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[SolidChamp]

I went into this series for the very first time with the 3DS version, wanting desperately to enjoy it and to "get it" but worried that I would hate it...and I fucking love it.

I put in 185 hours since June. The biggest problem with the game is that it is a bit of a commitment. You get out of it what you put in, and usually playing 45 minutes a day is a good way to do that,

I was addicted beyond belief for the first month, and then I continued playing out of sheer habit. It's a very relaxing game, and I always feel as though I'm rewarded by it in some way even if I play for 20 minutes.

I did, however, learn what happens when you neglect your town for a while. Lately I've been playing less and less (went from playing every single day, several times a day to just a couple times a week). I went a whole week without playing, only to go back and find that my favorite villager had moved out and I wasn't there to get the notice or to stop it from happening. That really bummed me out and caused an even bigger rift between me and the game.

You see how this works? People like myself develop serious issues as a result of playing this game.

 

[NewGame]

Animal Crossing is just an honest little town which you can pop into every now and again. I know that gamers usually have a sort of ADHD approach to games but try to play it in your down time between other games or play it in bed before you go to sleep, it's a wonderful way to relax.

 

[balohna]

I went into this series for the very first time with the 3DS version, wanting desperately to enjoy it and to "get it" but worried that I would hate it...and boy I sure did.

I put in 185 hours since June. The biggest problem with the game is that it is a bit of a commitment. You get out of it what you put in, and usually playing 45 minutes a day is a good way to do that,

I was addicted beyond belief for the first month, and then I continued playing out of sheer habit. It's a very relaxing game, and I always feel as though I'm rewarded by it in some way even if I play for 20 minutes.

I did, however, learn what happens when you neglect your town for a while. Lately I've been playing less and less (went from playing every single day, several times a day to just a couple times a week). I went a whole week without playing, only to go back and find that my favorite villager had moved out and I wasn't there to get the notice or to stop it from happening. That really bummed me out and caused an even bigger rift between me and the game.

You see how this works? People like myself develop serious issues as a result of playing this game.

Yeah, it's kind of stupid/cruel that they basically guilt you into continuing to play. I do love the game, but a lot of my motivation for going back to it is to make sure the villagers I like don't move. I went back to the GameCube version after 5+ years and most of my village was still the same. Just... a lot of fucking weeds.

 

[Like the hat?]

250+ hours on my activity log on this game. Granted, at least 100 hours of that was my kid.

 

[BoosterDuck]

As it stands, once you've decorated your house there's practically nothing to do.

decorate your town?

 

[SolidChamp]

Yeah, it's kind of stupid/cruel that they basically guilt you into continuing to play. I do love the game, but a lot of my motivation for going back to it is to make sure the villagers I like don't move. I went back to the GameCube version after 5+ years and most of my village was still the same. Just... a lot of fucking weeds.

More than guilt, it's actually pretty insane that for several months after the game's release, my 3DS basically became the "Animal Crossing machine". I neglected all my other games (Luigi's Mansion included) because every time I turned on my 3DS, I felt Animal Crossing calling to me...like some sort of strange obligation to keep things maintained in my town. It doesn't help that I have the digital version.

185 hours means I've more than got my money's worth; I love that game to death but, it's definitely starting to feel like a toxic, obsessive relationship and I'm happy to be finally breaking free from it, slowly but surely.

 

[acheron_xl]

250+ hours on my activity log on this game. Granted, at least 100 hours of that was my kid.

I think the only game all year I've put more time into was Minecraft.

I got to 100 hours more effortlessly than any other game I've ever played.

 

[Devilgunman]

I had the same initial reaction as OP and 15 hours later I decided to quite. Nothing in the game is fun for me. I don't enjoy what most people think is the best thing about this game. I don't enjoy collecting furniture and I think it's pointless. Why would I collect them if I can barely interact with any of them? Fishing and catching bug is very repetitive and it doesn't get any better the more you play it. Worst of all, I can't decorate my town the way I want. Why the hell can't I put a bench or a garbage bin next to a lamp post? Why can't I rotate benches so I can have them surround a fountain? Why can't fruits stack themselves? There are limitation in many aspects and it is really annoying. I gave it a try buy it's just not for me.

 

[Stoze]

It's not the kind of game everyone can enjoy.

To be honest I had a bunch of fun with New Leaf for a while but, like with all Animal Crossing games, I got a bit burnt out.

After building several public works projects (so that people would finally say my town is amazing) and after building my house up a bit, I got tired of the routine. The only way to make the substantial amount of money needed for projects was to go to the island and it's not like every time has a high yield (though if you get lucky you'll return with 150K-200K bells).

The townspeople don't donate shit so as mayor you're not only running the town but you're doing pretty much all your own fundraising.

