The joy of Animal Crossing New Leaf, and hopes for New Horizons

Animal Crossing is the treasured odd ball of the Nintendo first party line up. Unlike the overwhelming majority of games in existence, Animal Crossing is a slow, rolling experience with no set objectives or goals; It is a life sim with wonderfully cute art direction where all the other characters are animals, and without the usual fraught tension of other sims to get things done. Millions of fans round the world are eagerly awaiting New Horizons, the next instalment in the franchise, which hits the Switch on March 20th. The previous game, New Leaf (and later update New Leaf: Welcome Amiibo) were the cornerstone of many people’s 3DS experience, and New Horizons seems set to repeat the magic of its predecessor.

Playing Animal Crossing New Leaf has repeatedly been likened to therapy by fans of the series. It is calm and gentle, with lilting music and fluttering birds and bugs around the town. Whilst you are the mayor of the town, there’s nothing you have to do, and the game is set out in a way that you can’t necessarily sink hours and hours of your day into the game unless you really want to. There is a finite amount of fossils and Bells (the in game currency) to collect per day. You can talk to the other villagers and do errands for them, however if you talk to them too much they become pensive and don’t want to chat any more. Building projects can be initiated but won’t be completed on the same day. Flowers and trees take several days and careful watering to make them grow, and new NPC characters will only appear once you’ve done a specific action enough times. There are certainly things you can do, but the game mechanics either prevent you from having instant results or limits the amount that you get. It keeps the gameplay soothing, rather than overwhelming, and realistically there aren’t significant consequences of doing very little in a play session.

Routine is therefore key to Animal Crossing; it is small actions over and over again that will build up your collections, plant life and relationships with the other villagers. For those who suffer from anxiety or depression, routine is often one of the first things that they lose, with that loss gradually getting worse over time, and the trial of rebuilding a routine once it has been lost can be overwhelming. New Leaf offered a very easy way to build an amount of stress-free routine in a very cute package that the players connected with and valued. Being on a handheld console, New Leaf has a close, cosy feeling of visiting your town, like your own little bubble of calm. Personally I would spend an hour or so before bed going around my town, chatting to the other villagers and giving them gifts, going to look at the ocean and maybe fishing for a while, then pottering round my own in game house and fiddling with the décor. Sometimes I got lucky and completed a collection or two at the museum in one sitting, but a lot of the time I just moved flowers around, made paths and chatted to my favourite villagers, and that felt just as good.

Did I mention New Leaf is calm? It is so calm. There are no enemies in the game; the worst thing that can happen to you is getting stung by a bee, which doesn’t really affect you asides from giving your character a swollen eye. The seasons are the only real change, that varies the look and sound of your town, but there is stability as your town gradually grows. This calmness pervades the game as you see your villagers amble about through the sunshine and the rain, and occasionally you catch them singing to each other. The villagers are a key part of your experience; they sometimes rush over to talk to you about something, they send you letters, drop by your house to say hi and notice when you’ve not been around. They genuinely care about their Mayor, and congratulate you on whatever changes you make within the town, giving you a positive feedback loop for engaging with the game. You can engage in this community that you’re building; attending birthday parties, fishing tourneys or just saying hello to someone at the store.

The idea of community is at the heart of Animal Crossing. Series creator Katsuya Eguchi said that Animal Crossing features three themes, “family, friendship and community.” (Nintendo Life 2011) This rings true in New Leaf, both in the game and in the fan community online. At its peak of popularity, twitter, tumblr and reddit positively glowed with players sharing their experiences with the villagers and their town codes so anyone could come and visit, and see what they’d been making. QR codes meant that designs you created could be shared online, and someone somewhere could wear the shirt you designed. As the notion of Animal Crossing as some kind of ‘pay once therapy service’ grew, so did the caring community around the game. There is something very special about meeting another player irl, seeing their eyes light up at your shared experience and you both enthusing about some aspect of the game.

With all the excitement for New Horizons there is also some fear that as the franchise moves back to a console, some of what made New Leaf so special may be lost. Possibly considering the reaction to changes in the most recent Pokemon game, Nintendo released a 30 minute direct a month before launch addressing a lot of these questions players had. And oh boy, I am so ready to get to that island and start my new Animal Crossing adventure. I would highly recommend watching it if you’ve not yet! Asides from a disappointing cloud save feature (ie, it doesn’t seem to exist) New Horizons looks to take everything great from New Leaf and then add some stunning graphics and versatile new features. After the most recent Animal Crossing games being Amiibo Festival, which was not good, and Pocket Camp for mobile, which was not enough, New Horizons looks like a return to the heart of the series. Players have greater control over elements of the game that were random in New Leaf, like new villagers through the use of amiibo cards, and where they build their houses by marking out building lots on the island. New Horizons promises a calibre of game that takes the greatest parts of New Leaf and builds on them, and I can’t wait till March 20th to begin my next wholesome adventure. Animal Crossing means a lot of things to a lot of people, but it’s gentle pace, wonderful music and comedic characters make it one of the most enjoyable and relaxing gaming experiences out there. Be nice to your brain; let yourself switch off for a while and enjoy nature from the comfort of your Switch, and take a soothing bit of paradise with you wherever you go. See you on March 20th.

Reference:

February Animal Crossing Nintendo direct: