Animal Crossing first made its Japan only debut as a last generation title for the staggering Nintendo 64. Back then it was labeled Doubutsu no Mori and glorified the ground in April 2001. Although relatively a small hit within the masses, it garnered enough of a following to receive a port-over job for Nintendo's latest console, GameCube, that same year in December as Doubutsu no Mori Plus. Of course a simple re-release would not satisfy anyone, therefore Nintendo implemented some extra goodies. The GC-GBA cable had only been released with a rather lackluster performance, yet the best was yet to come within Animal Crossing. Additions that used the GC-GBA cable were ranging from an entirely new island to fiddle around on, to even the latest innovative idea of scanning an e-card to gain items making these somewhat small yet valuable extra's adding an extra "oomph" to the game.
Finally completing much localization issues (Nintendo of America claiming that AC has three times as much dialogue as standard RPG's), the game made it's triumphant release in English for the US in September 2002. American kids everywhere were going crazy about trading items from one side of the country to the other through an interesting option contained in the game (more on that later). Sales, much like its Japanese counterpart, never went through the roof but they were substantial enough that rumours and gossip of a sequel arose. Meanwhile, those on either side of the Atlantic and Pacific in PAL regions were being, literally, rooted. Excuses spewed forth from the horse's mouth claiming that having to translate the game for Euro regions were too hefty, and the Australian/New Zealand market was just way too small for such a feat.
Nevertheless, Nintendo of Australia posted a paragraph on their official website at the end of 2003 stating that Animal Crossing was heading our way. No news of a European release, but still, a PAL release is better than none.
"Hi, I'm Tom Nook. I will gladly take those bulging money sacks from your pocket." *devil sign devil sign*
Upon opening your Animal Crossing game box, there is a brand new 59 memory card for you. Hooray, the masses proclaim. For you will surely fill this sucker up once you start. Each new town you start is randomly created, some towns may have ponds as well as the usual river running through it, some will not. If you start a new game and the town map doesn't look appealing to you at all, start over again (as this reviewer had done twice).
Once you're all set and ready to go, you'll be magically transported to a train running along its limitless rails to your destination. A cat called Rover stumbles by and decides to talk to you; there you will be able to input whether you are male/female, your name and the town name you want. Upon enquiring whether you have a place to stay at this town, you defiantly announce that you don't. Shocked and dismayed, Rover now turns to the back of the train cartridge and calls an old friend called Tom Nook. Eventually you'll learn that this guy is the epitome of your good and evil with a greedy appetite for Bells, the currency of Animal Crossing. Finally Rover strikes a deal with Nooks to let you buy a place when you arrive. Once you've set your foot at home, Nook comes rushing up to show you 4 houses that are close to the train station. Lucky you get to choose which house you would prefer and upon telling old Tom which house you would like, he deals you with the first good vs. evil scenario. Good means you get the house, evil means you get dealt with a whopping debt, which sadly seems to elevate to skyscraper proportions each time you finish your debt and ask for another house renovation.
"Hi, I'm Tom Nook. Let's play tag. You give me some money and I'll run off with it."
The closest game that can be defined to Animal Crossing is The Sims. Yet, Animal Crossing is entirely different compared to The Sims. Where Sims has you doing work to gain ends meet, making friends with the locals or even getting very friendly with the neighbour's wife at odd hours of the night, it doesn't retain something that Animal Crossing does. Real-time events. Play AC during winter real-time and it will be winter in the game, thanks to the in-built clock for the GC. Want to be a geek and celebrate New Years Eve with the animals? Go for it. Although there is no "official" Christmas Day in Animal Crossing, that doesn't mean that people won't send you presents on the 25th of December. Things like this make the whole experience great. You can only catch select fish and insects during certain months, or even certain times of the day. Festivals are to be had during special months where you can gain some great prizes that aren't found anywhere else. No one can fully complete this game unless they either; a) cheat by fiddling with the clock, or b) have way too much time on their hands. The gameplay itself is only meant to be for every day between 30 mins to an hour or so. But there is so much to do during days to gain more money, pay off more of the debt, get a bigger house, more items to share among friends and the like, that it's fun to just sit down and play for a bit then do something else.