The biggest problem with me as a player is that I don't do multiplayer. So there's a giant layer to the game that I don't experience, including trading items and furniture, visiting others, etc. A lot of people are passionate about that stuff but it's not really why I play AC.

And then when it comes to having a house, getting points from the house rating committee requires a ton of diligence and proper combinations of things. Problem is, I build and decorate my house to impress myself, not others.

I had fun donating to the museum, for a while. Nearly every fossil collected. Over 50% of fish and bugs collected, etc. I was getting badges for my work. It was nice.

I got my value out of the game in terms if play hours. That said, I know I could do a lot more but I'm not in the mood anymore. Not a knock against the game though, it's still really great in its own right. But, to enjoy it at all requires a certain kind of player, and enjoying it over the long term does the same.

Yeah, this is exactly my experience with Animal Crossing. I thought the multiplayer might do something for me, but it just feels like it's single-player with people playing next to you. Also the loading times upon entering and leaving other's towns is atrocious, and is why I stopped buying turnips after the first couple weeks.

 

[Lambtron]

No, it's not even a game really. There's nothing but chores to do and it's really limited as far as the AI goes as you could probably expect. If you want sim games there are far better ones on PC and even on the 3DS like Harvest Moon.

Most "AAA" video games are just chores. Walk down a hall. Kill all the monsters in a monster closet. Watch a cutscene. Repeat. Escort this NPC to point D. Watch a cutscene. Repeat.

I don't even consider Animal Crossing all that analogous to the newer Harvest Moon games; they added too much extraneous stuff. Animal Crossing's game design is brilliant. Your actions mean so much more than they do in most games that want to give you the illusion of choice. All of Animal Crossing is a choice. it makes doing extraneous activities super enjoyable.

 

[Roto13]

You should just come hang out in the OT. Someone will give you the 10,000 bells and a full set of tools, if you want, probably.

 

[TheAngryMonkey]

You don't play AC to win anything. It's a game that is what you want it to be within the confines of what the game offers. You can pick fruit from the trees, plant it to grow more then sell it for bells. Use the bells to buy gifts for the villagers and send the gifts by writing letters and attaching them. Or you can spend the bells on making your house bigger and then buying furniture and other bits while trying to improve your happy home score.

You can plant trees and bushes throughout the town however you like, join with other players to play the mini games on the island. Eventually you can catch bugs, fish, dig for fossils and donate it all to the museum. Once a fossil is complete you can learn more about that thing.

You can play simply to talk to the other villagers and hear the goofy shit some of them say and get to know each of their personality types. Personally I like the muscle heads, I find a lot of what they say funny.

It's simply a nice way to pass time without feeling like you need to win anything, no pressure. There are some typical Nintendo problems with it. The online stuff clunky, pecking out the short messages on the keyboard is a chore, it's easy to miss a message when moving between buildings, you can't send letters between your friends unless you go to their town. But overall the whole thing is just a fun distraction. I've spent nearly as much time in the past couple of weeks as I have with Link Between Worlds.

 

[mantidor]

As it stands, once you've decorated your house there's practically nothing to do.

The beauty of this game right there, that objective wasn't set by the game, it was set by yourself.

It's one of those games in which is better to let the game play you than the other way around, the game has all these limits because if you go in full completionist mode you are going to burn out. The game basically begs you to play no more than in 20 minutes sessions.

Multiplayer also makes it so much more compelling.

 

[cosmicblizzard]

Thanks for reminding me to get back to it. Should be starting to snow around this time. I'm going to throw snowballs at that asshole Lopez for moving in right in front of my house.

 

[Decker]

I just got this today, and I'm sure I'm going against the grain on this one. I heard everyone talking about this game and just got a 3DS, didn't know too much about the game tbh beyond the premise, seemed neat enough, maybe not my thing but willing to try it out. I've just started it but to be honest, so far it seems kinda pointless? And by damned doing the best job it can to get me not to play it =/

In the first game day I go through all of the introductory stuff and after a certain point I am just locked out and was just told to come back tomorrow and I had basically nothing to do. I talked to people, they didn't say anything of substance. I was wondering what was going on?

I just changed the 3DS clock and went back in to get on with it, time to be mayor. Nope, you need to get a house, cool no problem. 10000 bells please. Oh ok. How do I do that? Go grinding for peaches and fishing Tom Nook says. Ah... can I do anything else in the mean time? No.

Ok...

So does this game get any "better" from what may be one of the worst first impressions I've seen, or am I best trading this in for another game for my 3DS?

