LogFAQs > #967457964

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I'm sure my mom was a little surprised at how much pink I choose to make my villager wear when I come over to her town, but she knows what the deal is now. Someday I'll have to confess that I decided I liked the name Celia, based on the eagle villager of the same name who lives in my village. I wanted her in my village, and she ended up being one of the first villagers I got at random. It was destiny, so I stole her name. I am probably not the first person to take a new given name based on an Animal Crossing villager.

Okay, I told myself that I was gonna finish this review quickly tonight since I've been sitting on it for two weeks, and if I didn't I would sic people from #sports onto my lazy ass, so let's see. What else is there to talk about? Not much, really. I mean, we all know what the deal is with Animal Crossing by now. It's well-tread ground. Twenty years ago it would have been pretty revolutionary to have a sim game in which you don't do shit and there are no objectives, but now it's run of the mill shit (except they did have to go and add objectives in the form of achievements).

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I do think I like this game the most of the series, despite its problems. Mainly because it's just so gosh darn pretty. I'm a huge sucker for islands and tropical environments in general, so having a village that's set on a tiny island is just the best. I'm kind of obsessed with tiny islands - I just love the vibe of having this like, miniature little world that's completely surrounded by water. It feels so cozy, knowing every corner of this tiny little landmass inside and out and knowing there's nothing beyond it but open ocean. It makes for a wonderful place to just kinda exist and chill out in, so all the visual upgrades to this game are a benefit on that front.

I wish the quality of life features in this game were a lot better. I think everyone does. There's quite a bit too much repetitive dialog and cumbersome menuing in this game that doesn't need to exist, and that's a shame. If some aspects of this game were better designed, and it had like... maybe a couple more things to do, especially with friends, it'd be a near perfect little village sim game. But, as it is, it's enough to capture my imagination, and it's little wonder it took off in an era where everyone was stuck at home with nothing to do.

I haven't been back to my village in a little while. I stopped by one day just to celebrate Celia's birthday - gotta support my girl - but other than that I haven't really played a whole lot. Didn't do the DLC at all. It kinda makes me sad, because I did really love this game, and I do kinda want to revisit it if I find the time and emotional energy to do so. I actually never really terraformed my island at all - I really wanted to leave it natural and enjoy how annoying it was to navigate in a weird, fucked up way. Maybe if I return to the game, I can finally say fuck it and break out the shovels and dig the whole thing up and play around with it. I'm not really very good at building stuff, but it might be fun. I never really did do much to design my house, either, which is ridiculous because that's kind of part of the whole game? I mostly just spend a lot of time in Animal Crossing trying to make money and completing my catalog and stuff.

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So maybe I'll go back to it, but if not, it's given me a lot of fond memories for a weird, transitional time in my life that was basically just yesterday. It's weird to feel this nostalgic for 2020 but New Horizons is just kinda perfectly engineered to trigger those feelings regardless. It's far from a perfect game, but it's one I needed at the time it came out.

Next up: Unlike Animal Crossing, this next game did not cause any sort of gender identity crisis in me, because both the men and the women are already equally burly looking.