Some 3DS owners are still diligently playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf - visiting their towns to exchange pleasantries with the locals, dig up some weeds and ensure that everything is tickety-boo. Those people will be held in high regard by the ever-lovable Isabelle.
Then there are the rest of us, your humble writer included. Perhaps the intention had been to fulfil Mayoral duties long term but it went wrong - time passed, life happened. As enough time passes the fear or repercussions can lead some to avoid their towns entirely; at best there'll be a lot of weeds and disgruntled - in some cases - heartbroken residents. At worst the town will have descended into a post-apocalyptic state where locals are having to scavenge and fight over the last apple. Let's face it, no-one wants to load the game up after a couple of years to see that.
It seems that Isabelle is happy to pile on the guilt for errant Mayors in Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer; our guess is she's in this new town as she had to flee her old home when its society collapsed. This is brilliantly captured by Kenzie's blog, below.




Ouch.
[source kenzie-of-johto.tumblr.com, via tinycartridge.com]
Comments 75
Oh my town...
haha cool.
just visited my old town again because i had 20 streetpass hits for it. weed everywhere and some stupid new residents.
That makes me hate animal crossing... I just want to play whenever I want... Now I am afraid to pick it back up again. (Yeah, I know there aren't that many changes when you leave for a few months.)
I still play it but not quite as much. I really want a new one!
i still play mine so that won't be me. I don't go on it every day but I just started a new town so I should be fine lol
"Nontendo 4DS"...
Well.
That's it.
Make it happen, Nintendo.
Weeds can be easily avoided by enacting the Beautiful town ordinance (ahhh, a law that forbids weeds from growing and flowers from wilting, only in Animal Crossing). The only bad part about not keeping up with your town is your favourite villagers moving out.
Lol, weeds everywhere and my mailbox is shaking like crazy. I think it's going to explode! O_o
||fidgets|| 'S not like I abandoned them, really, I was just... absent. For some time. A long time. (Years...) @_@;
Maybe I should pay my town a visit. It won't have weeds thankfully.
For those keeping score, this is at least the second time Nintendo has made a joke about naming your town "AAAAA". (Number of letters may vary.)
Once I abandoned my town for about five months and when I discovered all my favorite villagers had moved out, I just started a new one.
How can Isabelle keep up with so many disappearing mayors at once?!
@Zyrac Where's the other one?
Got new leaf September 2014 played for a day and didn't pick it up again until 2 weeks ago and man were there weeds and my boy Apple wanted to move out :/ can't believe I had this gem sitting around my apartment. Cannot go one day without putting in at least two hours into this. I think I will be ok if Nintendo doesn't give us another main entry for at least two years but hard to imagine how aside from the original allowing us to play nintendo classics will be able to top New Leaf. Good morning and God bless Animal Crossing.
@manu0 Rover's trophy description in Smash Bros. for 3DS/Wii U.
I abandoned my town after the citizens started bullying me for spending money on public improvements rather than improving my house.
@DBPirate She's the Nurse Joy(from Pokemon) of the Animal Crossing Series, there is an infinite number of her so she can literally be everywhere, which doesn't make sense, but hey, it's a videogame. :3
I still play my copy of new leaf. Most I go without checking in is like a month or 2.
@TheRedCap30 Actually, it was a NONtendo 4DS.
NX final name confirmed.
I played it several hours a day for well over a year. Then i had to skip a few days and it broke the spell... i never went back to my town. On the other hand: i did get my life back!
If anyone fears going back to their town just set your 3DS date back to the day you last played and nothing will have changed.
@WireWare I love that, mainly because it's actually a subtle reference to Rusty's Real Deal Baseball on the 3DS eShop.
Nice Rusty reference.
Though I would pay to make Isabelle leave my town.
I got New Leaf in June of 2013 and have no choice but to play daily because I don't want Isabelle or my villagers to be sad.
I don't want to play it, but I don't have a choice.
@Smitherenez I'm convinced i'm going to load my game up, only to discover it on fire and villagers lying dead in the streets.
Pretty sure that wont happen but after accidently loading a year old State of decay save I now fear for my AC town
I occasionally feel bad leaving my town after playing AC for a few days since it came out...I have not played since. lol
@abe_hikura What makes it worse for me is that mine town is called Termina... (you know, the world form majora's mask... Everything should have been gone after three days anyway)
I think the worst I felt was with the Gamecube game as I went a couple of years without anything to play it on. When I went back there was a few "eh, who are you?" comments, and then there was Tangy who...
...thought I'd been involved in a fatal accident!
...
...
So, does it read data from AC:NL to determine how this conversation goes? I'm still checking into my town on a daily basis, so perhaps I wouldn't have an emotionally-burdened Isabelle in my version...?
I visit my town at least 3 times a week.
I will never lose you Bones.
NEVER.
That's funny! My family just started playing New Leaf yesterday. It is definitely making me pine for a real Wii U Animal Crossing.
Can't you just turn back the system clock in the 3DS so the game doesn't know that time has passed?
Haha, not bad! It's a bit heavy on the guilt trip, but hey, the implications are positively unsettling when you consider that there was a time when Isabelle was also watching over Akia Village. Oooh, the fanfic potential is strong with this one...!
@SurferClock I doubt that's even possible, since the retail version doesn't even store data on your 3DS, so the very idea would be limited to owners of a digital copy.
No, it's simply a sneaky joke amied towards all those people who abandoned their town without ever making it far to begin with.
