A valid review of : Animal crossing new leaf
When I first heard of the animal crossing games back in 2008, I was introduced into this happy environment, people laughing and talking to their friends on their Wii’s or the Ds-what-the-hell-i, it was portrayed to be this happy little game, for happy little people, with happy cell shaded graphics (‘Let’s go to the city!’). I have to say that is very, very misleading, the adverts were completely directed towards a younger audience, but the actual gameplay wasn’t, it was a fun experience to use an AR Card on the previous games (back then I had honestly no clue on what I was doing, but I liked making my hair a nice, spiky blue for no real reason). The game was stupidly casual however, and really didn’t feel, well it’s hard to say it on a game like this, but in-depth.
Few years later and this little announcement was made and people were cheering for joy, as the newly awaited game had finally seen the end of those tedious programming years. Then it was released, did it reach it’s expectations?
It surpassed it to my opinion, by far, who knew that a game on a small white cartridge made me play this well into 4.am, trying to catch them darned fish! It was funny though, because right now, I’m sitting right next to a animal crossing lover, who thought that the game looked to be aimed towards 7 year old girls, and he was completely right, the marketing and the TV advertising was very limited to one gender, and it was very undermining to players of game, including me, a male playing the game, to be criticised for playing and I quote:
"A game of which a 7 year old girl would play"
“A game that makes the characters look all feminine"
“Look at that girl! Wait, that’s a boy?! Cyrus is his name?"
So that’s a mark down, the advertisement technique was all wrong, but that didn’t make it a BAD game though. When you hear what makes this game good, you will probably forget about the bad.
Let’s start with the basic ‘Graphics’. It isn’t Crysis 2, or Last of us, or even Borderlands, It looks a bit pixel-y at times, but one of the main improvements were the body, and it’s shape, compared to the previous games, this body looks more real and human, and not some tiny hobbit that waddles around on a cell-shaded world, no, the body now feels more fluid too, the moments are more realistic than the other few games, the shirts aren’t crop tops (or t-shirts for hobbits), and yes the characters do look like they’re pretending to be planes, but it is a massive improvement from the last games, and quite frankly, I like the way they look, run and swing their arms maniacal-y, it feels human.
Lets move on from character design to the world design, there really isn’t much bad about it, although you may be a little annoyed at the fact that there is only a limited selection of random town layouts, I can see why they didn’t add it in, but still, it’s annoying not to have as much freedom. The layouts themselves are cleverly put together, nothing too stupid or anything, but maybe the town layouts could be more exciting.
A normal town layout would include;
One river
Few ponds
A bridge
One or more beaches (left, right, south, or a combination of two)
5 Animal houses
A Waterfall
A Wall or cliff
So yeah, nothing too exciting.. ONWARDS!
So next we have the lush world itself, it’s very nicely done, it’s cartoony, but also realistic in the way of how some patches of grass are darker, or how each leaf on a tree doesn’t look like the same leaf over and over, dirt patches, weeds and other things can appear too. The world is also portrayed spherical, sounds strange, and maybe even look strange but you will get used to it, most definitely, it’s almost natural after a few days, and you’ll probably wonder why our world isn- Never mind that!
Let’s move onto the story, while this is a fictional simulation, we do need to take care of the story, as it is practically key to the gameplay aspect of the game.
The story is simple, clean and cute, you begin your journey on a train, with a cameo from the previous games, Rover the cat will ask for your name, where you’ll be headed, and then he’ll ask a series of questions that create your character, let’s not get too deep into that, but let’s just skip over to the part where you jump off the train. When you arrive, 3 animals in the town, and Isabelle, they all think that you’re the mayor of the town you’re in, after a brief discussion, you are still mayor, and you have to do your Mayor things. The game’s story practically ends there, maybe that inevitable Club LOL event might happen, or maybe the gardening shop might open, but these have nothing to do with the story, so that’s really it.
The gameplay is rich and bubbling to the brim with content, and there is just so much to do, you won’t be able to know what to do at all. You will always have something to do, no matter what, even if you’ve done that donation project, or maybe raised money, the villagers are always there to trade, play, interact, buy things from… So forth. Did I mention rain?!
Lets start with the issues in the current gaming market today face:
‘I complete the game within 2 days of playing it.’
‘It was a cakewalk, really.’
‘The game wasn’t long enough for me to enjoy it.’
We can clearly see where this is going, Animal crossing New leaf, no, the whole tackles all of these problems all at once, and there is lots of evidence to prove this.
www.howlongtobeat.com Is a website which gives fairly accurate completion data.
If you weren’t bothered to search it up yourselves, animal crossing new leaf takes 326 hours to COMPLETE.
Reason why I picked COMPLETE was because the story, is very short, and somehow makes a 20-30 hour difference.. So.. What makes the game so long? Multiplayer Clothes Accessories Blah..blach..
Honestly, out of all the calculations, this one is the worst.
That’s waay out..
Here’s a more accurate time;
147,744 hours to experience everything, fully.
About 2,000 hours to unlock every shop, every advancement of a shop, and probably your house to be fully built too-
Make that 2,106 hours to get the money as well.
So, animal crossing lasts much longer than you think, and it’s replay valu- Let’s get on topic.
What animal crossing new leaf does different than the other games, is that you are finally mayor, and you can make a difference in your town, add your own, home made paths, or maybe make an ordinance so that nobody ever sleeps. EVER.
It’s really fun on how you can add things to your town, but they come at a cost, but this isn’t any ordinary cost, it’s donations!
Donations can have animals contribute to it as well, and if everybody likes you, then they’ll stay in the town and donate to projects.
Goddammit, it’s now midnight and I’m still writing this! Oh no.
So, overall, the game is good, needs a few tweaks, but it’s really good.. Really.
9* / 10
* not a 10 for being undermined by the advertisement scheme which looks girlish to generic action gamers
That ended abruptly! I’ll try to make them shorter though!
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