Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

I mentioned the Animal Crossing dilemma and how I have mixed feelings about villagers moving out on the ACNH thread once, and I think it was @FishyS who suggested there could be a mix of permanent residences (whose occupants don't move out without asking) and rental properties where villagers will stay for a while before leaving unless you convince them to stay. I think that's a good idea that would bring back the feeling of time passing and create more variety without inducing worry that your favourites will leave unexpectedly.

@Dogorilla
I personally like the ACNH rule by given an option to let my villagers moving out or not and we can take control of their destiny.
This is the part I like from ACNH because I can keep all my villagers forever just like MySims and I can kick them out whenever I don't need them anymore.
The choice is on my hand and I'm the ruler of my island.
And I completely despise with the idea of losing the villagers as the joy of the game.

Animal crossing hostage rescue

@Anti-Matter I get that, it was frustrating having villagers move out when you didn't want them to in the older games. But in New Horizons I found myself not often allowing them to leave, and I appreciate having the choice but it does mean that the island starts to feel a bit stagnant unless you make the conscious decision to kick them out. That's why I like the idea of having some temporary villagers who you know will leave (like an expanded version of the campsite) while still being able to keep your favourites indefinitely.

This is precisely what I'd want in the a new Animal Crossing. I'd prefer the classic mode, but it'd be nice to have the option for those who don't. Even if we got a remaster of New Leaf it'd be nice to see this option implemented for those who want the casual mode.

@VoidofLight @PikminMarioKirby
Yes, thank you. Instead of arguing which gameplay style was better, why not wish for Nintendo to give us the option for both? Should be simple enough to implement in a game like Animal Crossing.

@sheztephan Exactly. Just having it be a toggle for those who want it and those who don't would go a long way in making the series better for everyone. It wouldn't be that hard to implement either, given that you'd still have control over the town hall most likely.

@Dogorilla The issue there is that it still goes against the theme of the series. The whole reason villagers moved out on their own was to simulate how life was basically a series of meetings and partings. How you meet people, slowly become friends, and one day end up departing from one another. The Animal Crossing movie actually portrayed a villager moving out as a central part of its plot.

Having the seasonal properties is just doing what they did with the campsite. It just isn't the same as a villager that you loved moving away because they wanted to go and do bigger and better things with their lives. A solution more akin to choosing a "Casual" or "Classic" mode for the game is probably the better solution because it will allow people to toggle if they want their villagers to move away on their own or not.

@VoidofLight My idea would be less seasonal properties and more owning a bouse versus renting. People renting move out often but sporadically after varying amount of time and may decide to buy a house instead of leaving. People who own a house stay long term. It would be a bit more realistic that way. tbh I think it should also be harder to get rid of villagers you don't like.

@VoidofLight I'm not sure the classic system is fully successful in capturing that feeling either though. In the older games, if you're actually playing regularly you always have the option to tell villagers not to leave, same as in New Horizons; it's only if you take a break from the game that you might find they've left. There's no big goodbye, just a letter telling you they've gone. And you may well have experiences like that in real life with people you've drifted away from, but not with people who live in the same tiny village as you. It just feels abrupt and distant and puts me off returning to the game after a while.

My interpretation of the rental property idea is that villagers would stay there for much longer than the campsite, maybe a full season of the year or something. Then you'd know exactly when they were planning to leave so you could make sure to say goodbye to them on that day, but perhaps if you built up enough friendship with them during their stay they might decide to move in permanently. I think that's about as close as you can get to capturing the ephemerality of relationships in Animal Crossing without frustrating some players, unless Nintendo has a better idea.

A two-way toggle would certainly be better than what we have now, but I have issues with both the 'classic' and 'casual' systems so I'd rather have a compromise like what I described.

@Dev-N
Yeah, the breakable tools in ACNH was suck, even the golden tools was still able to break and not to mention searching for gold ore was almost impossible so to see my golden tools broken after several times using was really made me upset.

@Dogorilla
I have learnt from my mistake when I kicked some of the unwanted villagers too early as I realized I need from all 8 different personality villagers as my starter villagers to get All emotions and gesture that only can be learnt by befriending with every single different personality villagers (Jock, Smug, Cranky, Lazy, Normal, Peppy, Snooty, Sisterly).
I missed a few of emotions from the unwanted villagers as I kicked them too early.
Next time if I have another Switch machine or Switch 2, I will make sure my 2nd island have to be better than my 1st island on my OG Switch V1.
I will accept all of them no matter how ugly their looking, I will befriend with all of them until I get all the emotions from them then I can start to kick them out once it accomplished.
Well, really backstabbing relationship but that's my intention to get specific villagers I want.
The villagers I want I will keep them but the unwanted villagers, I will befriend with them until I get what I want then I will kick them out and replace with other villagers I want them to stay forever.

