Update (Mon 27th Apr, 2020 10:30 BST): Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been available for just over a month now and negative user reviews (as well as a good number of unjustified negative scores) are continuing to fly in.
Last month, we reported that Nintendo's latest major release was being review-bombed by angry and upset fans. Many users had taken to review site Metacritic to vent their frustrations - sometimes fairly, sometimes just to jump on the bandwagon - and the situation has actually been getting worse ever since.
As it stands, negative review scores have now overtaken positive ones, dropping the game's average user review score down to 5.1.
As stressed in our original article below, some of the criticisms presented in the site's user reviews are completely valid - the one island per console rule is almost always the reasoning behind any low score - but plenty of others are simply piling on for seemingly no good reason.
The quotes below are taken from '0/10' reviews - note how the first user hasn't actually played the game, and we won't even try to analyse that last one.
"The game is probably fine but you can't fully experience it if you are the second player on the same console... This has to be the worst game design decision ever made... Shame on you Nintendo. "
"Locked to a single island per console in a disgusting money grabbing attempt from Nintendo. Also a stupid game in general- who likes doing chores to get out of debt from a raccoon?"
"Nintendo games are really going down hill and the problem is the fact that people are buying there games due to nostalgia before there parents were divorced."
Original Article (Tue 24th Mar, 2020 10:15 GMT): Once again, a major release on Nintendo Switch is being review-bombed by disgruntled players.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been a huge hit with critics - ourselves included - and seems to be going down wonderfully with the majority of players who have been sharing screenshots of their islands on social media over the past few days. Some players aren't as happy, however, taking to review aggregator site Metacritic to pile on its user review system.
The game currently has an overwhelmingly positive rating of 91 based on 58 reviews from sites and critics, but the user score currently sits at 6.5, with an increasing number of negative reviews coming in each day. The average score isn't as bad as it could be thanks to an even larger number of positive reviews, but the written reviews themselves make for grim reading.
Almost every negative comment concerns New Horizons' multiplayer, and specifically the way in which only one island can be created per Nintendo Switch system. As we've come to expect, rather than assessing all aspects of the game calmly, users have taken the opportunity to drag the game down with a score of zero to prove their point. Here are some choice comments:
...If you have more than one person in your home that wants to play the game, you need two Switches. Worst decision I have ever seen, this even beats EA. Congratulations Nintendo, you have officially become the worst video game company this year!
Bought to play with the wife. While it is possible, we can't have our own islands. After research, Nintendo has apparantly LOCKED EACH SWITCH CONSOLE to one island each... From now on we'll stick with our Playstation 4. At least Sony respects its customers.
The limitation of one island per Switch (not per cartridge, per Switch) is nonsensical. It‘s obvious Nintendo is just trying to sell more Switch consoles... Sorry but this is an instant 0/10.
It's not just the multiplayer that has people riled up:
The objectives of the game are not clear, there are multiple tasks but none lead to a greater objective or at least I did not see any interesting narrative that was spun in the background, it's sad and embarrassing that having superior hardware such as the Nintendo Switch the developer has opted for that annoying world in perspective of roller and they would not make the jump to the more open world as other sagas have done.
Now, criticism of the way in which the game handles multiplayer is certainly valid - it's easy to understand why fans would be upset by the limitations - but hurtling scores of '0' at it certainly isn't. The single-player content is truly fantastic, and the game does offer workarounds for multiplayer, even if the setup doesn't match up with everyone's hopes.
Thankfully, at present, the majority of negative reviews do bring up some valid points despite their nonsensical '0' scores, so hopefully this won't get too out of hand. Other recent games like Pokémon Sword and Shield, Pokémon: Let's Go, and Astral Chain also faced the review-bomb treatment.
Comments 663
The incessant noise some idiots make will just result in the removal of comments and user scores.
And nothing of value will be lost. (Let's be honest if my comment right here wasn't available, it would not change your day.)
User scores are a bad thing, and I am glad that they aren‘t included into the eShop.
These people are fools but it is pretty silly that you can't create multiple islands. Why not allow it and let people fly to the other islands on their switch, makes no sense.
It's a valid point people are making but it does not make the game a 0/10. People need to relax. If this is all they have to be outraged about they're living a pretty great life.
Some people are so infantile. Sharing the town is not new. This is part of how the series works. Do your research.
Oh, well...

Dogs may barking but business must go on. 😗
Anyway...
I have prepared some snacks here.
It will be fun to watch some comments here. 😆
I can understand being upset or disappointed, but not everything is the absolute best or most horrible thing ever. Feelings are not binary, but our society has seemed to have lost all nuance to expression. Just because you have an opinion doesn’t mean you have to destroy anything that disagrees with you and “win” because everyone is going to disagree with you at some point. Otherwise we will live in a very lifeless and boring society.
At least Sony respects it's customers? Ha, the laughs I got from that alone was worth clicking on this article. What a joker.
[Insert Michael Jackson eating popcorn gif here]
@Max_the_German the issue with sites like Metacritic isn’t the freedom of user scores, it’s the overall concept of score aggregation in the first place. All opinions are subjective. A game could score 99% with critics and users alike, but if it doesn’t click with you personally, then all those reviews are irrelevant.
Far better to find 1 or 2 people, whether critics or users, that closely align with your own tastes.
@blockfight well most people only give 0 or 10, theres nothing in between for them (which is sad)
@sanderev
I'm bored for eating popcorn all the time. Let's change a bit by Tortilla Chips. 😆
This is the exact reason why user reviews are irrelevant. AC:NH is not perfect, but what people are complaining about is nonsense. It seems that people who complain are those who never played an AC before.
That last comment is kinda hilarious tbh. Sounds like someone who just bought Animal Crossing for the first time without realizing what the game really is as if it was the first game in the series.
Seriously. Review-bombing doesn’t help your complaint.
Some people are clearly unfamiliar with the concept of the life sim that is Animal Crossing. While I thought it was frustrating at first to share one island, the benefits I felt from it soon became clear. Instead of my family being segregated in playing this game, we started enjoying it together. We became aware of how playing on our own may affect someone else's experience and so we began working together instead of separate.
For example:When my daughter started playing she would find it funny to take people's stuff and move them around. Short story shorter, she doesn't do it anymore and in fact has been giving gifts to us to help our houses while she happily 'lives' in a tent. This has even translated in the real world where she is immediately more sharing and understanding. For a game to do that in just a few days, where it couldn't have done it of we all lived on different islands, then how can I possibly complain?
It may have frustrating moments when I see my wife dig up the money tree I planted and cash it in, but working together with her for 'our' island is much more rewarding.
It’s a fair criticism.
Nintendo wants to sell more switch systems and games, which is probably why they limited one island per console.
Ignoring it, and “hurtling a 10” at it is just as irresponsible.
Not surprised as It was bound to happen
@mariomaster96 Yep. And if any game gets a review score below 7 the game "must be trash".
I do share the same opinion as some of those reviewers do. It’s absolutely a slap in the face from Nintendo to let their customers have only one island per console. Ridiculous.
My daughters can’t have their own island, I have to buy 2 more Switches. Shame on Nintendo, that decision was only made to make more profit. Saying otherwise is just pure nonsens. A decoy. They just want more money.
Don’t get me wrong, the game is a blast. But that one island per console… Man. That’s just ridiculous and I don’t care what kind of excuse they use… it’s about the money and nothing else.
Meh, I actually enjoy living on the same island as the love of my life. I am surely crazy.
Plus you already needed a separate cartridge/memory card/system for separate towns in the older games as well, so this is not that different. Multiple players living in the same town was always the norm.
I don't really agree with player 1 taking center stage again though, as the others have a bit less to do. It's not much of a problem for us in this instance as we're both active players (and will probably be for some time), but I player New Leaf with my brother, where he was the mayor and stopped playing after like 2 days, and I could barely do many things, and had to play with his account quite a lot to be able to progress in many areas.
One island per console is certainly a baffling choice which I don't fully understand nor want to defend.
However Nintendo did say it was going to be like this very early on, it was talked about by specialised media in the months prior to release, it's mentioned in pretty much every review I've read/seen and it's actually even written on the box.
If this limitation is gamebreaking to the point of warranting a zero why buy the game in the first place? Did these people not read a single review before buying the game? (because they surely know how to use Metacritic when they have to complain).
It's a weird decision for sure. Not a smart move. RIP animal crossing
The one complaint stating that there’s no clear objective to the game shows they never played Animal Crossing before, that’s the purpose of the game.