Lock if this should be moved to community or something.

had the SAME feeling when I played for my first time Animal Crossing for Nintendo DS

it was my fault though, didn't do my research properly before buying and ended with game that I found boring just after couple of hours

 

[sfog]

Animal Crossing on the Gamecube had NES games you could play.

That's the only reason I played it. The series just doesn't appeal to me.

Yeah, that was my experience as well, I picked up the GC version many years back for about $20 largely for the NES collection as a fallback since I wasn't sure I'd care for the regular game itself.

As it turns out, it didn't end up doing much for me, and I've never had much of a desire to play any of the later AC games. I just didn't find it interesting or varied enough to stick with beyond the first few weeks, although I can see why it's appealing as a game to kill short spurts with on portables.

 

[belmonkey]

My bf made me buy a 3DS so we could play together; haven't touched it in months (only had it a few months).

 

[Currygan]

I found it a bit stale after 295 hours, so yeah, game has some flaws

 

[mantidor]

Oh! also, if you ever feel this game hasn't anything else to offer, if you have the dream shop visit this dream suit code: 2600-0218-7298. Then, realize you haven't even scratched the surface of this game.

 

[UNCMark]

Been logging into it for about 200 days straight now. I love it. There's not much "game" to it, and Nintendo should really do something about that, but it's still oddly relaxing. My first snow storm in-game is coming tomorrow. Looking forward to that.

 

[Downhome]

I bought it for my wife on Black Friday. It was going to be a Christmas gift but she saw it, grabbed it, so I went ahead and gave it to her that night. She isn't a "gamer", but she does like certain things - Mario, Donkey Kong Country, Nintendogs, stuff like that.

She has had it for 13 days now and she has already logged over 35 hours in the game.

She's sitting here playing it right now as I type this actually. She is straight up addicted to it. She says it relaxes her after a long day at work. I think that is a big reason that many adults play the game in the first place.

I haven't been able to hardly play Zelda since I bought her this game!

Oh! also, if you ever feel this game hasn't anything else to offer, if you have the dream shop visit this dream suit code: 2600-0218-7298. Then, realize you haven't even scratched the surface of this game.

Please explain this. I'd like to pass it on to my wife, lol.

 

[Xero]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UERzZzOHU9w

 

[Like the hat?]

Thanks for reminding me to get back to it. Should be starting to snow around this time. I'm going to throw snowballs at that asshole Lopez for moving in right in front of my house.

Got my message board post saying the big snow storm was coming, so there should be snow on the ground tomorrow morning

 

[mantidor]

Please explain this. I'd like to pass it on to my wife, lol.

In case she hasn't unlocked it, there's a dream shop in which you can upload your town as a "dream town" for other people to see, they give you a code you can share with others, and others can share their town with you. There are some really impressive stuff out there, but for this town it's so much better to go in blind, so I won't say much.

edit: ok it's a bit creepy, but within AC limits of course.

 

[castlemadeofsand]

Think of it like a bonsai tree. Each day you spend a little time with it, shaping it, loving it. It's relaxing. It's not a game to be played like other games.

 

[AEREC]

I found it a bit stale after 295 hours, so yeah, game has some flaws

I'd find any game stale after almost 300 hours.

 

[spyroflame0487]

Ah see the problem is you time traveled. While I'm sure there will be people on both sides of the timey wimey equation, the best thing to do is NOT time travel. Animal Crossing is a simple game, and they actually only punish you for rushing. When I figured that out, after all these years, I just sat there dumbfounded. I've been rushing through previous games, but ACNL I didn't, and I've logged over 300 hours since the game came out.

Each day something new happens. Just take your time, and keep going back every day to do things.

As for making bells, you can always start in on Turnip trading. Since you time traveled, I'm not sure if Joan will show up on sunday or not this week, but if she does, invest in turnips and then find someone in the animal crossing threads all across the internets and find someone who has a high amount for buying in their Retails store (usually highest is on tuesday/wednesday)

Eventually you'll unlock the island; at night you can go there and farm beetles since its set permanently to summer time. You can easily make over a million bells in less than an hour if you catch the higher valued ones.


So basically, just take your time. It seems a bit slow at first, and it kind of is because a lot of stuff is locked out. But eventually the world will be your oyster

 

[Currygan]

I'd find any game stale after almost 300 hours.

thatsthejoke.gif

 

[Caronte]

I think it's mostly a game to play when you want a relaxing experience. If you're playing it to see actual progress then you won't like it. I had fun with it a few weeks but after that it became a little boring to me and moved on.