Animal Crossing's interface and controlling system is a little slow and this was a gripe, especially when your pockets are full of items that desperately needed to be sorted out. You move around simply with the joystick, run with either B, L or R, menu system opens up with Y or start button and the map is X. But when you get into the menu, you have to slowly move the cursor from one thing to another. There is no multiple grab system (only with the love letters you receive when you want to throw them out) and definitely no quick scroll of the cursor.
The attack of mediocre non-blurry N64 sprites and NES sound output
One let-down was the graphics. Although it is stylish and sufficient to the point, the sprites are sometimes too pale or set too far apart. Some may still claim Mario Sunshine had terrible sprite work, they obviously haven't seen Animal Crossing yet. Although it is a minor gripe, it could have been fixed if more time was put into developing it, or even remedying the N64 to GC port system (that stance also includes Dreamcast to GC). As is with Ocarina of Time port however, the polygons definitely appear sharper and make it easier on the eyes.
Music and sound is crisp, and after each hour, the background music will change. Sometimes it's annoying, sometimes it isn't. Luck of the draw. There is also an option to change the chime music for your town by going near the Post Office and composing a tiny tune that is somewhat limited (although I did get Jingle Bells tuned throughout Christmas period). Little beeps and bops are what defines the music, and when you see the resident musician Totakeke beating out a few tunes of his own on Saturday nights, you'll understand how limited it is. The least Nintendo could have done was update the bitrate sound a bit to make it worth listenable.
GC-GBA connectivity becomes useful
During the course of some hardcore playing, there are options to gain items that you cannot buy or find besides these events; Nooks lottery (which I might add is severely unfair), Jingle the reindeer gives out stuff on Christmas, or even through the animals of your town giving them to you for odd jobs. The best of these are understandably the original Nintendo games, which are however, very hard to gain legitimately. Classics like Excitebike, Donkey Kong, Balloon Fight and Soccer are available for you to sit down and play in Animal Crossing through a NES emulator contained in the game. Once starting these games, you'll be met by horrendous sprites that are so ugly on a giant TV screen that you'd rather just pull out the dusty NES on a small TV and see if the damn thing still works. Hence comes more money grabbing schemes from Nintendo. If you are one of those lucky few with a GBA as well as a GC-GBA connection cable, you can just hook it up to the GC and play the NES games on the GBA. The games look great on your GBA and will stay on using the flash RAM in the GBA until you turn it off. The connection cable isn't just a gimmick either; it lets you create new clothes while on the run to work through public transport or to visit a tropical island and gain additional fruit to sell and meet a new character.
There is one other part that can be rewarding for those that have friends from far distant places, or for those who have an internet connection and decide to join an Animal Crossing message board. This process is called trading. Nintendo were always copping flack for not implementing any online function for Animal Crossing (make that for all of their games) and always offered this simple yet innovative design. The option to trade items between other human players in your own town is simple. Either you can sell it to them through your own tiny shop that is maintained by a robotic form called a gyroid, mail it to them, or create a trade password with the item you want to give them so they go to Tom Nook, tell him the password and there you go. Item is yours. You can also do this with people who do not even live in your town, i.e. those who are overseas. Simply waltz to Tom’s and ask to create a password for an item. He’ll ask which town name they are at, and the person’s name who is receiving the item. Nook will gladly take it off your hands, yet again, and through the magic of Nintendo tell your trader what the password is and there you go. This was always Nintendo's excuse as to why there is no online function for Animal Crossing. It’s something that could be labeled as being online, but it's not "online" within the game itself.
Overall the game is a worthy purchase for those that need a simple pick up and go title with their busy schedule or even just those lazy guys/girls who want to wander around a town every now and again because there is literally no end scope for Animal Crossing. Definitely a rewarding experience and with it being an original title that doesn’t contain the slave work that is contained in our society these days (I know I’d rather sell dinosaur fossils, fruit and shells for work than over a desk), Animal Crossing has it’s own little charm with a pinch of usual Nintendo. Now with all the subtle hints of a European release during this year at Nintendo of Europe's site, things are looking up even if the poor sods missed out on it for several years.
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