And also the one about Sony respecting its customers? Really? Releasing unfinished games then releasing patches all the time to fix what shouldn’t be an issue?
Seriously though I don’t really see any of it as an issue
@neufel Well put man. But i do like to take user reviews into consideration in certain cases. Sometimes a game is getting like a 70 on metacritic from critic's averages but is overwhelmingly positive on Steam. Or the opposite. In those cases there might be some very specific things about the game that one might like/dislike and user reviews tend to point those out because they often are the reason for those being written in the first place.
So i would kind of miss them. But better curation needs to be put in place. Steams anti review-bombing system for example is pretty good as it seems to me.
"At least Sony respects its customers."
That was a good laugh.
To be fair the completely hidden 'feature' that only the person who starts the game can trigger the vast majority of progress is bonkers and borderline game breaking for some. It relies on the original player sticking with the game long term so the other members of the household can continue to play.
If you're going to force us onto one island in our household, at least let us all contribute.
Like many others I set the game up but it's actually my son who is the regular player. Unless we nuke all of his hard work I have to put in at least as many hours to allow him to progress.
A simple 'switch island rep' feature would make a huge difference.
Unfortunately legitimate concerns such as this are being drowned out by people complaining about the (clearly advertised) fact that it's one island per console.
I'm wondering, is this really one island per console, or is it per account?
Every other game i know creates new save files for new accounts.
The negasaurus are on the move again
These "reviews" are just embarassing to say the least
Every animal crossing game has had one town/island per game/console. On GC you needed another memory card to have another town. New leaf the town was tied to the cart so you needed to buy another game.
I hate people.
@Archius9
It’s 2020, it’s a non-argument to point out that in the past we needed memorycards so therefore it’s okay that Nintendo did this in ACNH. A memory card costs a fraction of what a brandnew console costs. I could have my own Island on my Cube and my girlfriend too on one console.
They need to give us the freedom to choose. Do I want to share an island or do we all want our own island on my, pretty expensive, console.
Yes, I knew you couldn’t have more islands on one console. I did buy the game yes yes….. I won’t review bomb this game, I really don’t feel the need. I still love this game, but I just don’t understand why so many people defend this decision. It’s a decision made for profit, not for you, not for me.
And once again, it's headline news on Nintendolife.
the 1 island per switch thing kind of sucks since only one player gets to make all the decisions. I’m playing solo, so I’m having an amazing experience, but I get why some families or couples or whatever would be disappointed. People who review bomb are desperate to turn the public opinion on a game from good to bad so they can feel validated. Doesn’t mean the game is flawless, but the motive is always so painfully clear
That the game will not allow me to transfer my island & save to my second (outdoor) switch lite - is also a reason for me not to buy that game. but i would never review bomb it. nintendo just don't get my money, until they travel to the year 2020 and fix that crap but anyways - i would also not pay more than 20~30 bucks for that game. 60 is way to much in my oppinion. especially with those restictions.
Idiots gonna idiot.
'Waaaah, I can't cheat by farming 8 islands on my single Switch, waaaah'
Honestly if you did not know about this before you bought it this issue could be so gamebreaking for your personal situation that it deserves a 0/10.
It is such a stupid choice by Nintendo that makes no sense at all.
Giving the game is 0 is ridiculous. People do this for movies too.
I do understand the anger at locking down the system to one island. Imagine all games having only one save file. It is blood sucking greedy to the extreme. This game will sell many millions, but Nintendo wants your last dollar if it can get it (as do all the big companies). Not having cloud saves is also 100% a financial decision for Nintendo. With fan boys, it’s a one way love affair with these companies.
I let my wife set up the island on her account and then joined after. Had to blow up the entire island and start over after the first day because she was not too interested and I was not able to make any progress since I was not the resident representative.
It's a valid criticism. Probably not worthy of a 0/10, but it might do enough to at least get Nintendo's attention. If the game sells really well, what's to stop Nintendo repeating the design in future?
The one island per system thing I feel is a valid complaint, though not one that warrants a zero score.
As for the other complaint, that's like complaining that Mario still relies on jumping or CoD is still about shooting stuff.
User reviews shouldnt be a thing
RIP Metacritic. As for Nintendo, they're already crying all the way to the bank.
And sorry, but "this is an instant 0/10" (in regards to a feature known months in advance, no less) is an instant "asinine fanship diagnosis". They've voiced their opinion, now this opinion with its tone, content and value shall be the subject of other opinions. Just don't make the Pikachu face as the latter opinions continue to question the very point of user score existence.
@gcunit once again, people seem to run on a highly debatable premise that Nintendo isn't aware of the users' reaction to such decisions - or that they didn't account for it from the start.
Wallet voting is always civil and sensible (regardless of its actual impact), but all these "voices of concern" - even the ones attempted in a human expression rather than a fan one - progressively reek of redundancy. And the only true reason most people persist therein is their inner fans' obsessive refusal to accept the fact that Nintendo may consciously choose to act against their preferences. And - GASP - stick to their choice. As someone said the other day, "not a fantastic choice - to buy another Switch or not play one the year's best games". Because not playing one of the year's alleged best games wouldn't free up more time for the year's OTHER best games, other games and other pastimes in general, no sir! Fans are simply incapable of taking "no" for an answer.
Worse than EA? Really?
@Cyrax77 "A memory card costs a fraction of what a brandnew console costs." You obviously never owned a PS Vita
To play devils advocate, would be that devastating to just take turns playing the same character? You have the options to completely change yourself at will. The only compromise is that you would have to share the house, that’s not that much different from the way it was in previous games since the house is enormous. Actually this sounds way better than moving in as a second player.
The quotes highlighted in the article sound quite reasonable to me - the way multiplayer has been handled will completely ruin it for some people. I hear some sites gave it a 10/10 even with the gimped multiplayer?!?
I bet some of them is because the game is not on your console of choice. Maybe we should all group together and give games like Doom and resident evil 3 remake low marks. Oh yer i forgot we are not sad like them.
@Ogbert
😁. I did. But I was meant the GC 😉
What did i just read? Are these complaints from humans with an IQ?
Metacritic should review the ways a user can score a video game or cancel it altogether.
@LavaTwilight that my friend is an awesome comment. I just think society has become to independent sometimes and we forget what it means to work as a team.
Why give these morons attention, NL? Sometimes I think that's all they want.
Pffff imagine being...
Nahh, it's not even worth it. I haven't been able to get the game yet, unfortunately, as I am greatly looking forward to playing it together with my kids and wife. She has no choice in this matter, she has to play.
Would be great if you could switch Resident Representative!
User reviews should be removed from Metacritic tbh, they really serve no purpose since there is no way of filtering
They do have a point to be fair but this is no way to make it. User reviews are pointless on all sites unless there’s an algorithm to account for extremes.
Have these people even played an animal crossing title before?
this is completely fair. consumers are using 0 scores as a means of demanding the removal of a ridiculous limitation that is very blatantly designed to sell more consoles and copies of the game. shockingly enough, not everyone has the money to spend on this crap.
I think user reviews can be good as long as the comments are valid. Although I do think they'd be better off replacing the 0-10 score system with just a positive/negative user rating as most people won't take the time to give a balanced assessment like a professional reviewer.
Nintendo Life scored it a 10, but it would be interesting to know how much time was spent playing it first. This 'only one island' thing can be a big issue to some gamers. Nintendo are always saying how family friendly they are, but this is forcing families to buy more than one switch; or maybe that it their marketing ploy.
Nintendo Life was a bit to quick with their score of 10. I guess it was reviewed in haste and now the score should be amended.
I don't play AC, so my view is from an onlookers perspective, but I might give a very low score as a protest, if I had spent £50 not knowing that only one player could play at a time, having watched the commercials and reviews.
Not even interested in this game, but the minute I turn into as big a bedwetter as that and start crying and moaning over something as trivial as games, shoot me.
A very greedy move by the Nintendo of now.
There are very valid criticisms of the game (much to my dismay) but it doesn't deserve to be review bombed. There's still a lot they did that is great, like the outdoor furniture and town customization.
@sikthvash This extremist mindset isn't any better than those people scoring it a 0/10.
Also, in case you weren't aware, people are already cheating even with the 1 island per console restriction so that's a poor excuse for this limitation.
