village. Each acre has a minimum and maximum number of trees (anything less or more than that is unsatisfactory), there should be as few weeds as possible (five new weeds grow daily) and spacing out your trees is a must. If something is wrong, the Wishing Well will be sure to let you know. If you can keep the perfect village for 15 days, you may just get a special present for the lumberjack inside.
Design School
AC will bring the creativeness in you out for you to showcase throughout the village. It is possible to design your own clothes, umbrellas, door paintings, walls and floors. There are two ways this can be done. One is through the tailor shop for a rental price and the second is through the Game Boy Advance (requires the GameCube / Game Boy Advance Link Cable). There are a variety of colors to work with and a very easy interface. If your designs become popular enough, you will see other villagers using your patterns for their own personal use, making you a star of fashion.
Kapp’n And His Boat
The use of the Game Boy Advance has even more features than just the designing of clothing and the like, but also gives you access to another portion of the game. Go visit Kapp’n, listen to his songs and set foot on…
The Lost Island
If you can stand Kapp’n’s songs of love and loss, you will sound find yourself on your very own Island. To access the island you must have the Game Boy Advance and link cable. Each island comes complete with a flag (which you can add your own pattern to), an islander, and a storage house for you. Your islander will ask you from time to time for certain pieces of furniture which will be paid for in the exchange. After you have finished with your island on the GameCube, you can load it onto your Game Boy Advance and have some fun with your islander. If you left your islander a shovel, net or fishing rod they may decide to have some fun by digging up some items, planting some flowers, catching presents that float by or go fishing. If you decide to, feeding your islander will also get you some spare cash and while coconuts are the only fruit on the island it is possible to bring some foreign fruit to the island so that your islander can taste more than just coconuts for the rest of their life. This is just another great mini-game in AC.
Events Throughout The Year
There are so many events throughout the week, let alone the year, that it would be impossible to cover everything. Some of the more important events would have to be Crazy Redd coming to your village (he will sell you items and, while overpriced, it is usually worth it), certain holidays that you may experience in real-life (Halloween, Toy Day which is Christmas, Mayor’s Day, etc.) and then stuff such as the sailor that appears on your beach once a week and will give you rare items. It is near impossible to go even a week without some sort of event taking place that will get you hooked to AC over and over again
To help make your AC experience even more worthwhile, there is an official website for the game that is much like a newspaper. It will be updated with the latest happenings in the world of AC, will have codes for certain items in the game, flash games to check out and so much more. Another great feature of AC is the ability to trade items through a code system. With this code system, it is able to take a person’s name and their village name and send them an item in exchange for another right over the Internet, phone or even in person. Many forums on the Internet have gone crazy as of late with AC fever because of this very feature.
The Oldies
Yes, these are the biggest mini-games of all mini-games to date. What could be great than fishing or digging up fossils? How about classic, first-party NES games? That’s right, there is a collection of NES games right in AC that you can collect the same way you would collect any other items. The official website also has some codes for games that you are not able to collect otherwise. The NES games include Donkey Kong, Clu Clu Land, Golf, Tennis, Soccer and many more (there are possibly some that have not been found, even). On top of it all, you are able to transfer these games over to your Game Boy Advance for NES play on the go. How cool is that? Very.
E-Reader
While I have not had the privilege to try it out, there are many E-Reader features also available in AC that will get you new items and much more. For anyone that has an E-Reader and wants to put it to good use, AC might be a game worth checking out.
The End?
AC is a continuous game, which means that day after day, month after month, and year after year you can keep playing the game. As far as most gamers know, there doesn’t seem to be a way to beat the game other than maintaining a perfect village. This is great for replay value and with events happening throughout the year most dedicated AC gamers will stick around for a few months of gaming. That is pretty good if I do say so myself.
Final thoughts
Finishing off this extensive review, I have come to the conclusion that Animal Crossing does everything it was meant to and it does it all superbly. With such a great replay value (I wouldn’t be surprised if people were playing this game years from now) it is hard to pass up this game. It is also a great family game, with the ability to have up to three other players in the same village as you, things can get pretty fun. Finally, you may be asking if it’s worth the money. Well, let me ask you a question, how many games will get you months, maybe even years, of gameplay? They are very scarce, and with Animal Crossing being as great as it is, this is one title most people shouldn’t pass up - even adults. Look out Harvest Moon and The Sims, Animal Crossing is in town.
Added: November 18th 2002
Reviewer: Klown
Hits: 513
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