Animal Crossing GCN Thoughts

Since my siblings and I only had the one memory card, we had to share the town and ended up naming it Fantasy (courtesy of my brother being obsessed with Final Fantasy at the time). It was pretty annoying 'cause my sister would always get to play first and sell all the fruits in town (there were bugs and fish too but they don't sell as well as the fruits). Didn't help that we had a limited amount of time to play video games when we were younger, so we missed out on a lot of interesting events in the game.

The villagers in this game are assholes! On one hand it's honestly really funny, like, what are these animals so up in arms about? On the other hand, when you're a kid and you're family's a bunch a jerks and you go play a cute animal game where the animals are also jerks, you're not really gonna enjoy this game too much (which I didn't when I was younger). I hated when they'd re-paint your roof too, didn't like waiting for it to re-appear in store.

My character has the cute sleepy face and blue hair. I liked collecting the gyroids though, I liked all the different funny noises they'd make; I like the Warbloids, Oboids, and Drilloids in particular. I also liked how you could play NES games as well, I had Balloon Fighter in my home (courtesy of Balloon Kid). I really like the lovely furniture set too; I love heart-themed stuff, they're so cute and hearts are my favourite shape! I also really like the Gelato shirt, it was the first shirt I started out with and I just like the colours.

If I'm completely honest, I'm pretty sure it was my sister who ended up paying the mortgage for my house (after she did her own house first); now there's a lovely silver statue of my character near the train station. She ended up revisiting the game years later (when we understood the mechanics of the game) out of curiousity and ended up getting a bunch of items we didn't have/know about. She even did the interior design for my house too; it looks so nice now! She really has a knack for interior design.

Animal Crossing: Wild World Thoughts

Same deal as the last game, we only had one copy of the game; this time my sister got to name the town Fanta (after the soda 'cause we liked it). I didn't really play this one very long because I thought is was kinda boring and I didn't like that villagers would move out even after you asked them not to.

I was the only one playing it after a while between my siblings and I, so I had more free reign of doing stuff. My character had pink hair in that three pigtail style, and her eyes were brown; my sister's character looked the exact same. I'm pretty sure I payed off the mortgage for the house and I vaguely remember decorating the house (I had K.K. Rally playing in the main room).

I remember enjoying flower breeding, making constellations, and collecting villager photos. I liked that you could shoot down balloons in this game (as opposed to hoping they'd get caught in a tree in the gamecube version), but you had to be at the very top of the town to shoot them down; these balloons flew FAST too so you have to haul ass to catch it.

Animal Crossing: City Folk Thoughts

Another shared town between my siblings and I, this town is called Tazmily (courtesy of my brother being obsessed with Mother 3 at the time). My character looked the same as they did in Wild World, this time their hair styled in a ponytail. I enjoyed this game more than Wild World.

I loved all the new clothes added, and continued to enjoy the flower cross-breeding (at least until Harry moved his house directly on my tulips!) It was fun working with my siblings to complete the museum, I dealt with fishing while my sister dealt with bug catching and we both pitched in with fossils and art; we had a good system going.

I remember when we were almost done the fish exhibit, we were missing one last fish; we were wracking our brains and looking up guides to see what we could possibly be missing, until I decided to try something. I donated a horse mackerel and it turned out to be the fish we were missing; because it's such a common fish you can catch all year round, we likely assumed one of us donated it and just didn't bother to donate it prior.

I also remembering getting all the gold tools as well, since it was a bit easier to do it in this game (save for the axe, that shit was just annoying). Didn't like how the grass would deteriorate when you ran on it and just wouldn't grow back; I wasn't not gonna run though, how else would I get around the town quickly?

Animal Crossing: New Leaf Thoughts

My favourite out of the Animal Crossing series! Initially, my sister got New Leaf first since it was her birthday and would let me play; I remember going to the island and doing the tours! I really liked the diving, ore collecting, scavenger hunt, and toy hammer tours in particular. I also remember the huge mass of flowers (dubbed 'the mass') my sister had in her town and occasionally watering them.

Eventually, my brother and I got our own copies of the game; which meant full reign of my own town which I named SweetPea! I decided to go back to my roots on how my character looked in the gamecube Animal Crossing with the sleepy face and with dark blue hair this time. I really loved all the public work projects you could add into the town; the fairy-tale public works and the illuminated heart were my favourites!

I remember really liking diving! I'd go to the island to earn enough medals to get the pink wetsuit and go diving for hours; I liked jumping from the cliff directly into the ocean! Didn't care much for the jellyfish though. I also remember going to the island to catch a crate worth of rare beetles to sell the next day, it was a quick and effective way of making money in this game.

I loved all the new Nintendo furniture, clothes, and tools added to the game; I had a cute ballerina outfit coordinated with Peach's Parasol! The game got even better with the Welcome Amiibo update. What I liked best from that update were the Animal Crossing Puzzle League and Desert Island Escape minigames; I liked how you could get Lip's outfit (from Panel de Pon) from getting specific scores in puzzle league (apparently according to my brother, the hard mode of Animal Crossing Puzzle League was comparable to the easy mode of Pokemon Puzzle League).

Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival Thoughts

This game was pretty boring. I guess it's kinda cool if you're interested in learning little tidbits about your favourite Animal Crossing npcs (granted you have their amiibo) but aside from that, there wasn't anything too memorable.

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Thoughts

Pocket Camp was fun for a while, but after years of playing, it just got repetitive. I liked the little events here and there and the funiture and clothes you could craft. Didn't care for the really cool items and campsite customizations being locked behind gacha/leaf tickets (hate how this is just a main thing with phone games in general).

Then later on in Pocket Camp's lifespan, pretty much every new item was locked behind leaf tickets; this rendered the materials you collected from the villagers to be kinda useless. I liked those little maps you could get Blathers to clear for extra materials/bells/leaf tickets though.

By the time Pocket Camp died and Pocket Camp Complete came out, I'd lost all interest in playing it; I would've prefered to have Pocket Camp Complete from the get-go rather than Pocket Camp. It's just better to have one game where you buy it once and that's it rather than a game where you'd have to make multiple purchases for the stuff you want.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Thoughts

New Horizons was fun. I got it launch day, and boy this game should've been in the oven longer (I know the pandemic happened and there was a desperate demand for it to come out, but I think it suffered because of that. However, if you were to get New Horizons now, 2025, it definitely feels like a complete game).

I liked how you essentially had free reign of your island; like choosing where to place villager houses and terraforming the island, that was really cool! The diy stuff was interesting too, some of the funiture is really cute (did not care for the tools breaking and having to remake them, particularly for the gold tools. There is a workaround for this with customizing the tools though, this resets their durability granted you remember to customize them).

I really like how they added better character customization as well (took Nintendo long enough to add skintones you could choose rather than being stuck pale-skinned; I know they added this in Happy Home Designer technically but I didn't play that one). The new hairstyles are so cute and I like all the eye shapes and eye colours (my character has the sleepy face with a black fluffy afro and magenta eyes)!

I love all the new clothes they added as well (the pink mermaid princess outfit is my favourite!) and the gyroids as well! I do miss some of the old clothes and gyroids though; wish I could have them both (rip gelato shirt, I made a dress design of it though so it's here in spirit). The main downside with the clothes is that the colours didn't exactly match, not a major issue but I liked to coordinate cute outfits and colour is a big part of it.

I also ended up collecting every furniture and clothes variations; gonna be honest, not really sure why I did this aside from boredom (courtesy of Nookazon), it was quite a slog but I had done everything else there was to do.