Of course the game is not a 0/10, it is absolutley a 9/10. But the critics are right. I mean this one-island-per-console thing is just ridiculouse. Even if you play alone, why should you not have more than one island? there is just no reason to block this. As great as Nintendo and their games are, in some things, they are just not up to date (Animal Crossing, Online Services, OS which still has no simple things like folders and themes, and so on)
@TheNewButler Right. I mean it's not as good as I personally hoped for but it seems everyday something gets added to make it more interesting. Maybe the game has surprises that will show up as we play. One thing I catch myself doing is looking to use the right stick as a way to rotate the land, ala DQXI. That would have been cool. But I can't seem to put it down so I know something was done right.
That last one clearly has no idea what an Animal Crossing game is. An open world Animal Crossing just wouldn't fit the franchise.
I think Nintendo should patch in the ability to have more than a single island per Switch, and here's why: this game is all about spending countless hours building up, organizing, and customizing your own island from the ground up. A family or even a couple trying to share that experience are absolutely going to butt heads over such decision making; it defeats the purpose of making it "your own".
I love the game and I'm able to enjoy it as a single-player experience, but I do agree that limiting it to a single island per console was an oppressively poor decision on Nintendo's part. I realize they were trying to stem the potential tsunami of exploits players would use it for to quickly unlock or access everything (fruit for instance), but face it, exploits are already being found and used (the infinite item glitch, for instance, which I'm sure they're already making a patch to remove ASAP). Maybe a future DLC update will offer extra islands (if so, such a basic feature should be free; players would NOT be happy if they were asked to pay for it after release).
Review bombing the game is basically just saying to Nintendo "I'm a moron who isn't worth listening to". Seems like a waste of effort to me but each to their own.
@TheNewButler yah I need to see where the tarantulas are!
whatever a reviewbombing as a thing is stupid, these folks know what they talk about
It's a great game but yeah, one island per Switch sucks.
The last one is hilarious. The fact that they want a narrative out of animal crossing is laughable. That just isn't what the game is.
@MajinSoul being likened to an extremist is a bit overkill. The people would still find something to complain about if they were handed the moon on a stick. Review bombing is very immature. My comment was supposed to come across as a light hearted dig at those who are whinging that they can't cheat. The restrictions placed on one save file is justified I feel. Cloud saves & save restoration however is a pain & one I wish Nintendo would sort. Peace out dude & sorry if I offended you personally.
So why did you guys do the opposite and score it 10/10 despite the game having such a major flaw, especially with how rarely you guys give out perfect 10s?
I'm also sad that you can only have a single island per console, but can we talk about the fact that we have no idea what kind of technical constraints the devs have to deal with? People have to stop assuming every little thing they don't like about a game is the result of corporate evil and greed. Making games is hard and we never know what can be happening behind the scenes.
That being said, I'd say that just a few hundred angry reviews pale in comparison to the crazy sales performance of the game. I'm really happy for the team and for Nintendo for this success, I think they definitely deserve it.
I had no problem sharing an island In fact I though that was a nifty idea. Sharing all aspects of the game including tasks and general play is a terrible idea and makes game uplayable for people sharing a switch. Completely unplayable
You literally cant play the same game.
Who is defending this.... share island but allow multiple tasks to be given out.
No way this game should score highly you shameless fanboys
Tell the truth
@BulbasaurusRex it’s shameless and far worse than the zeros. If you share an island (and not just with your own secondary profile) this is unplayable.... anything the other person does is locked to you - what. Ridiculous
@TheNewButler good game yes. And two people in a family who have been waiting a year to play AC, will be disappointed, or one will be.
A. You take it in turns. One play for the first three months then delete it and the second person plays.
B. You spend another £250 on a second switch and game to keep the peace.
Nintendo would like you to go with B. I guess.
Nintendo made a lot of stupid decisions with New Horizons (not to mention the push to buy another Switch)
But does the game deserve a 1/10 or worse? No, sure the citique is valid a lot of times, but that doesn't make the game bad, especially if you don't encounter all of them.
I mean of the game got a 9 it deserves more a 8 because of the issues, maybe a 7 if a reviewer is more harsh.
But a 1 is reserved for bad games, and again Nintendo made stupid mistakes but the game is still good.
@BenAV it’s not review bombing don’t believe the click bait - I bought this game to play with my wife and it’s rubbish in that scenario. Like close to no point
@javiboy2 Well, it is a legitimate complaint, which is partially why I've never been interested in the series. Still, I agree it's amusing that that reviewer seems to be surprised by the lack of overall objectives and story.
Making your kids share a Switch console is a horrible ideal. Gamers are such idiots. Review bombing isn't new to Nintendo, haters been hating on Nintendo since the 1800s.
I've never played Animal Crossing because it's not my kind of game. I've enjoyed seeing all the screenshots and videos from people who are so happy to be playing it, especially during this time. And importantly, from people who I didn't know owned a Switch or didn't think would ever be interested in owning one. People dragging it down over one "flaw" is just childish.
To be perfectly honest, and I know money is tight for some people, but Switch is a console which really should be enjoyed by individuals rather than have one system per household. Unless you're sharing it your children of course. Me and my brother traditionally shared the home console of the house and owned individual handhelds. When Switch came along it became immediately obvious that it was a console we should own individually. If you intend to travel with it, which is one of the main selling points, you don't want to worry about someone else in your house not being able to play it.
@Quarth Think we might have a Pokemon level meltdown brewing here....
Spotted this earlier on imgur...
https://imgur.com/a/pRccQWB
These are definitely legitimate claims. If I bought this to play with my family and it turned out we couldn't each have our own island I could see rating it a low score. If their sole goal was to play together and that can't really be done I could see others giving it a zero. Just like if someone bought Mario Kart to play with their friends or family at home but the only multiplayer they left in the game was to race against the ghost of your friends and family.
Let's take a look at the past:
Animal Crossing 64 - One village per Cartridge (Where Data is stored)
Animal Crossing (GC) - One village per Memory Card (Where Data is stored)
Animal Crossing Wild World - One Village per Cartridge (Where Data is stored)
Animal Crossing City Folk - One City per Console (Where Data is stored)
Animal Crossing New Leaf - One City per Cartridge (where the important Data is stored)
Now the present
Animal Crossing New Horizons - One Island per Console (where Data is stored)
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I think I can see a pattern.
@Stocksy I guess that just depends on whether you'd share and work together or play completely independently. If you're the latter then guess it's time to invest in a second Switch.
@BenAV I’m all for working together but at the beginning the basic starter tasks should be open to everyone until there is more to do.
User review aggregates are pretty much useless these days. People rage review with 0s when they probably would give more of a 5 or 6. You also have people in the other end trying to counterbalance with 10s. Stick to critic reviews.
@LavaTwilight I think your comment wins the day, and it is great that your family has this experience. However, I still object to this decision by Nintendo.
Not all families will have this experience. Some children have behavioural/mental issues where they can’t cope with others changing their stuff. Others just simply won’t be able to get the escape from real life. We already share everything and will be more together in this period of time. So the option should be there.
Even if they forced a family island and the start and you unlocked the individual islands or had a shared space it would work. But forcing it for all won’t work for everyone. And giving a family sharing a Switch a different experience to kids whose families can afford multiple Switches is unfair.
That last comment is hilarious
@Stocksy I'll agree with that. Everyone having their own island isn't a necessary solution though. They just need to change it so that everyone has equal privileges. Even so those things only take a very short amount of time anyway so most of the game isn't really affected.
I can't fathom why someone would try to review bomb a game as wholesome as Animal Crossing, people just can't let others enjoy something anymore.
@IKAY you may have to post that a few times as the going comment is Nintendo is greedy for maintaining a gameplay mechanic inherent to the series.
Animal crossing is literally the only game on the Switch where your profile doesn't have its own save file.
Animal crossing is literally the only game on the Switch where you can start a game and be unable to complete it because you are waiting for someone else to do something on their profile.
Animal crossing is literally the only game on the Switch where you could end up not getting the full experience playing on your profile.
Does it deserve a 10 for this? No.
Does it deserve a 0? No.
But it is definitely game breaking for people that share a home console. Never has it been impossible to enjoy your own game without acquiring an entire new home console. It has only required new memory cards or new cartridges at worst.
@TheNewButler they say that a game can sell a console, and I guess Nintendo want to sell lots of Switch Lite's, and Nintendo can design their games to play how they want. But, in fairness the limitations of player slots should be made known to gamers before they purchase.
@IKAY
Yes yes… I see it too…… It’s called…Let’s stay in the ‘90’s and act like we have absolutely no intention to take more money from our loyal fans…..
