Animal Crossing: City Folk

"Wild World V.1.04"

Animal Crossing City Folk is a frustrating, copied, repetitive and boring simulator that does nothing that hasn't been done on other games. A terrible camera, outdated graphics and the pointless addition of a city roll together in what I consider to be the most disappointing game since Sonic 2006.

Story

Just like all the other Animal Crossing games, you start out as a young boy or girl hoping to start living the good life in a small town. Once again, Rover, the same cat from the other Animal Crossing games addresses you, asking you some questions such as your name and birthday, and you're off. You land in whatever town you picked the name of, and you are quickly whisked to Tom Nooks store to pick a house to live him. But this house isn't free. Instead you have to pick which house you want to live in, then pay for it. And to pay for it? You have to work for Tom Nook in a basic tutorial, just like the other games. I might've just copied over this section from a Wild World or Animal Crossing review. The paying off your house is pretty cool though. You have to make the decision of spending your money on cool items in the store, or paying off your debt. Furniture Hoarders, beware.

3/10

Graphics

Animal Crossing: City folk has the exact same graphics as Animal Crossing and Animal Crossing Wild World, despite being released years after both. Just compare screenshots, and you'll know what I mean. What was dated on the Gamecube looks ridiculous on the Wii. It wouldn't shock me that the developers ported Wild World and just tweaked a couple buildings. Truly awful.

1/10

Gameplay

Once again, the Nintendo team has proved to us that with determination and patience, they can port a game onto a new console with a new name. Taking advantage of little kids to young to know the difference and fanboys who aren't willing to admit they're upset by the lack of new content, they have force-feeded us the same game with a new name. John McCain: More of the same. I'm Barack Obama and I approve this message. Not really, but this game is a cheap imitation of what used to be a fun, addicting game.

All the activities from Wild World and Animal Crossing are present here, but is there anything else new? No, except for the City, which I'll explain later, there is no new content. Nada. Zip. Zero. The big 00. Everything, including the furniture, fish and Gyroids (I hate those things, I just hate how they move and dance all day with those weird looks on their face). What little new content the game adds make it seem more upsetting. This game is Wild World V.1.04.

I bet you're wondering where the game got its name. What does "City Folk" suggest? Well, the only thing that the game added was the city, a place where you can shop, enjoy the sights, and wonder why this was put in in the first place. At the marvelous city, you can buy extremely expensive furniture at GracieGrace, get your hair done at a store that was once located right in your town, watch a stupid comedy act at the theater, or wait forever for someone to put an item up at the auction house. Basically, the city serves no purpose whatsoever. Absolutely none. The addition of a city actually DROPS the score, because it makes the game more frustrating. Like I said, Shampoodle, which was originally located at Nookingtons at your town, is now in the city.

Now about the camera. This game has the most awful camera since Zelda: Twilight Princess, where you had no camera control, and to adjust it, you had to stand still and get killed by a horde of skeletons. The game functions like the town you're standing on is a sphere. Buildings don't come into view until you get within 10 feet of them, and this makes finding bridges and buildings a tedious task. I have to open up my map every 20 feet just to know I'm going to the right place. To find a certain building or character is even more frustrating. You have to hunt around town and just when you find the house, the character is "out for a stroll". You hunt around town again, coming up empty, and just when you give up and go home, the character has walked home and is inside. ARGHHH!

But what about your house? If you pay off a debt for it, it must be important. Well, you can decorate, plant flowers, and grow your house's size. Your house starts out as a tiny shack, but grows into a massive mansion as the game progresses. You can trick out your house's roof color, furniture, and well, that's it. The furniture system is the most clunky and frustrating in any game. To move furniture, you walk up to it, grab onto it and push, pull, or rotate it. This sounds creative on paper, but annoying on a screen. For some reason, whenever I want to push my furniture, I have to jam the analog stick up like 10 times before it goes backwards. To pull, I frequently get trapped between furniture and have to pick up the furniture, walk out, and start all over again. It would've been much easier just to have a crane or something that you can pick up and drop objects with. No, you have to use the worst decorating system I've seen in my days. It can be some fun personalizing your home, though, and the furniture selection changes every day at the store. It doesn't help picking up furniture when your pockets can barely hold anything, and you run out of space in your pockets in less then 2 minutes. Why not have a storage area to put your stuff in in town? Missed chances.

Ahh, Nooks shop. Where all your basic needs are frustratingly dictated by time and calendar. Nooks shop starts out as a tiny shack with barely any selection, but after you spend enough money, the shop grows and grows into bigger shops with more selection. The shop upgrades are you guessed it, copied from Wild World and Animal Crossing. It takes forever to get the first upgrade, because the items in the first shop are so useless, there's no reason to buy anything. If you don't like the items in the shop, too bad. You either have to wait 'til next day or change the date. Never before have I felt so denied.

2/10

Replay value

Every date brings new furniture, new visitors, new hopes, and new fish. To experience all the fun events, I've skipped around time a lot, which throws a wrench in gameplay once I change back to normal time. No ones going to just sit around and wait for new events. This makes it annoying to constantly change the clock when I want new things. Replay wise, the game has a lot, although you're not going to sit around bored out of your mind by this game.

6/10

Buy or rent?

Rent at best. I made the mistake of shelling out 50 dollars for a cheap Wild World clone.

Overall score: 2/10, not an average.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 12/02/08

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