@Dogorilla I'd rather have the toggle because I felt the old way did things fine, and the new way doesn't at all. If I'm forcing 10 villagers to stay in my village at gunpoint the fun of the game is lost for me. I get in the OG games they would ask to move out, with the ability to tell them no- but you still had things change if you didn't play for a while. I don't like the fact that New Horizons doesn't "punish" me for not playing. I don't like the fact that it feels like everything is stagnant unless I order things to change. It prevents me from wanting to play the game, whilst the older games keep me playing because I actually want to maintain my town.

@Dev-N My issue is that they don't give us an option. If they did, there would be the ability to play it the old way.

For me, the villagers never moving away kills my motivation to play. Most of my motivation for playing this series is the fact that the games actively encourage you to continue playing by having things happen to your town if you don't play. New Horizons is hollow and lifeless because nothing happens if you leave the game unattended. I haven't played the game in months at this point, and I'm struggling to want to even return because I know there's no point. There's nothing to do outside of decorating (which isn't all that fun for me), and the life sim aspect had been boiled down due to people's discomfort with their villagers leaving and with their town becoming gross.

This is why I want the ability to have villagers come and go without me telling them if they can leave or not. I want to be able to feel like the game world is living and breathing without my input. It makes me want to keep playing, mainly because if the villagers are going to move away- I could stop the ones I wanted to keep by hanging out with them, while letting the others I didn't want to just go on their own without them having to make sure I was okay with it. I want flowers to die if I don't water them, and I want to have to water them every day. Not for breeding the flowers, but for the purpose of keeping them from dying.

Animal Crossing used to be like a mini garden. Your town was something you were supposed to take care of and nurture. New Horizons killed that in favor of convenience, as the game is sanitized to the point where its no longer fun.

@Novamii I'm thinking more about wasted slots to be honest. If BotW Remastered happens (whether full price or a $10 upgrade), that's a wasted slot which could've gone to a game that's not playable on Switch like Wind Waker or Twilight Princess.

@Buizel I think at the least getting rid of the lives system like they did with Colours and Generations would make the later parts fairer. I'm sure I would've got past Mystic Mansion if the lives system wasn't there.

@N00BiSH I'm looking at it more that if linear 3D Zelda was to return, Nintendo would do it in such a way that it's not at the cost of open world Zelda. Getting a studio to do linear 3D Zelda remasters and then maybe getting the remaster studio to use that experience to do a new game seems the best chance of new linear 3D Zelda returning.

That's totally fair, and I do agree with some of what you say even though I don't fully like the old style either. Just one of those things where different people want different things from the series, which is arguably worse for an iterative series like Animal Crossing where Nintendo is unlikely to revert back to old game mechanics (unlike, say, Zelda, where there may be more linear games as well as open world ones going forward). But hopefully they're aware of feedback like this and will be able to come up with a middle ground.

I mean, they're already sort of doing that with Grezzo.

@Dogorilla I feel like since New Horizons upset a loud portion of the older fanbase, they'll probably find a way to make both sides happy. After all, New Leaf itself was a response to a lot of the older fans not really being happy with City Folk.

Interesting responses! I’ll add in mine.

While I think New Horizons is good, I actually found myself playing it less than New Leaf, mainly because everything can stay the same on your island in ACNH even if you’re not playing for months. As odd as it feels to say, I thought the real-time elements an consequences in ACNL gave me more of a reason to play constantly, since if you don’t play for months, your villagers will move out, your town will grow weeds and those big flower thingies with flies that take a long time to go away, your hairstyle gets ruined, your house will get cockroaches in it, and flowers will wilt. Actual consequences happening in ACNL encouraged me to boot up my handheld and play constantly to prevent all that from happening, and I think ACNH removing that made me want to play it less since you know everything will be the same, even if you don’t play it in months or even years. Not to say I hated ACNH, that was still a good game, but like what some suggested here, it would be nice if the next game had an option to play either “classic” like the past games or to play with features introduced in ACNH. I think that would appeal both crowds.

Oh and also, the lack of updates for New Horizons also was disappointing. It’s shocking that the best-selling game in the series only got a year of updates and stopped when the most significant update dropped, so I’m hoping the next game adds a bit more with updates like New Leaf.

@Pastellioli the threat of cockroaches, tons of weeds, and villagers shaming me was enough reason for me to play daily in ACNH. Ironically when I did stop playing it was because I couldn't bring myself to log back in to all of my villager's disapproval.