@Cheez That's partially why I consider "Mario Kart Wii" to be one of the weakest games in the series. It's just not good for local multiplayer! While it's not so limiting as your example, the Battle Mode is arguably the worst in the entire series, and the only other way to play local multiplayer is against only each other (no AI racers) one race at a time, not even an option for multiplayer Grand Prix.
@BenAV fair dues. I’ll stick with it and see as I get into it if it improves and I feel less like I’m playing half a game. Especially if we start working together. As we are married this seems highly uNlikely mind you ha
While some of those quotes bring up valid points, that doesn't mean the game deserves a score of 0. I feel like that should be reserved for an unplayable, broken mess that someone unfortunately spent money on.
Seriously, review bombing is childish and does nothing. There are better ways to offer constructive criticism in a fair review that weighs multiple aspects of the game. Is it really that hard to play a game for awhile to weigh all its positives and negatives?
@jcvandan
Are you a programmer? Maybe it makes sense to the folks that designed the game
Easy fix metacritic should assign moderators to the user review section and each review submitted should be validated
Spoiled, unrealistic clowns — haters everywhere - tired of it.....
Let’s go back to the early days when you had 1-3 lives and get to the end of a game and die- only to restart the entire thing! Maybe that will give these clowns perspective?!
@Old_Man_Nintendo @Old_Man_Nintendo
Ofcourse it makes sense to them. They want it to sell like crazy. I love Nintendo and I’m more than happy to spend money on them. Boy, I spend a lot of money on Nintendo. They deserve it. But with this? I just really think it’s a slap in the face.
I don’t WANT to buy 3 new consoles and three copies of the same game just to be able to let my daughters play this game too. Yes, I know. Then don’t buy it…. But you have not seen the tears in their big brown eyes…. The way they look at you because they wanna have their own Island… The smile on their faces when you go to the store and spend like € 500,00 so they stop crying about it. I wanna be daddy cool…. So yes. Nintendo screwed me over…..
This is why I hate metacritic, people only seem to give 1 or 10 stars with nothing in between.
@Old_Man_Nintendo I actually am a programmer.
“Encourages cooperation and sharing amongst loved ones. An absolute nightmare. 0/10”
I’m enjoying it but have some of the same frustrations. For example. I setup the island. One day I met a ghost. Then my daughter joined in and was the leader. It would not let her catch the spirits. I had to. Then she got them from the box and it wouldn’t let her speak to the ghost. She also could not drop the spirits so I had to take the lead, catch 5 more spirits, then talk to the ghost. I have her the gift he gave. But it wasn’t much fun for her and quite frustrating.
Why the hate it was always one island per cart now it's just per console. Same difference to most. Only time it wasnt was game cube with memory cards maybe Wii I dunno never bothered me and the siblings
So is this going to become the norm with highly anticipated Nintendo Switch releases? The exact same thing happened with Super Mario Maker 2, FE: Three Houses, Astral Chain and NOW it's happening again with AC: New Horizons.
While people DO admittedly have valid reasons to voice their grievances with the overall quality for SMM2 and AC:NH (SMM2 missing online multiplayer features and AC:NH having a very asinine solution to cloud saves and a rather anti-consumer business practice of locking players to one island per Switch), I don't think that should be enough to render all the positive aspects of those games completely null and treat them like their unplayable garbage. IMO, both games deserve an 8/10, they DO have flaws but I say their overall great gaming experiences.
Oh and if anyone tries to defend the review bombings for Astral Chain and Three Houses, all of I got to say is don't throw that nonsense at my face. You all know the only reason why those two particular games got mass bombed were because salty playstation players were upset because they couldn't play those games on their preferred console of choice, despite them being the same people who costantly mocked and belittled Nintendo fanboys for demanding Persona 5 to come to the Switch.
The sooner Metacritic bin the user (read entitled idiots) score the better.
@Nourldean ikr? Remember the time Sony installed DRM that was a virus? And what about the time the Sony marketing-suits spray-painted graffiti in the city as part of their ad campaign? I could go on...
The only drawback for me is having the tools break, even the normal net and fishing rod, it's either craft another or buy another. I wasn't too happy with the swords breaking in Breath of the Wild either.
@IKAY glad someone posted this.
The idea of animal crossing on the N64 was that one village was shared between all players, so that all family members could interact, change the environment, and send each other gifts while the others were not there. This game is just keeping with the fundamental gameplay concept that the series came up with 20 years ago.
“This is the worst decision since Nintendo only allowed 4 players to share one village in the GC original, only allowed one player per village on the DS, only allowed 4-players to share on Wii and only allowed 4-players to share a village on 3DS with only one allowed to be mayor.
I am vehemently angry at a limitation that has been in the series since it’s inception. How dare Nintendo ruin a game I had been looking forward to by keeping a feature that has existed for over 20 years.”
Things are okay now that a certain character has arrived and set up but I do wish there was a "Don't let your seven year old daughter be the first player" warning screen at the beginning.
I don't understand people who say:
They did this to sell more consoles. Spending $260-$360 for a console plus another copy of the game can't be compared to buying a Gamecube memory card (especially a third party card) or buying another copy of a DS/3DS game for a maximum of $40.
@WiltonRoots Sadly can't see the picture you posted. If possible, please gimme the link.
But yeah, it seems to be people being angry about one thing in the game, therefore it deserves a 0. I can understand that the decision of only one island per console is upsetting to some, but that doesn't make the game a 0. I'm more bothered with cloud saves not supported.
But I believe most of the low scores comes from trolls.
We currently have three of us playing together at home. I don't mine the one island thing, it's actually fun for us to work together and visit each other's home.
What I do mind is that the only person who can advance the game is the first one who moved to the island. I had to use her account to be offered the axe recipe or to donate to the store. No other player can trigger those events or even contribute towards some of the goals. To me, that is the thing that has broken the game. I was allowed to donate to the museum, once she unlocked that, so there really isn't consistency. If they are going to force us to one island, they need to patch is to allow any player to trigger events. Another option would be to add something in the settings to switch who can do that without having to delete and start over. Otherwise I'm just relegated to collecting resources.
So let me get this straight. If I buy the game, digital or physical, and my son and I have separate profiles on the one Switch in the house, then we can't have our own separate saves with different main characters and island?
All muppets, Animal Crossing has always been like this and the idea behind the entire game is to live and play together!. My son is 3 so for now I'm playing both his and mine with absolutely no issues in progression, in fact it's made it a lot easier
@mreeves83 That's correct and people are defending this.
@Crono1973 they didn't, the concept behind the game is to live together. Its always been like this
If you’re review bombing Animal Crossing because you need to share it with your wife, you might have bigger issues on hand.
@mreeves83 you have your own character and progression, you just live on the same island that's all so everything you do benefits each other
@carlos82 Yes, they did do this to sell more consoles. The 'living together' part seems to be little fun for everyone except the first villager.If that was the concept then they failed miserably.
@MrT33 any recipes you miss from these can be bought in the shops, some of the other stuff can be a little clunky
@gaga64 - "A game could score 99% with critics and users alike, but if it doesn’t click with you personally, then all those reviews are irrelevant."
Not really, because that's not what aggregate scores are meant for. They're meant to provide an average from critics or users in order to provide a general guide to how others feel about a game. They're not, and were never meant to be, a blind metric on a particular user's tastes, so to call them 'irrelevant' based off that is a bit unfair.
@The_Legged_One - That's just how people be, unfortunately.
@Roibeard64 - The difference is that a console is a heck of a lot more expensive then a memory card or game, so it's a lot harder to justify splashing out.
@carlos82 Exactly, people are missing the point of the game. People fear what they do not understand.
Leave my baby alone! You do not do this to Animal Crossing! Btw looking forward to whatever content they add to the game. Really like the online aspect its so cool, but feels limited. Minigames or events with friends would be really fun.
@ummyeahnintendo They can't stop Animal Crossing, it's the fastest selling Switch game ever made. Haters got rekt'd.
Haven't tested this yet, but if you download and install the game on different Micro SD Cards, couldn't you have more than one island on the same Switch?
It's a pain to have to switch between Micro SD cards, but it might be worth a shot.
@Smeltos No, it's tied to your console. Either you play together and share, or you get different Switch.
@carlos82 @Crono1973 Thanks for the replies. I get the living together thing is a big part of what Animal Crossing is, but if what @MrT33 said is true about only one person being able to progress things then that's kind of dumb.
