Post by Meltd0wn on Jan 23, 2009 18:14:54 GMT
OFFICIAL INFO:
Title: Animal Crossing (Doubutsu No Mori + (Jp title))
Release Date: December 14th, 2001 - Japan
September 16th, 2002 - US
September 24th, 2004 - UK
Developer: Nintendo Co. Ltd.
Publisher: Nintendo, Inc.
Genre: Miscellaneous
Hours: N/A
Difficulty: Easy
# of players: 1 at a time, but up to 4 total per town
Blocks used: 57, (another 1 for NES game saves)
Price: JP: 6,800 Yen
US: $49.99
UK: £39.99
Accessories: Memory Card, GBA, GBA-Cable, E-Reader*, E-cards.*
Nintendo called it the "communication game"
Animal Crossing is a virtual community where you as the player, take on the role of one person who just moved into town. the interesting point is with the exception of you and a possible 3 more players, All the other inhabitants are Animals (thus the name).
Before you actually get to the town though you meet a cat named Rover and he will ask you a few simple questions, these are actually the games way of finding out What your Name is, What the name of your Town is, if your male or female, and strangely enough the way you answer the other seemingly pointless questions sets up what your character will look like.
Once you arrive in Town the Towns store owner gives you your start by setting you up in a house, giving you some odd jobs which are designed to teach you all the basic concepts of playing the game. and then once you've learned all the basics Your on your own, free to decide for yourself what you want to do. You can buy things, Grow Fruit, Plant flowers and trees, go fishing, run errands for neighbors, or even just kick around the community ball that is always just laying loose somewhere in town.
Some of the fun is the ability to try and collect different sets or themes of furniture and items, some things are easy to find and others are rare and much more difficult. you also need to earn money or in this case "Bells" because the house you live in has a mortgage that you have to pay off, and once you do pay it off you then have the option to improve your house with upgrades, Furniture, Wallpaper, Carpets, Clothes all also require Bells to pay for them.
There are Several other things to do in your town, and on the off chance you do get bored you have the option of going to visit Other Animal Crossing Towns, if you have a friend who has a Animal Crossing town you can actually take the train and go visit that other town and mingle with the animal inhabitants of that town. Unfortunately you cant meet any of the humans that live in the town but you can communicate through their Gyroid(house guardian and messenger) or even Mail them a letter. The animals will actually remember your visit, and one of the animal residents of your town will even move into this other town and will be a new resident waiting for when your friend comes back to their town.
One of the High Points for me is the ability to find and collect Classic NES games and actually be able to play them on your TV or on your GBA (with the proper links)
Animal Crossing runs in Real Time making use of the internal clock within the GCN, because of this the game changes the same as the real world, Day, Night, even Seasons change, it rains and snows form time to time and some Holidays are even built into the game, another bonus of using the internal clock also allows the game to know when time has passed, so if you don't play for a few days, when you come back the town will have acknowledged that time has passed also. usually by weeds growing in the grass, and also if enough time was spent neglecting the game. you will find pests have taken up residence in your home while you were away.
Other interesting points about using the internal clock, There are some specific events that only happen at certain times and only by playing the game at these specific times will you be able to acquire some items, There is an option to change the Time around each time before you start the game, this has become known as "Time Traveling" some use it and others refuse too. its a personal choice.
IF you have a GBA and a link cable for your GCN you can also access an Animal Island which has even more items and adventures.
There is No winning, and No Losing in this game, it is truly in the Spirit of Nintendo where its just playing the game for the sake of having FUN!
you can literally do Everything seemingly wrong and still nothing serious will go bad.
the worst that will happen is some animals will be angry with you for a few minutes, your town will drop down to only 5 residents, and at worse your grass will look bad because of all the weeds. NO Death, No Game Over, No YOU LOSE.
at first appearance this game looks like a kids game, but as you play it you will be drawn into it and its becomes slightly addictive, There is No need to marathon play for hours (although you may end up doing that a few times) this game can easily be enjoyed for about an hour each day and still be able to achieve a lot.
Graphics: Very Good - even though the animals as well as the player characters seem deformed and misshaped. and the animation isn't the greatest, None of this hinders the game play and to me thats a BIG plus. and another bonus One of the animals even allows you to draw her face any way you want.
Music/Sound: Excellent - The animals have their own language that at some points actually start to make sense, the music that plays in the different houses is very good and all original, and K.K. Sliders Singing and playing guitar every Saturday night is some of the BEST use of music in a game yet. IF they ever made a CD of K.K. Sliders music I would buy it.
GamePlay: Great - The Depth of what you can do and what all is available to find is unbelievable, there are over 1400 different Items that can be found and used in this game. Not to mention the ability to use the GBA to either create designs for clothes, or access the Island, and also use e-cards to gain more items, designs, and songs. and the ability to trade items with others anywhere even online by way of using Passcodes makes this game even more versatile.
Controls: Very Good - The buttons are easy to learn and the use of menus to guide you make this pretty simple, I would like it a little better if you could assign certain tools to specific buttons, and also if some of the menu lists weren't so redundant to use. but over all it is still easy enough for a child to comprehend and yet still functional enough to not totally aggravate us adults.
Score - 96
Reviewer: Meltd0wn
* e-reader and e-reader cards are not used in the UK version.