 

[Incandenza]

For me, the fun is partially the compulsive collecting of everything (gotta get all the music tracks, all the emotes, gotta complete my kitchen, etc.) but mostly the living nature of it where there's always something new and special to look forward to. Right now I'm really enjoying the fact that I get to figure out what my villagers want for Toy Day and get all the parts of the Santa outfit so I can deliver presents on Christmas Eve. I'm really excited about the fact that the blizzard is coming tomorrow and my town will look all Christmassy. I'm excited that soon I'll be able to build snowmen. I love that I get wintery version of the music when it's snowing. The point I'm getting at is that I'm well over 100 hours in and yet basically every week or two there's something new to do that I've never done up to that point. It's always fresh.

Plus there's the incredible charm and relaxing nature of it.

Think of it like a bonsai tree. Each day you spend a little time with it, shaping it, loving it. It's relaxing. It's not a game to be played like other games.

This is a pretty perfect analogy, actually.

 

[Tusk]

Oh wow.. I just realised I haven't played this since sometime in september. Got caught up in pokemon hype, and haven't bothered playing since. :c

The game was so much fun when I started playing, imo. I was worried I'd get a bunch of stuff piled on me, but then saw it started out pretty simple. Played all the time after that.
Now that I haven't played in so long though.. Not sure I could get back into it, tbh.

 

[weemadarthur]

It would probably help to go visit a few built up towns, either in person or via dream suite.

Sometimes before you can come up with your own internal goals, you need to see a few of the possibilities.

 

[shink]

Wait, what? Seriously?

Wow, that's put a bit of nail in the coffin for me there :/

Edit: late night ordinance?

Yeah if you pay the $20k bells you can have the shops open later. I think they close at around 11pm with the ordinance, opening at 8am varying with each shop though. I had that one on early on or otherwise I'd get nothing done.

 

[hitmon]

Is there any way to adjust the in-game clock? Going back to standard time really screws me over.

 

[mantidor]

Is there any way to adjust the in-game clock? Going back to standard time really screws me over.

If you change the 3DS clock it will change the internal clock as well. Anyway Isabelle always asks you before so you can confirm.

Be careful when you change it if you don't want to be labeled time traveler, you'll be labeled time traveler if the game detects you've already played at that date and time previously, so when changing make sure you haven't played in the hour immediately before.

 

[peanutbutterlatte]

It's a game to take slowly for sure. New Leaf does in particular drag out things, but it's also the best in the series in most every other way. Then again I have over 200 hours so I'm disgustingly biased.

 

[Ludicrous Speed]

This game sounds sweet! I'm waiting for a $20 or better deal though.

Are there special events that take place on holidays? I don't want to miss Christmas!

 

[gamingeek]

I just got this today, and I'm sure I'm going against the grain on this one. I heard everyone talking about this game and just got a 3DS, didn't know too much about the game tbh beyond the premise, seemed neat enough, maybe not my thing but willing to try it out. I've just started it but to be honest, so far it seems kinda pointless? And by damned doing the best job it can to get me not to play it =/

In the first game day I go through all of the introductory stuff and after a certain point I am just locked out and was just told to come back tomorrow and I had basically nothing to do. I talked to people, they didn't say anything of substance. I was wondering what was going on?

I just changed the 3DS clock and went back in to get on with it, time to be mayor. Nope, you need to get a house, cool no problem. 10000 bells please. Oh ok. How do I do that? Go grinding for peaches and fishing Tom Nook says. Ah... can I do anything else in the mean time? No.

Ok...

So does this game get any "better" from what may be one of the worst first impressions I've seen, or am I best trading this in for another game for my 3DS?

Lock if this should be moved to community or something.

Animal crossing is a game whose rewards are slowly gauged by weeks and months, not hours. Keep playing a little every day and more things open up. With New Leaf it will take at least a month before you start opening things up and upgrading. Once you get hooked, you wont be able to stop. Treat it like a diary you check in with once a day for 30-60 minutes.

 

[Marjar]

It's the video game equivalent of popping bubble wrap.

You don't really know why it's fun, enjoyable, or pleasing, but you do it anyway. You catch a new bug? Just feels good. You get a new item? Feels good. You pay off your loan? Feels good.

It's a game about the little things, making the seemingly mundane somehow charming and fun.

 

[the blue lonegoon]

I'm 150 hours in, been playing since launch. My house is incredibly dope. Animal Crossing is possibly my favorite Nintendo franchise, I've been on board since 2002 so the "what do I do omg boredom" phase is far behind me. I know how the game works, and I relish in living my virtual life...there is nothing lame about this sentence.

 

[NotSelf]

The best thing about AC is making new friends try inviting people over to your town.

Animal crossing community is a great place to do just that.

 

[Dandy Crocodile]

Are there special events that take place on holidays? I don't want to miss Christmas!

There are special events all the time. For both real and made up holidays. They often have changed names (Christmas becomes Toy Day) to make them more of an all-encompassing seasonal holiday.