Xbox is better
@FullMetalWesker ok yeah, irrelevant is a bit of a broad and unfair statement. “somewhat irrelevant to you” might be a little more accurate.
Yes, the scores are useful as a general guide to a game’s overall quality and how a growing number of people feel about it. Worth considering as part of a wider assessment of whether or not to spend your money, but shouldn’t be taken as the sole judge.
@Zephyr_Sonic Yeah, that's why it's in last place. We save the best for last. Animal Crossing will probably outsell Xbox.
@jcvandan I think the games have always been like this, the animal crossing for ds was one city for all accounts, and I think it makes it more fun and charming. I don't get why people don't understand that.
@Zephyr_Sonic You're on the wrong site.
Sharing one island isn't THAT bad. The real problem is playing at the same time. It's worst than playing as Tails in Sonic 2.
Players are doing what now? Unbelievable!
Why is it that whenever a popular game gets a few bad reviews, people call it "review bombing"? Not everyone likes the same game! Get over it!
Admittedly, some of these 0 scores look ridiculous, but that's what happens when customers get pissed off. And don't don't give me any of that "entitled" crap. Paying customers have every right to nitpick. It doesn't mean they're telling you how to feel.
So... I take it that Animal Crossing: City Folk was only created to try to shill more Wii consoles? It only allowed one village per console, also.
I'm not saying you have to like it, but there's not some sinisterplot here. Animal Crossing has always been about the theme/thesis/philosophy of community, including amongst the people who are playing it. That's like complaining about having to jump on platforms in a Mario game.
@BKPyrexx I guess most people who are buying it have never played an AC before (me included). I think there should be an option to either share an island or have separate islands. It's obviously a design decision, i.e. Nintendo wanting to encourage co-operative play and sharing, but maybe just give people the choice.
@Crono1973 the game has been like this for nearly 20 years so no they didn't do this to sell consoles. I'm playing my sons profile and can't see anything he can't do that I can
@mreeves83 I think it's very limited things very early on from what I've seen, I'm playing 2 profiles as my son is 3 but wants one and I've not had any issues progressing with him
I found that "From now on we'll stick with our Playstation 4." comment especially hilarious, since it means they'll have 0 islands on the PS4 instead of 1 on the Switch. ^^
@jcvandan It's mainly just trolls. Not this many people are trying to share Animal Crossing with out knowing.
@DrDaisy It's more than a few, and they come in at the minimum possible score. That's why it's called "review bombing. It's mindless/thoughtless action taken with the xpress intent to lower a score as much as possible rather than try to provide a fair assessment for aggregation. It's not like the game is functionally brokn and unplayable or completely hoses everything or goes back on promises made, even.
If you give thensame score to New Horizons because you don't like a design decision as you do to, say Warcraft 3 Reforged, review and score lose all meaning and significance.
@carlos82 Do you really want to go with the 'it's always been like this and shouldn't change' argument?
This is exactly why I don’t let reviews of any kind influence my gaming decisions. I’m currently having a blast with.
@Crono1973 if that's the idea behind the entire game then yes I do and I don't see an issue
@mesome713
Gotcha, it's my first time playing AC since the gamecube version.
Thanks
@carlos82 Ok, then you must be upset about the changes made. Things like resource collecting, crafting, all the tools breaking, etc...
@gaga64 - Pretty much; sorry, I got the impression you were criticising it for not being the sole arbitrator on whether to get a product or not.
@DrDaisy - Have you seen the number of negative reviews there are? This is more than just 'a few bad reviews', this is almost 200.
@DawgP - Having to share an island isn't really the problem, it's that the representative has ultimate control, while the other villagers have next to nothing. This wasn't really a problem with City Folk, as that game didn't have a player-controlled mayor/representative, and it wasn't a problem in New Leaf because saves were tied to carts, which were a lot cheaper and thus easier to justify. This time around, however, since saves are tied to consoles, it's a lot harder to justify splashing out to get your own island, meaning more people are stuck on the same island, most without any means of deciding what stuff they want to build without seeking approval from the island rep.
@Crono1973 nope
The one-island decision is kinda bad, but not terrible. Encouraging you to play together with your family is a reasonable decision. But the game makes it so damn hard to have fun when playing with other people. Why not just let everybody roam in split-screen? Why can't you bring your co-players to another island??? Why not give the followers access to their inventory? Why not let them put things IN their inventory? Why make everybody use this convoluted recycle box system? Why not let you put things directly IN the recycle box? Why not let followers use their tool ring?
Just so many nonsensical design choices that make multiplayer a lot less fun than it could be.
The internet brings out the worst in people. Just play and enjoy things for what they are, and not what they are not.
@carlos82 That doesn't make sense, you can't say 'it's ok because it's always been this way' while also being ok with the changes they did make.
@FullMetalWesker I dont think very many people shared a ds or 3ds with 2 copies of animal crossing
Living in same town as your family members was kinda the point of multiplayer in the early ones
I've not got it yet but I will and it will be my first AC game! Tell me however, is it technically possible to have an island per profile on the same Switch like you do with a save file on BOTW?
@Samwise7 No, see that's the problem. If you want another island you'll need to buy another console (and maybe another game). Rinse and repeat for each profile. It can get very expensive, I guess that's why Nintendo put it out during tax season.
@Crono1973 it does if you read my responses, this is building upon mechanics and not changing the concept
I'm a bit confused as to why we would need an open world animal crossing? It's not an action adventure game....
This was made very clear before release. It's a trivial issue and has been this way in every single Animal Crossing game.
Having one island a system is an awful design choice. The game being made by Nintendo doesn't cancel that. The game being fun doesn't change that. They easily, easily, easily could have given an option that lets people play in single player instead of forcing multiplayer. The game is full of design decisions that make sharing an island a huge pain in the rear. I'm glad I don't have to. And it's okay to acknowledge that. It's a product for sale, not a gift.
But a comments section on a Nintendo site isn't a great place to convince people that Nintendo purposefully made a bad design decision. Guess that's what Metacritic is for.
@Dodger But a comments section on a Nintendo site isn't a great place to convince people that Nintendo purposefully made a bad design decision.
You would think but there are many people here that agree that this is bad design.
@KBaker This was made very clear before release.
Anything is justified as long as I warn people in advance?
I don’t get it. They did i this to prevent “cheating”? It’s mostly single player experience? Who would cheating hurt in this case? It’s not a competitive MP game. Seems like an antiquated design choice to me.
Games have been review bombed for far less than this. If people are upset, let them voice that in any way they can. Nintendo wants to sell more Switches. Period. Anyone here want to defend Anthem from the review bombing it got? Didn’t think so.
Jesus Christ how insular can you be? Getting bent outta shape by folk negatively reviewing a game?? Who cares what they write, the game has sold a ton
This is just typical Nintendo. Out of touch with their fans and making people play the way THEY want and not the way FANS want. I really do like this game and i dont suffer from this problem myself but it sucks for people who have to share. This is clearly a way to shift more consoles and itll probably work too.
The sharing an island isn't the main problem for most people. It's the whole "everyone other than the first one to play on the island is treated as a second class citizen and doesn't get to play the same game" thing. This wasn't the case for, say, the Gamecube version, for people living in the same town.
Although speaking as someone not sharing a console, I have my beefs with the game too, compared to other installments. My first impression is it's everything I disliked about New Leaf (significantly limited villager interactions, aka basically no errands/chores) and everything I disliked about Pocket Camp (mobile grind micro-goals being a primary currency) under the same roof. And needing to run back and forth to constantly replace the broken fishing rods and nets is annoying, which is a whole new problem. You can make sturdier ones later, but if you want to hit all the micro goals you pretty much HAVE to use the easily breakable ones. And when I saw the initial layout of the town, I had some specific areas in mind for where to put things, but you're locked to about 1/4 of the map at the beginning and need to build everything in that tiny spot (being able to change the layout "later" doesn't really make it okay). And the game both tells you how and actively encourages you to break rocks at the beginning, failing to mention they re-spawn really, really slowly if you weren't planning to time travel (which is a major issue on account of them being a primary source of materials for "tapping" them). Just to name a few.
@Anti-Matter eats some of the tortilla chips while reading the comments
Thanks mate
Like, it's okay for people who share a switch to not be happy that Nintendo isn't letting them play the game in a way that makes sense. It's okay for them to not be happy. Someone not being happy about something that doesn't bother you much doesn't mean they're whining. It might even be a chance to try empathizing with someone else who has different priorities and to think about why they feel and think the way they do.
