Animal Crossing is perhaps not so groundbreaking as was its intent but nevertheless will worm its way into your heart...
User Rating: 8 | Animal Crossing GC
When Animal Crossing came out, it was a big deal: a must have. There was a lot of talk about how interactive it was, even more so than previous games, with the internal clock and the characters moving from other towns, et cetera. Much talk was made about AC and its general premise. Perhaps it doesn't live up to the title predetermined for it, but it's in essence a simple, fun paint-the-town-red kind of game. You come to town with nothing but your name and shopkeeper Tom Nook gives you a home. But there's a catch. You have no money, so your debt must be worked off! After completing several errands for Tom Nook, he'll free you from his indenture and allow you to pay off your mortgage yourself, selling items like shells, fruit, and furniture. The gameplay in itself is pretty easy to master; A will talk and move furniture--in general do actions. B will pick things up and pick weeds. X opens the map, start opens the menu. It's not really a challenge to pick up these simple mechanics. The fun lies in how you use them. Because of the game's internal clock, AC will gauge not only how much time passes while you're playing (in real time) but also how much time has passed while you're away. Thus, your townsmen might get angry when you play infrequently, or get to know you well if you play often. You can run errands for the townsfolk, make patterns for clothes and umbrellas in the sewing shop, dig up buried treasure, or rearrange your house. As time passes you'll have more options open for renovating your house and buying new accessories, but take care because all this comes at a price. You'll want to make sure to sell things to Nook to ensure that you have the funds to renovate. The characters are all unique. Each one will give you a nickname, usually based on their, ahem, nature. A frog might call you “Fly” and a bird might call you “Skree”. Each will react to your actions differently. One might react to your “Hi neighbor” letter positively and delight in your words, while another will write back saying, “I can’t be bothered to look every word you use in a dictionary!” Some are grouchy, some happy-go-lucky. The fun of the game is seeing how someone reacts to you. There are a number of aspects of the game; on Christmas Eve Jingle the reindeer will bring you presents. There’s a bulletin board that will be updated often with notices about various events. You can go fishing, catch bugs, or dig up fossils. The seasons change according to reality so there will be different wildlife around in the summer as opposed to the winter. The game adds a lot of incentives to come back, between characters and environment. Nevertheless, there aren’t any true goals and the game gets rather repetitive after a while. There are no clear objectives and so it’s the same thing over and over. For this reason I determined that the game wasn’t really the open-ended 100+ hour title it was meant to be. Most gamers will play for a while and then eventually find themselves drawn towards more purposeful open-ended RPGs, like Harvest Moon or (a rather less innocent title) Grand Theft Auto. Graphics are really no treat. AC tries to be cel-shaded, but has many harsh lines and zoom-in jagged edges. This is probably because most of the developing went into the characters and actual gameplay. Graphics do not and never have made the game. It’s simply too bad this early Gamecube title ends up looking like a Nintendo 64 title. Sound is pretty good. The tunes are upbeat and happy, fitting with the simple, innocent style of the game. You can even write your own jingle, which will be heard in a character’s “voice” when you speak to them. Animal Crossing is not an edge-of-your-seat trial. It’s not an intense game. But it has a certain eccentricities that one will almost certainly find endearing. Animal Crossing is one of the games that truly embodies Nintendo’s principle of fun first. 