If you don't plan on playing New Leaf for a long time, it's a good idea to put the beautiful town ordinance into effect. Keeps weeds low and all flowers alive.
Nintendo NX confirmed as Nontendo 4DS.
Get hype.
@Smitherenez I pray the game recognized the name and dose something if you ever load it back up. like the Moon in the sky or a series of holes in the shape of the moon's face
I recently came back to it. My character's hair was all messed up.
This is going to lead to creepypasta of psycho Isabelle going on a killing spree of your villagers isnt it?
@6ch6ris6 At least they give you an incentive for pulling out all the weeds during the night time. I do miss the ghost that pulled all your weeds for you in the first game.
Yay for the Rusty's Real Deal Baseball Shop reference.
Though I've gone on long periods (months, in some cases, years) where I haven't played New Leaf, weeds aren't a problem, I mean that's why the Beautiful Town Ordinance is there.
I'm not goin' back. I bought the game on launch. It ruined my social life. I just now found recovery. YOU CAN'T MAKE ME GO BACK.
Thank you for making me feel guilty.
Dialogue like this reminds me of the original gamecube Animal Crossing. Those animals pulled no punches.
i still have my town, and take care of it onece awhile,
im still mayor of my town and Designer of... My Town!
I recently started playing New Leaf again after all the recent talk about Animal Crossing after not playing for months. There were weeds everywhere, but thankfully most of the villagers remained, including my favourite Penelope.
I got New Leaf in Club Nintendo reward, have only started a new town and not even had my own house built yet... and haven't played it since then. If only 3DS was capable of multitasking or loading game is quicker, I might revisit it more, but I'm too lazy to quit my current running game just to play New Leaf. Sorry Isabelle...
But yeah, it's real life. Once a major is elected, most of them just left the town to run by itself anyway, the secretary did most of the work.
I wonder what my town looks like after 2 years.
Weeds everywhere, people leaving, fire and brimstone
Oh good nothing has changed.
Well, maybe if New Leaf had actual more end-game content I'd return to it... But as it is, there's really no reason to...
Man... I don't even want to show my face in my Animal Crossing town. Isabella gonna tear me a new one...
My town is probably a crater with a few Jacob's Ladders poking out the middle from when it used to be perfect. :3
Poor Isabelle must go crazy with all the vacationing mayors.
@allav866 I really miss that game, more than any other it was just relaxing to play even in the middle of the night with the ghost. With the memory card swapping it wasn't hard to manage quite a few towns (time shifted) so there was always something to do. it also was one of the only games to inspire me to purchase an action replay so I could unlock NES Games (still the best gift ever).
My town flag is Fred Rechid, that's an enough reason to rev up Animal Crossing: New Leaf again!
Also Isabelle, you're no better then I am with running the town. I've seen you assist SM4SHER's, drive around over 8 times in many vehicles, and you've even slain a Deviljho. I'll tell you what, when I get back, we can have a party, i'll bring my Amiibo collection, it'll be a festival!
The cards made me want to go back to my village. Not much had changed, in fact most things were better! The Eagle who had just moved in had left again and was replaced by a much better goat. A deer also moved in. Animals are actually using the campsite I built. My 'keep everything pretty' ordinance meant no weeds and tons of flowers. Plus I had enough bells in interest to pay Nook and build a new bridge. And a couple days back into play the gorilla I could not get to leave has announced she's going! Isabelle done good!
Though after a whole year the animals had not managed to raise enough to fund the lamppost I'd left on their own...
@Smitherenez I just set the time back when I want to play. I never set it to anything past the present. I just do this to catch up...
Ahaha! I'm not an Animal Crossing fan, but this is hilarious!
Also, Nontendo 4DS is the NX confirmed! It will be launching with Rusty's Real Deal Baseball and ship over 9 billion units within the first quarter of 2073, with lots of great 4th-party titles.
@DarkKirby
Lol
@Wouwter Actually, weeds will still grow in your town if that ordinance is in effect. It's just drastically reduced. If you abandon your town for months you will still see weeds everywhere, but no flowers will die because the townspeople will have taken care of them.
@TeeJay I think you're exaggerating with the weeds everywhere, you'll get a couple at most. Edit: Though I haven't left mine for more than a month, so maybe you really get a lot after months and months.
@Wouwter I'm actually not exaggerating. I always have the Beautiful Town Ordinance enacted. But I stopped playing for about 3 or 4 months and when I came back, weeds were everywhere.
Weeds will still gather with the ordinance in place. It'll just take longer to happen.
Yandere Isabelle confirmed! Can't wait for a creepypasta.
Well what did she expect? You weren't supposed to even be mayor, she just forced you into the position. She deserved it
Two years, huh? Today, due to the timeframe, that means the mayor of AAAAAAAA picked AC:NL up at release, fiddled with it a couple of times, and then never touched it again.
Maybe I should sometime go check out the dead trees I left in Kalos.
M'gods, this is amazing, in multiple directions!
I updated the dream address one last time, deleted my save file, and sold my copy a while back. Sooooo I guess I truly abandoned my town by reducing it to a dreamy vision.
@DarkKirby You have made my day xD
The 4DS, playing warps time so you can play for hours but close it only moments after boot up.
Least its better than ambio for the wii. I actually would lve a new animal crossings for the wii
I like her glasses.
At this point I’m too scared to boot up the game
I’m absolutely terrified of the notion of popping in...way to go Isabelle, you make me feel guilty for having a life
She should go and treat herself to a 4DS!
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