Animal Crossing

Animal Crossing

Animal Crossing is a very popular game that has had many remakes for almost every Nintendo system. This results in a large variation between games, but they mostly follow the same plot. The plot of the game is that you are greeted on a bus, train, or some vehicle by a friend of the towns shop owner. In Animal Crossing for the GameCube you are greeted by a friend of Tom Nook on a train, where you get to choose your desired name, gender as well as the name of the town you would like to create. As well as creating your town you are forced into a job, your new friend asks if you have enough money to have a living in this new town, which results in him making a phone call to Tom Nook, the local store owner. As you reach your destination you are greeted by Tom Nook, which leads you to your new home.

The Arrival

When you reach your destination with Nook you are greeted by a town square of four houses that all have different colored roofs and a sign in the middle of the square for villagers to leave messages to one another. As you explore each house to find which one you would like you are greeted by a Gyroid, which is a wooden being that stays outside of your house and greets you. This is also how you save in the game, which is very important to make sure that you save before turning off the game, I will explain this further in the blog. As you pick your house Nook charges you all of your money and then some, which results in you working for Tom Nook at the local store which is a game part to "beating" this game.

Starter Job

Working at the store is not a difficult task, the jobs he gives you are small but can be time consuming to the max. The first task you are given is to change into your uniform and then the real fun begins, you are assigned to go introduce yourself to every villager without a map. This is very difficult because the only maps are at the police station and the train station, and the map only shows the houses of the villagers. This can make it very difficult to find everyone and you cannot complete the task til you have met every villager and talked to them. After this task the rest are incredibly simple, plant some decorations around his store, deliver a few packages and then you are one step away from being done. Nook will then send you out to help the villagers, whether that be delivering their packages, finding items for them or just talking to them. After this you are free from Nook's orders and you get to start your own journey, of making money and making the other villagers happy.

Making Money

The ways to make money are very simple, catching fish or bugs, digging up fossils or treasures, or even shaking trees for fruit or the chance of money or furniture falling. The last one is a little dangerous though, due to how there is a chance that bees will fall out and you will be attacked if you do not get inside fast enough, but the mark on your characters eye goes away after awhile. The method I find easiest is fishing, but due to how small Nook's shop is he only offers one tool and often it will be the same tool for days, which is really inconvenient with how the game is based on real time and dates. If you cannot buy at least one tool, I highly recommend either selling seashells and the fruit of your town. If you want a little bit of an extra boost of money, there are two areas that random items spawn that are entirely free and can be sold to Tom Nook, the police station and the town dump. In these area you will often find furniture, umbrellas, clothing and the occasional notepad for writing letters.

Your House And Why It's Important

The character's house is a large part of the game, because your goal for the game mostly consists of paying off your dept. When you pay off your dept you will be visited by Tom Nook who asks if you want to increase the size of your house, he will persuade you to say yes and then you will be in dept again. Will the new larger house you will be able to achieve higher points for the happiness academy which will result in new villagers coming to your town. You will eventually be able to choose whether you want an upstairs, a basement, or a larger main room which are all up to you, you will eventually get all of them so the order does not matter. As you pay off your house Tom Nook's store will get larger and feature more items, eventually becoming a mall which is an amazing store for the game.

Other Goals

The other goals feature finishing the museum or getting the most town approval and villagers that you can. Finishing the museum is very difficult in my opinion, you have to catch every fish, every insect, find every fossil and if that was not hard enough you also have to get a portrait from every villager in the game. Finding every fish and insect is very hard due to how some only spawn at a certain time of the day, or a certain season or a certain or a combination of all three and you only get one chance and if you mess it up it is a long struggle to get there without messing with time. The fossils are entirely random which ones spawn and when you have duplicates the dialogue is very long. Portraits are the hardest due to how you have to become best friends with a villager before they will give you their portrait, this is something that I never finished.

What I Take From the Game

From playing this game I have learned a large amount, it is a great game that I would play everywhere if possible. This will be possible with the new version that is coming out on the switch. From this game you take large amounts of knowledge for how others want to be treated and how exciting the real world is, given that you can do almost everything you do in game in real life. This game focuses on making friends with strong friendships so that way you can never be bored in your town. This game is a game I believe many people need to play and is a must have.