"An Old World With New Opportunities"

Remember the old Animal Crossing? I do. Mailing fossils to Farway Museum, how it took (at least it seemed like it) forever to get Nook to make his store bigger, and running four errands at a time as you deliver glasses cases, Gameboys, and other various things it seems your animal villagers never needed/used. I always wondered how Animal Crossing could be made better.

Seems like this game read my mind.

In Animal Crossing: Wild World, Kapp'n takes you to your new town (who seems to have been either promoted or demoted from ferry man to cab driver, still not sure which one is better). He asks you a series of questions (where are you going, what's your name, etc. etc.). After Kapp'n drops you off at the town, you enter the town hall, then go to see Tom Nook to purchase your home, get a job to start paying it all off (since you arrive at your new home with empty pockets), and begin your new life.

This game has a lot of better features on it then the classic GameCube version. For one, Nook's store not only upgrades if you spend enough money there, it includes the money he receives from you paying off your mortgage. I noticed that after paying off a couple mortgages and buying some things from Nook's store, he had already bumped up to Nookway - a big plus in my book.

Also, you no longer have to mail all your fossils to Farway, only to receive 3 back. Blathers, who is still the museum's curator, has finally received his degree and can identify your fossils within seconds for you. And on the topic of the museum, it has grown considerably. There is a second floor, which is the location of the Observatory, run by Blather's younger sister, a pink owl named Celeste. The basement of the museum is the Roost, where you can get coffee from a pidgeon named Brewster for 200 bells, as well as hear K.K. Slider play every Saturday. There are also many more paintings, fossils, bugs, and fish to donate to the museum.

In the way of your house, instead of having your home in one specific place no matter what your town is like, you can place your house according to one of Kapp'n's questions (So, why are you going to [insert town name here]?). You can have your home on the beach, near Nook's store, near the town gates, or the museum. Certainly a plus in my book. The house, as well, has many more upgrades, and can get very large if you get every one. However, instead of having four homes and four players, there is only the one house, with a save room upstairs in your home and the players not being used at the time are sleeping on their save beds. So, if you have multiple people play your cartridge, I suggest you work out a theme that you all can agree on, or assign rooms to people that they and no one else can decorate however they like.

Animals in your town no longer give out tasks just because you ask. You have to chat with them for a while, and they might give you a letter or present to give to someone else. You can open these presents and letters yourself, but I suggest you not - I'm sure it'd lessen your relationship with the animals in question if you do. You can only have eight villagers instead of the GameCube AC's maximum of 15, and they roam about the town more. The day an animal moves in or before they might move out (you can convince animals otherwise in your town to not move by talking to them on that day), their house contains only their things packed up in cardboard boxes.

If you want to move, or have someone move in, you can select to do so. You can choose 'moving' on the welcome screen to move a character to another game pack, or you can notify Pelly at the Town Hall. Select 'immigration' there, and you can have another person move their character into your game pack.

There are also extra tools you can use in Wild World. The Watering Can, which can be used to water and revive wilting flowers (more on that later), and the Slingshot, which can be used to shoot Gulliver from his UFO (seriously) or presents floating on balloons down from the sky. The Axe, Fishing Pole, Bug Net, and Shovel are still obviously in the game.

You know how in the first game, all your character could wear on their head was that hat with the horns if you're a boy, or the cone-type hat for girls? Well, that is no longer. The Able Sisters, Sable and Mable, sell hats, accessories, clothes, and umbrellas now instead of Tom Nook. Some, like the Dandy Hat, are cute, while others, like the King Tut Mask or King's Beard are just plain wierd. But needed if you want to complete the ever-so-gigantic catalog.

But most noticeably of all is the WiFi mode. Go to a McDonalds, have some fries, and play Wild World with a gamer from Sweden. Sound a bit too far-fetched to you? Well, it's true. The new Wild World has a function that, if you have a USB Connector or are at a hotspot, you can go and visit a town that could be anywhere from a mile away to hundreds of miles away. You can swap friend codes with people so you can visit each other's towns again. Of course, there's also good old DS to DS mode. Invite a friend over to check out each other's towns, try out WiFi mode and meet a gamer in China. Four people can play in WiFi mode, and two in DS to DS mode. Get four people and make up a game! Who can catch an emperor butterfly first, have a scavenger hunt, or just go fishing and chat. The possibilities are literally endless.

A few extraneous notes about this game are that there is no longer an island. You cannot have an island villager, but coconuts can drift into your town by the ocean and settle on the beach. There is a new letter-writing system - bottle mail. Buy a note in a bottle from Nook, write a little note, then play Tag Mode. Throw the bottle into the ocean, and another gamer playing Tag Mode will receive it. In Nook's last store upgrade, Nookington's, there will be a hair salon attached to the store - Shampoodle. Once a day, Harriet, the poodle running the place, will ask you a few questions, and your answers determine your new hairstyle and hair color.

So, basically, what you should ask yourself is, should you buy Animal Crossing: Wild World? If you own the first Animal Crossing, yes. If you don't, yes. Either way, this game has many things the first doesn't have to offer, as well as a couple things the first does have that have been taken out in the second. This game can get very addicting, and before you know it, you'll be jumping for joy when you finally catch that elusive coecalanth, find the magic bell rock, or finally get a perfect rating for your town.

So, what would I rate this game? Well, it's for a portable system, which is good. It has so many more things to offer than the first game, which I like. It has better multiplayer capability, which is great. The only thing I really dislike about this game is the fact that one house must be shared among four people, which could bea real problem if your brothers and sisters play as well - it's possible they might sell the Triforce you worked so hard to find. So, all in all, I give this game a very good 9. Great, but not perfect.

Isn't that how almost every good game seems to be?

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/02/06