Animal Crossing: City Folk

"A lazy and uninspired rehash which is nothing more than a quick cash in on Nintendo’s newfound casual userbase."

Even going into this game with moderate expectations I still find myself utterly disappointed. As someone who thoroughly enjoyed the Gamecube original (and while not quite as enthusiastic about the DS follow up, I still appreciated what the game had to offer), I'm quite familiar with the series, to say the least. City Folk – the first fully fledged console sequel – seemed like the opportune moment to update the series and take it forwards into the next generation….

Apparently not.

The sad truth is that the game is nothing more than a slightly enhanced port of Wild World, and the tacked on city is not nearly enough to cover up the utter lack of new content.

We all know the formula by now. You've just moved into a brand new town and local store owner Tom Nook has been kind enough to hook you up with your own place to stay. In return, he makes you do menial chores for him to pay off the debt on your new house, eventually upgrading it from a tiny little shack into an impressive mansion, and along the way you'll collect furniture to decorate your pad with.

To earn money you can fish, collect fruit, hunt for insects, or do small errands for your neighbours. Once you've paid off your debt you have the freedom to do pretty much anything you want. There are no clearly cut goals to work towards and the world of Animal Crossing is always alive, whether you're playing or not.

Essentially the structure is identical to Wild World. There are absolutely no new activities to partake in, which is particularly disappointing. It's just the same old routine with nothing new to spice up the experience. Nintendo have also failed to address a few common complaints, such as the limited inventory system. You'll still have to constantly make room for new items, which in this day and age is just unnecessary and outdated.

There are a few little tweaks, though, such as the return of real life holidays from the Gamecube original. I'm sure most will agree that the made up holidays in Wild World were pretty terrible so this is certainly a much appreciated change. NES games are once again absent, although I suppose it's a little more understandable this time as Nintendo don't want to compete with their Virtual Console service.

Of course, a large part of the Animal Crossing experience is the social interaction. And while chatting with your animal neighbours is fun to start with, it soon looses its appeal once you realise they're just saying the same thing over and over. Animals are still limited to a few base personalities (lazy, ditzy, grumpy, etc) which determine what they say, and there's absolutely nothing else to differ them. So chances are your favorite animal probably says the exact same things as one of your least favorite animals. It sort of kills the immersion and it's an issue you would have expected to be addressed by now.

So much of the game has been rehashed from Wild World. All of the buildings (besides the city hall, and a few parts of the museum) and townspeople have literally been copied and pasted directly from Wild World. Take Brewster, for example. He does the exact same animation in the exact same place. K.K. Slider plays in the exact same spot, and the whole room looks exactly the same as it did before. As does every version of Nook's store, and the Able Sisters shop. Nintendo could have at the very least changed where the custom shirts are located or something, but they're in the exact same place.

The vast majority of furniture, clothes, fish, bugs, and fossils have also just been copied and pasted over from previous versions. Beyond a few more sets of furniture to collect the amount of new content is minuscule. And while there are a few extras such as the ability to play as your Mii and fully design your own shirt, it's just far too little and doesn't change anything in any sort of remarkable way.

In fact, Nintendo have even gone so far as to reuse the soundtrack, which basically consists of Wild World songs with the odd remix and original track thrown in for the new areas. Why they didn't use the superior Gamecube music, or better yet, completely new music like every other game in existence is beyond my comprehension. Even the little animations when you're stung by a bee or reel in a fish have just been pulled directly from Wild World. I simply can't justify this level of laziness.

The biggest new addition to the game, the city, unfortunately lacks any real substance. Perhaps “city” is a misleading name because it's nothing more than a small square surrounded by a few shops and inhabited by the odd wandering animal you can stop and chat with. Sadly, you'll soon realise that all of the places you can visit are just rehashed storefronts from previous games, which definitely cheapens the feel of the place because it essentially offers nothing that you couldn't do before. As a matter of fact, it actually somewhat kills the replay value and incentive to play on certain days, because instead of waiting for certain animals to show up in your town, you can now just go and visit them anytime you want.

The city is a concept with great potential but unfortunately the execution is incredibly half-baked. You'll soon tire of everything there is to see and the tedium of having to hop on a bus to visit storefronts which were previously accessible in your own town is sure to annoy. Why can't you get a job to earn some extra cash? The city desperately needed more interactivity, and in its current state it simply seems like a mere afterthought.

On a more positive note, the Wii controls work well and naturally make navigating the menus a much more streamlined experience. Much like the stylus, you can use the Wii remote to control your character by pointing at where you want to walk, although I imagine most will just opt for a traditional analog stick instead. You can also use motion based gestures to dig holes and catch fish, but for the most part I found the response to be somewhat inaccurate.

Visually the game remains unchanged. The textures are a little sharper and the character models are smoother, but essentially it looks exactly the same as its predecessors. What looked slightly out of place on the Gamecube now looks utterly outdated on the Wii. After 7 years, it's no understatement to say that the series is in desperate need of a facelift, but unfortunately Nintendo seem perfectly content with using the same N64 graphics over and over. The game runs in 480p and includes a widescreen mode, but these do little to enhance the experience.

The online play is still surprisingly limited to four players, which is a rather baffling design choice when you consider that the towns are quite a bit larger than their Wild World counterparts, and the Wii has substantially more processing power. If you want to visit a friend you once again have to exchange friend codes, enter each others details, and then wait for them to open their town gates. The whole process just feels archaic and clunky.

An interesting new addition is the online auction house, but for some bizarre reason it's only limited to people on your friends list, which pretty much kills any potential the feature may have had. It's completely nonsensical because it's much easier to just visit the other person's town rather than go through the entire auction process. It would have been great to bid on items from random Animal Crossing players all around the world, and I can't fathom why Nintendo would impose such an utterly ridiculous limitation.

For the most part the online experience is identical to Wild World -- yes, the online is identical to a handheld game released back in 2005. The fact that Nintendo have made no progress since then either shows incredible incompetence or an utter lack of effort. Why doesn't the city function as an online hub where you can meet up with other players? That's the sort of progress the series needs, but it seems Nintendo are just uninterested in delivering anything beyond an absolute barebones experience.

I can't help but wonder what the Animal Crossing team did with all of that development time. In all honesty I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they were just sat there twiddling their thumbs, because nothing in this game suggests otherwise. It doesn't please me to write such a negative review because I sincerely believe that the series has great potential. Unfortunately, City Folk is nothing more than a colossal missed opportunity. Instead of coming up with innovative new ideas to enhance the series, Nintendo have just repackaged Wild World and slapped a $50 price tag on it.

A lazy and uninspired rehash indeed.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 11/18/08, Updated 11/25/08

Game Release: Animal Crossing: City Folk (US, 11/16/08)