@Darlinfan Calm down there bud, I have no problem with contrary opinions, but review bombing helps no one, that type of criticism is not constructive at all.
Yeah the multiplayer thing might suck but it's really not cause for a 0/10 review. Also, you have got to he silly if the objectives aren't clear to you.
@zool You’re just as sad as the people giving it zeroes.
I can understand their complaints, but come on. A zero? This has happened a lot with big Nintendo releases. In don’t think Nintendo even looks at metacritic. New horizons is my second AC game and me and my friends have been enjoying it.
@Akurusu I hope you also protest perfect scores because we know it isn't perfect.
I would just like to point out how ridiculous it is to protest a company's alleged anti-consumer attitude by review bombing. Because rendering a consumer review site virtually pointless by swamping it with aggressively skewed reviews is about as anti-consumer as it gets.
No matter how valid their criticisms may be, attaching them to 0/10 reviews renders them moot, because no serious consumer bothers to read those (since the score is blatantly absurd). So all they do is essentially rob customers of another way to get proper information or make it all the harder for them to find the useful and informative reviews and criticisms.
@Wesbert The zero's have made you talk about it.
@Crono1973 I talk about the zeros and not the game. And that's precisely what review sites are NOT supposed to be for. [Edited]
@Wesbert Many people in this thread are talking about the WHY, like it or not the zero's get people talking just like perfect scores get people talking.
@Crono1973 That's an excuse. People also talk about games without 0/10 reviews. And people who visit Metacritic do not automatically go to Nintendolife afterwards to read their articles about the reviewbombing and the forum discussion afterwards. So no - to most the 0/10 reviews are just worthless.
@Crono1973 Yes but would it be possible? Could they do a patch which means each member of a household that had a profile could have their own island?
I mean...are they wrong?
does review bombing even work?
I don't know, before they announced one island per Switch I was debating whether I would want to have my own island or share on with the family. This just made the decision for me and it didn't bother me really.
One reason for the limitation is because they just want to slow people down. The game is designed to play over a long period of time, to progress a little each day. To rely on others in a community to build up your island not just yourself. There are probably a few reasons for the limit of one Island per Switch but one is so that you can't speed things up by harvesting 8 islands a day, increase your odds on the turnip market, get all the different fruit trees without relying on friends or family, have islands on different hemispheres easily accessed, and so forth. In a way the game teaches you to slow down. The waiting is part of it's charm for me, same with the slow progression.
I so agree that the island representative could have been done better though. I made sure I was the first one to play so progression will be made, but they could have at least made it possible to change the island rep if things weren't working out. Why everyone can't easily work towards that progression is a head scratcher to me.
@Quarth replaced it with a link, look back...
@Samwise7 Of course it would be possible.
@Jiorl Well, they review bombed Pokemon Sword/Shield due to the limited pokedex. As a result the game continued to sell because most didn't care and Nintendo did not fix the pokedex. So... no.
@Jiorl does review bombing even work?
Review bombing makes headlines and threads like this one.
@Crono1973 Which is great news for everyone who runs video game sites and forums and pointless to everyone else...
>2020
>trying to destroy every single thing, person or opinion that you personally doesn't like for whatever reasons
Why do we have the Internet for everyone, again?
@Wesbert ...and yet here you are pushing the thread on by telling us all how these things do nothing. LOL
@WiltonRoots 😆 That's a good one!
that site needs to start banning those idiots for good.
Metacritic should really do what Rotten Tomatoes does and have a "verified reviews" section. That way these "reviews" can't hinder someone's buying decision.
Bit of a malicious way to go about this but I understand. Switch is the best multiplayer console Ive have owned so it would make sense to have more islands. This game especially is suited for all age groups = a whole family.
@TheNewButler this is a moronic view of the world and it's why Nintendo as a whole gets such a bad rap. If you see a bunch of negative scores come in and your first thought is "well screw literally all of those people. We'll do what we want" then you're not in the right business. Go make edgy flash games on newgrounds because that's the real community you want. Edgelords putting out mediocre games solely for negative reactions.
@Wesbert unfortunately, review bombing does not work specifically on Nintendo because as nice as this community is, it's extremely toxic because of how loyal they are to corporate. It's impossible to question Nintendo or their practices without being shouted down by legitimate fanboys that say all criticism can't exist because I'll hurt daddy Nintendo's bottom line.
Yeesh. Expecting narrative in Animal Crossing is like expecting it in The Sims.
@LegendaryIcarus Sometimes the consumer is right and being able to have your own save file per profile is the standard.
Even for Animal Crossing it is the standard.
Gamecube - Memory cards are like profiles, no extra consoles needed.
DS/3DS - The game saves onto the game card so each game card is like a profile, no extra consoles needed.
Wii had no profiles, game cards to save to and no memory cards.
I've seen some salty folks complaining about how Animal Crossing has outsold Doom Eternal.
@Crono1973 Yes, the thread is being pushed on and on and on... And it changes NOTHING about the game itself(just as it didn't in Pokemon, Astral Chains, Fire Emblem etc...). Ergo, review bombing is useless as a tool for effecting changes in games. You are merely proving my point.
@Wesbert If you say so, I am just glad people are talking about this issue.
It could be due to technical limitations of how the island is generated and stored in system memory. This has been something going far back in the franchise. They might even develop a patch in the future and while it does stink that some fans will feel limited if they only have one Switch.
It's not an issue for my family as we all have separate Switchs. I could see this being a problem for those are not financially able to do that. But, to review bomb an admittedly excellent game is childish and makes it more unlikely for the developers to listen. People tend to listen when the complaints are sensible rather than over the top and angry.
@PlaybunnyLucy Has review bombing ever worked? Has the review bombing of the Star Was movies achieved anything? Or Marvel movies?
@Wesbert In Pokemon's case they are adding in 200+ pokemon as a free update when the expansion comes out. So they will be close to having every Pokemon back in the game. But, I doubt that was due to review bombing and more a desire of the internal development team being disappointed that they could not do it in the initial release. Masuda himself expressed his disappointment about having to cut National Dex.
@Crono1973 "I got them to talk about it" is the excuse that's always muttered when one fails to actually achieve anything. If you set your bar low enough then everything can be counted as a success.
All this will make little to no difference to the games sales, and all the critics reviews seem to like the game, but the vocal internet minorities all feel their review bombing will make a difference, and Nintendo will change their ways next time round.
@neufel How dare you say that?!?! Your comment changed my life and enriched my day immensely. Now having read it, I shall never forget it. When the corona lifts I will get it tattooed on my face
Now I haven't gotten to play yet so I might be misunderstanding, but on the Nintendo site it says "To change roles, have the Leader access the NookPhone, select Call Resident, then Change Leader."
@arrmixer @Kienda thanks guys!
I also admit, the option would have obviously gone down well the majority.
I guess I was the other way round. When they first announce they are going to limit one island per Switch, I find it off putting. I rather they make it per game. Cos people might be more forgiving buying more copies of the game than system.
But because of their decision, I got myself a Lite and now I am so much more happier playing Switch game. I can't play on the Standard. idkw, just 5 mins into any game on that standard Switch ( dock or handheld ) make me nausea every time.
These are legitimate reviews. They had a negative experience and reviewed the game negatively. Bloggers don't have a say in other peoples reviews of a game, nor should they be trying to suppress reviews by creating internet mobs from their ignorant and stupid readers to harass and put pressure on reviewers to review a game how a blog wants a game reviewed. Also, you are nothing but bloggers, so acting like "critics" reviews of a game are somehow worth more than any other moron is nonsense.
If you think this "review bombing" is bad then stop and attempt to think at what these blogs are doing. They are trying to influence the reviews of a game to be what they want them to be.
Try thinking for yourself, kids.
@Wesbert "I got them to talk about it" is the excuse that's always muttered when one fails to actually achieve anything. If you set your bar low enough then everything can be counted as a success.
You are really angry aren't you?
I think the multiplayer is definitely flawed & the one island per Switch system was a mistake. Switching to Animal Crossings limitations between my Lite and main console has been a bit jarring. I wonder which version of my game they will back up since I have it digital on two Switch systems under the same Nintendo account? Liking the game a whole lot so far despite the issues with local & online multiplayer. Let me use my tool belt when I'm not the leader! 😂
@Akurusu that's what you call constructed criticism. I guess you are off school then.
