Topic: Animal Crossing: New Horizons

@VoidofLight I agree with this a lot. While I do enjoy the game, I really feel like New Horizons went all-out on "gamifying" Animal Crossing, which was a series most fans loved precisely because it wasn't gamified.

If they're working on a next entry, I hope they do a 180.

@OmnitronVariant I unfortunately have no hopes that the next game is going to walk back what they're doing here. I think this update is probably confirmation that the games in this series are going to keep being dollhouse sims instead of life sims. They'll continue to file back any points of friction and sand down all the rough edges that gave the games charm. I'm just going to probably have to realize that this series is unfortunately not for people like me anymore.

Good morning.
Today is Halloween.
I made a short comic by using the screenshots I took at Harv Island to create a cute spooky story.
Enjoy.

EVIL MIRROR, Part 1

@VoidofLight Looking at Nintendo's other series, I'm afraid you're probably right. While I did enjoy the game, TotK does something similar to BotW's design, filing back any friction and sanding it all down. Odyssey did it to 3D Mario to a degree, Bananza goes a major step further. And New Horizons made Animal Crossing into a dollhouse sim, as you perfectly put it.

EVIL MIRROR, Part 2

@OmnitronVariant
And that's why I love ACNH became more decorating game like The Sims and able to keep my villagers forever.

@OmnitronVariant Tears of the Kingdom is one of the main reasons why I'm on a "wait and see" basis for Zelda. Used to be a huge fan who kept up with the lore books and loved the universe that Nintendo crafted- but after what Tears of the Kingdom did to the lore and to the gameplay for the series, I sort of lost interest in Zelda. Echoes of Wisdom didn't really do anything to calm my fears, and made 2D Zelda more like the newer 3D Zelda formula. It just doesn't sit right with me at all, and so I don't know if I'm interested in getting a new Zelda game. Especially if it's going to be 80 USD.

I will say I watched this update thinking "oh that's cute but if I didn't get back into it for Happy Home Designer, its likely not happening" and then they confirmed the return of playing retro games in-game and my I am now IMMEDIATELY excited.

Not the biggest problem, but close to it for why the original stood out and the sequels never grabbed me in quite the same way is that it needed something more game-y in the game to keep my interest. Something else beyond the chill vibes of it all, at least for my tastes. Massive improvement for me. Also quite frankly, this is maybe the only way I'd play the majority of NES first party games on Switch.

@kkslider5552000 It’s one game per console and it just runs them off NSO. Why is this even interesting in the year 2025..?

@Anti-Matter - great comic!

@Mana_Knight
Thank you. 😊
The photoshoot at Harv Island can give me ideas to make narrative story from the screenshots I take.

I think I pretty clearly explained it. It is a vital part of what made the original Animal Crossing work so well as a bit of more traditional gaming in the middle of the mostly chill vibes game. Without them (among the other big issue the sequels had), Animal Crossing often loses my interest sooner than I would like (with New Horizons having kept it longer than the previous three games primarily out of a mix of being the right game at the right time and feeling like I could take a week off and not be punished for it). And similarly, on their own, most NES games in particular rarely interest me anymore either. It's a perfect combination.

And I don't want to hear "well just open NSO instead" because the time between closing and opening New Horizons would be several minutes wasted.

I have a question, I couldn't find the answer for it online. Does anyone remember those New Year balloon arches for 2021 and 2022 that haven't appeared in the game since? I didn't start playing the game until September 2023 so I missed out on both of those. Can I get both of them if I time travel to the dates that they were available? And I've time traveled forward a few times without it affecting my island newspaper on Nooklink, but would time traveling backwards affect it at all?

@Nep-Nep-Freak hmm, not sure on that one. I may have a few lying in my storage, if you'd like them!

@CaleBoi25, if you do have any, I would gladly accept them, and I could even pay some bells for them if you want! I'll be free this afternoon, probably sometime around 3 or 3:30 (my time zone is Eastern United States), though perhaps a bit later, since my family's going to watch a movie together before that.

@Nep-Nep-Freak I've been playing the game since launch and I might have at least one of those balloon arches. I'll have to check next time I play, and I will let you know. No pressure or anything, but did you happen to see my little request? It's back on page 533. We can help each other out that way. I would prefer to have a time planned for when we meet. The time zone I'm at is EST.

@Nep-Nep-Freak I am working all the rest of today, but when I get off I will check and see if we can set up a time to meet

@Nep-Nep-Freak Oh no, I don't have it cataloged... sorry. I do have a red new year's hat though.

Have you ever consider to take some photoshoot at Harv Island to create narrative story or scandalous moments?
With my sense of humor, I can make hilarious screenshot of photoshoot by assign the models with scandalous narrative.
For example, I made Cyrus was cheating by getting in same gender marriage with me and I assigned Reese reaction with brokenhearted while Cyrus and I are overjoyed in rainbow theme marriage. 😅😆

Hooray! I got all the colors of the conductor hat! The rail fan in me is as happy as can be. I also played more of Happy Home Paradise today. I wanna try to finish it before the new update comes out.