This is a follow-up to the GameCube version. It's pretty nice because it's nice to carry an entire town in your pocket.
The towns currency is not in $ dollars, but in bells. To make bells, you can do a job for someone, sell your stuff, or get it from a money tree that you planted.
Ok, do you know how to play Animal Crossing? Well this is basically the same thing with all the good stuff and lots of more improvments. You can use the touch screen as well for many things, but they didn't put enough stuff on the touch screen, so you really won't need a stylus for this game.
There is also some online play on this game where you can visit other people's villages. This is one of the first games that has Nintendo Wi-Fi, so you will need to set up some connection settings. Now to visit someone's village, their gate needs to be open, same thing if you want someone to visit yours. But if you don't have Wi-Fi, there is also wireless multi-card play, so you can take visit someone's town that's right next to you.
This is overall a great game, but once you've paid off everything, there isn't much left to do. But with Wi-Fi and lots of other things, this game is a huge adventure waiting for you to move in.