@Nico85 "One island per console is certainly a baffling choice..."
Not at all. Nintendo has always considered this to be a social game, so you have always been limited to one town per system or cartridge. The GameCube was the exception only because of hardware limitations, but in all subsequent games for the DS, 3DS, and Wii, you're restricted to a single town unless you buy a second system or cart. I don't know why some people are acting like this is some new and unheard of feature.
People, the entire premise of the game is to build up an island community! The complaints about the single island are ridiculous because they are an attack on the core spirit of this game. The "lack of resources" argument is flimsy at best. Insects and fish spawn continuously and you can hop on a Dodo flight to a mystery island for all your other resource needs.
@Crono1973 No. Just tired of vocal minorities inflating their own importance.
The review bombing actually does accomplish something useful to a point. A 0/10 is silly, yes. It's however not any more silly than a 10/10. Calling a flawed game essentially "Perfect" invites this kind of thing. If reviewers would actually review the game as the 7 or 8 it is, then people could change their expectations appropriately. Instead, they suck up to Nintendo, and call a good game a "Masterpiece." A User score at 6.5 overall while maybe a touch harsh is probably a fine aggregate.
This is why Metacritic is useless today.
@shani
I'm sure they can make a far, far inferior Animal Crossing clone in Dreams that every you tuber will praise.
Enough with the review bombing, though. I agree with the 1-island criticism, but a zero score? For a game that is otherwise amazing? Just stop.
@Mountain_Man
Why is it so hard to understand that if something has always been a certain way, that it doesn’t make it right? I just don’t care if it has always been this way (it wasn’t, because there is a big difference between a memorycard of even a second copy of a game and a whole new console), it’s just a slap in the face of the NS owners.
Nintendo wants to sell the Switch as a family console. Animal Crossing is one of THE games of this year. But you can’t have your own Island on console. No sorry. Buy more Switches and more copies of the game please. Thank you very much…
No, it doesn’t matter how people are trying to justify what Nintendo is doing. If it smells like poo, looks like poo and feels like poo, it is poo..
All you people enjoying your island with friends and family make me want to puke!!! What is this industry coming to when people are forced to share things, cooperate, and get along?!? Where’s my Doritos?!?
Nintendo does sometimes have a weird habit of forcing their ideals about multiplayer onto people. I can understand restricting a competitive game to local multiplayer only for some philosophical reason, but one game save per system in a game that's at least partly about creative expression is a weird move.
@Cyrax77 "Why is it so hard to understand that if something has always been a certain way, that it doesn’t make it right?"
Why are you talking about this like it's a moral question? Seriously, man, get a sense of perspective. Sharing a town with other players is one of the central design conceits of the series. Anybody who was expecting Nintendo to suddenly abandon it after 20-years is not being reasonable. If you don't like it then don't buy the game. It's really that simple.
Let's review omb because of the most dumbest reason.
Laugh in Animalese
This makes me think of the people giving negative reviews of DOOM Eternal on Steam simply cause of how it plays differently from DOOM 2016
@Tyranexx I agree with you 100% there. Probably touched on this before, but it’s really annoying to see people so grossly misuse a platform like this. I mean they bought the product without knowing anything about it. It wasn’t like a sneaky microtransaction thing Nintendo did at the last minute.
@jcvandan
Well said.
It is ridiculous that Nintendo limits players to one island per Switch, but it is also ridiculous to call this game a "0 out of 10".
The general public isn't even capable of following advice to stay indoors, as if I'd trust their opinion on what games to buy... Have any professional critics given this game 0/10?
This game isn’t a 0 or exactly a10. The single island thing is going good for me at least me and my girlfriend only play co op I have a switch and she comes over when I get off work we switch back and forth a lot and make decisions together so far it’s pretty chill we just got built a bridge and got new villagers so far so good
@bimmy-lee Hey buddy. I see you over there hoarding all those nacho iron nuggets. Just wait till your shovel breaks. It’s on! 😛
I was so anxiously waiting for this game!!!
I have been waiting for two generations to be able to play Animal Crossing, because I wasn’t interested on playing on my daughters island previously, and I thought that finally I could get my own island as Switch OS has own profiles for each player for each game.
But what is this!? I should buy two more Switches and three copies of the game so that my daughters can get their own islands and I could get my own.
What if my Wife wants to play? I need to buy a fourth Switch!?!
This Switch deal is getting worse and worse.
(We Also have 4 pairs of drifting Joy Cons)
Fffffuuuuuuuu
I’m losing my religion. And I have been such a Nintendo fanboy!!1!1!1
Does make you wonder what the point of having accounts on the Switch is.
I'm just wondering where all the outrage over Animal Crossing on the Wii having only one village was...
Oh wait, there wasn't.
Look, I get being disappointed, but a lot of you guys are coming across like whiny crybabies over a feature that's been a staple of the series since the very beginning.
You can tell these ppl have no idea what animal crossing is or has ever been
@Krisi yeah, separate game or separate memory card is EXACTLY THE SAME as needing an entire second console LOL
@Skunkfish but you follow the advice of "professional" critics??? Lolololololol
@NotTelevision - Crap. Okay, if you promise not to tell anyone else about my nacho cheese iron nuggets, I’ll give you five. If you plant one, it’ll make a Doritos factory. But that’s ALL I’m giving because everything else on my island only belongs to meeeeee!
I actually really like the one island thing. In our family, my wife is the one who plays the most, so we made her the first player. She progresses the island (and enlists help from the rest of us through communicating either in-person or on the bulletin board) and we all reap the benefits. If we had separate islands, mine would perpetually be "behind" hers by a lot and I'd probably stop playing much sooner. With Dodo Airlines there are more than enough natural resources to go around for everyone.
@Mountain_Man
What about the massive number of solo players? Sharing a town isn't central to their play.
You can't see the difference between having to buy a console as opposed to a game cartridge to have your own island/ village?
Maybe people play game differently. Maybe, just maybe Ninty screwed this one up to sell more consoles.
It could really be that simple.
@FullmetalB I take into consideration the critique of critics whose opinions I trust. And the general aggregated Metacritic score is a reasonable indicator as to a games quality, very unlikely to be an absolute stinker if the game is rated 80+. But still, personal preferences and irritants need to be factored in...
EDIT: Also, unlike the faceless Metacritic user reviews, at least MOST of the professional critics have actually played the game
@Mountain_Man
Easy my friend. I was responding to your comment that it is all good cause it always has been that way. I said that was nonsens.And it was never so that you needed to buy a whole new console just to have multiple Islands.
You don’t respond to that argument but suddenly It’s about putting things in the right perspective. What do you mean? You don’t know me or how much I know about life.
I can live my life. I wont sleep a minute less over this. But I do know when a company is trying to screw me over.
So don’t change the subject and make it a different thing.
@k8sMum "What about the massive number of solo players? Sharing a town isn't central to their play."
Then those people should probably simply not buy the game, or if someone in their household buys it, they should probably refrain from playing it, if it doesn't suit their play style. There are countless video games released every year, and many of them don't appeal to me for one reason or another, so I don't buy them. Is that really such a difficult concept to wrap your head around? Why do some people seem to have the expectation that every game released should cater to their specific tastes and then get bent out of shape when they don't?
I actually don't mind the 0/10 rating people are giving it. They're trying to send a clear message to Nintendo, though it's doubtful Nintendo will bother listening. Still, if it drags the overall rating down from 9 to 6.5, then it means Nintendo has done something to upset its fanbase.
@Mountain_Man
What are you talking about??? Many AC players play solo. We love the games. There are probably as many solo players as those who share.
You seem to have difficulty wrapping your head around people who don't play a game like you think it should be played.
How you went from my post to what you wrote is baffling.
@Cyrax77 It's not a nonsense argument. One island per system/cartridge is a central feature of the series. Complaining that the latest game has a feature that the series has always had is like complaining that the latest DOOM can only be played exclusively from the first-person perspective, or that it doesn't have dialog trees.
@k8sMum "Many AC players play solo."
Not if more than one person in a household wanted to share a Wild World or New Leaf cartridge, or play City Folk on the Wii. New Horizons is literally no different in that respect than previous games in the series. If you don't like it then don't buy it, or buy it and selfishly refuse to share your console with anybody else. It's as simple as that.
@bluesdance Okay I have received a mail from Harvard and I will receive an honorary Phd for my first comment so maybe you were right????
