Animal Crossing: City Folk

"The game's still playing... whether you've thrown it out the window or not."

2008's been quite a year for Nintendo, you know, with all the great releases they've been putting out. Sadly, none of these contain the words contain the words "Animal Crossing" or "City Folk".

Don't get me wrong: I love the series dearly. But what happened? We had our original game, and then we had a portable version... both with unique features that made them last for an incredibly long time. How long until City Folk ended up in the same drawer as Brawl, Wii Sports, and Sonic Heroes? About 3 days. I took it back out a week or so later, but I haven't played it since.

If you'll look at the calender, you'll notice the plethora of new, innovative events that weren't in either of the first two games. And I mean roughly two: the festival, and Bunny Day... but aren't these just the same holiday? You get a bunch of unwanted candy, only to get enough furniture to shove in your storage units. Where's the fun in that? No new concepts have been added through these holidays, and you basically just dig and talk to neighbors, something you could do in the first game.

Ah, but Halloween's back... and so are Jack, Jingle, and Franklin. Everything's better! Especially since the whole point of the game is to mindlessly do the same thing every day until you're tired of it. Oh, and don't listen to the people who tell you not to time travel; your experience will be equally awful regardless of whether you change the game's clock just to advance to a certain day.

So... what's so special about City Folk? It was establish a long time ago that the game continued whether you were playing or not. Talking to neighbors, shopping at Nook's, designing patterns... yeah, I guess we can make sleeves and backs of shirts now, but honestly, who used the pattern feature more than 3 times a month anyway?

K.K. Slider is still at the Roost, the Town Gate is still there, Kapp'n is still a driver... where does he drive to anyway? The city? It's more like a collection of things that you used to have to work a lot harder for with the addition of Kicks and Phineas. We've already had emotions, Gracie designs (We've never had her furniture, but that's just a bit blah anyway), haircuts, fortunes, Redd's, and a way to sell things to our friends. (It's called dropping items, but Nintendo's just too good for that.) They didn't even try to make any of these features better-- only 4 emotions as usual, few new Gracie shirts, same awful hairstyles (and now we have bed head, which I'll have when I pull the game out a year from now), nothing interesting with Katrina, etc.

I heard Resetti's in the city... but he doesn't look like he wants to talk right now. Just a question: why does he appear at your house even before you reset? Just a bit of an annoyance. His role's pretty much unchanged from Wild Word and the Gamecube version. At least Don's back.

Speaking of not being able to find someone, why isn't Phineas ever in my city? If he's never going to be there, he may as well not be a character at all. It's not like I need a balloon, anyway, but I kind of wanted one. Kicks is another newbie, but he's kind of dumb because whenever I ask him to match by color I end up with green shoes next to my white shirt.

Also something I noticed: they wasted a big chunk of space in the city, and I really mean it. There are quite a few empty buildings, and that's infuriating considering I spent $50 mostly for the new features.

Kapp'n, I want to go back to the town now! Maybe I can find something to do there! Oh, I have a fishing rod, a net, a shovel, an axe, a watering can, and a slingshot... great. I can fish, catch bugs, and landscape just as I've always been able to do. New fish and new bugs are just wonderful, but they hardly add replay value.

Speaking of tools, why do you have to look up to use the slingshot? I'll never use it now... you can't even walk while you're looking up. They ruined an already underdeveloped feature.

At least you can hold and remove tools without using the menu now. That's a new feature... but I'm not sure it adds much to the game. Just a convenience, which Animal Crossing needs more of, but nothing major.

It doesn't even have nostalgia... which is sad considering it's the direct incest offspring of its predecessors. Where's my Gyroid? What happened to my acres? Why can't I go into my neighbor's houses when they're 2 feet away from the door? What happened to the errand option? Why do I have to pay to get a third bridge? What happened to the Wishing Well, and the Police Station, and the Train Station? At least Chip is back... otherwise the game would be one of those series-killers.

The music is from WW, which is a pretty awful choice. The GC music is so much better, and that's a pretty common opinion. The GC tunes were sweet, brilliant, and majestic, while the WW tunes were bland, irritating, and all generally the same.

The graphics have improved dramatically... at least that much can be said. It finally looks up-to-speed with its generation.. although WW's graphics weren't awful for the DS. Animal Crossing finally looks nearly realistic, and it's about time.

But of course they had to do something with the controls if they were going to give us good graphics. The Wii Remote method may seem painful and hard to control, and it is, but it's not nearly as awful as Remote + Nunchuck. Why couldn't we just use our Gamecube controllers?

Maybe they can make another Animal Crossing in 2011... but who's to say it won't be on the same downward path the series is already on?

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 12/12/08

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