@Mountain_Man
No man. You don’t read my comment. It is nonsens to be okay with something just cause......
If you are fine with buying more systems and copies of the same game just to have your own island doesn’t mean we all have to like it. I certainly don’t.
@FullmetalB My point is that you needed to buy something extra to have a different town from the very beginning. And in case of the Wii version, you did need a separate Wii console.
@LUIGITORNADO but it was exactly the same on the nintendo wii version when it wasn’t connected to a cartridge and was a disc so this isn’t something new and it’s not like it was hidden before so i really don’t understand why people are outraged
I love user reviews. It is one of my favorite features of Steam and GOG and I think all platforms should have them despite the trouble they cause. I definitely use the user reviews in my decision making when buying a game. User review will often mention details about the game that the pro reviews skim over. ALso user reviews are more likely to play the game the same way I will. THey play the game for enjoyment instead of racing to finish it to meet a deadline.
@Northwind it was like that for the wii version though
Poor children, having to share their Switch with their siblings. Boo hoo!
@mckennacat it was like that for the wii version though
Not the Gamecube, DS or 3DS though. With those systems you need only buy another memory card or another copy of the game, $40 maximum vs $260-$360 on the Switch.
Most people don't leave balanced reviews. Many people give 10s even though there are things that they don't like about the game and many give 0s even though they are things they do like. Those should balance out and if there are enough 0s to bring the score down with a big sample size then the game is deserving of that rating. If this couple issues really ruin the game for someone then it might make it a 0 for them and that's fine. The only time I see this as a problem is if people set up a campaign to get many people to alter the score unfairly.
@Chaoticwhizz I was half-way to agreeing with you, until I realised that the game only came out on Friday so any users posting review scores already haven't exactly taken their time to play the game thoroughly before posting their scores. I'd be amazed if anyone has enjoyed anywhere near the full number of (time-locked) experiences the game has to offer...
@Mountain_Man
I've been a widow for 13 months; I play solo. So do many, many players. Not everyone has your lifestyle. We can still play and enjoy the game.
My kids both had their own memory card for the gamecube. Their own game cartridge when necessary. Easy work around without having to invest in a new console. Selfishness not necessary.
You keep using the word literally. I don't think it means what you think it does. (Thank you, Princess Bride.)
You obviously want to die on this hill. Me, I'm going to play some solo ACNH.
Nah it's perfectly valid if people want to rate AC 0 bc of the island limit per switch. AC is a very personal experience for many. I'm lucky that my husband isnt that interested and my kids are too young to really want to play.
The fact nintendo won't even let you just buy another game is just totally unnecessary and greedy, period. I would have gotten two in a heart beat. Most families cannot possibily afford to buy another switch plus 60 dollar game for every family member that wants total creative control over their islands. The players that dont care about sharing probably dont care much for the more creative aspects this game has to offer anyways.
Nintendo has the right to pull a greedy ahole move and customers have a right to rate them 0 for it. Just bc YOU dont care doesnt mean anybody else isnt allowed to be upset about it. Not everybody wants the same experience as YOU.
Giving a 0 rating will hopefully show Nintendo how unhappy customers are that were hoping to experience animal crossing with their families and on their own. If that makes you salty, too bad!
@k8sMum Well if your kids were playing the original on the Gamecube back in the day, then they're probably nearing the age where they should be moving out as adults anyway. New consoles for each player may be in line regardless without being about being selfish. Could be a great way of keeping you all connected too.
The people making this one island per Switch thing a big deal I guarantee that most of them have their own phone and their own tablet so what is wrong with your own Switch?
Secondly I remember people buying multiple GBC’s and multiple Pokémon’s during the late 90’s and early 2000’s granted those were $79 and $29 respectively but the prices of everything has gone up.
@mckennacat sure, but it's 2020. Maybe Nintendo should have a little foresight with quality of life features for their games.
It makes no sense not to be able to have multiple islands on one console other than Nintendo is trying to sell more Switch consoles.
@ecco6t9
You mean the system Nintendo has been advertising as a local play machine? Yah. Everyone has their own cellphone. Let's have that family of 5 buy 5 switch systems.
I'm okay with the one island per system, but that is because i have no one in my house that wants to play the game with me. so online multiplayer works. however, it would be nice to have multiple islands per system. multiple villages per system (one per memory card) was a nice feature in the GameCube version of the game.
in terms of the the objectives of the game are not being clear, i somewhat disagree. for starters the list of objectives for doing certain tasks was never clear in any animal crossing game. (like how to unlock or upgrade certain buildings.) of course now we have a lot more objectives and goals to complete.
hopefully Nintendo will update the game so that the nook miles app will be more organized. it may help with keeping track of the different objectives. that may make people happy. if people would stop cheating, by "time traveling" or by taking advantage of certain glitches, they may enjoy the game more. the game stops being fun once all of the tasks and objectives are completed.
other than nook's cranny, the museum, Able Sisters Tailor Shop, and town hall. what other buildings can be unlocked? will kicks, club L.O.L, Shampoodle, the police station, Gardening Store, The Roost, and Re-Tail make an appearance? and what about store upgrades, is there any?
so far i am rating the game a 9 out of 10 and i would like to keep it that way. i rated new leaf a 6.6 out of 10. it would have been rated higher but i didn't like how it was on the DS. animal crossing is more of a console based game than a mobile game. however, pocket camp is nice for how it is setup.
@ecco6t9 The people making this one island per Switch thing a big deal I guarantee that most of them have their own phone and their own tablet so what is wrong with your own Switch?
As soon as Verizon starts financing them I guess I'll be able to afford another one.
Here's a thought for you, what if Sony and Microsoft started doing this too? Are you willing to buy multiple PS5's and XSX's? What if this became the standard because you let Nintendo get away with it?
The Switch has profiles, there is a standard about how profiles are treated on home consoles.
@LUIGITORNADO Eh, Nintendo has leaned more toward advertising the Switch as a portable system that also happens to be playable on the TV. Sometimes they lean into it as a home console first, but typically the portable nature comes first, especially when the new model of the system is portable only.
To your last point, yeah that is kinda what Nintendo is aiming for: single households owning multiple Switchs. They've stated that they want families to view the Switch like a 3DS or DS or GBA, something that they can purchase one for each child. And it seems to be working, I've seen a few families buy each child a Switch of their own, with the Lite only costing $200, this is seeming like a more and more reasonable reality that they want to make happen on a larger scale.
@zool HOLY CRAP, ITS ZOOL! Where's the reboot game at?
lol. Sounds like a bunch of people who have never played Animal Crossing before. That's literally how the game has always been. You've always shared a town. Buncha whiny crybabies.
@mariomaster96 I rate everything on a Unreal 2/ Duke nukem forever scale. How does this game compare to Unreal2 in fun factor and how does this game compare to DNF in quality. DNF is a 3 in fun factor and a 5 in quality so a 4.5 and unreal is a 5 in factor and a 8 in quality so 6.5
Yeah seeing all the comments from other gamers saying "This is how Animal Crossing has always been, just suck it up" is very disappointing.
Simply put, the game could've been designed to accommodate both single and multiplayer play styles, but the devs chose not to give us the option. It's bewildering because I bet 99.9% of all other Switch games allow separate save data for different player profiles, so it must be a rude shock for those of us who didn't realize this game was going to be so different from all our other games on the system.
@Cyrax77 "If you are fine with buying more systems and copies of the same game just to have your own island doesn’t mean we all have to like it."
Your premise is specious. You may as well claim that the limitation existed on the GameCube only to sell more memory cards, or that it existed on the DS and 3DS only to sell more cartridges, or that it existed on the Wii only to, I don't know, sell more Wii consoles? It sounds a bit silly, doesn't it? Gee, maybe it really is nothing more than a design choice for gameplay reasons and not a cynical attempt to unscrupulously increase profits.
And my point stands: If you don't like it then vote with your wallet and don't buy it. It's as simple as that. But I guess some people just aren't satisfied unless they have something to complain about.
¯\__(ツ)__/¯
@Mountain_Man You may as well claim that the limitation existed on the GameCube only to sell more memory cards, or that it existed on the DS and 3DS only to sell more cartridges, or that it existed on the Wii only t
None of these systems had profiles. However, with the exception of the Wii there was no need to buy another console. On the Gamecube you could even buy third party memory cards which were cheaper than Nintendo brand cards. The Switch has profiles and they could easily let each profile have it's own save file.
@Crono1973 That "whooshing" sound you hear is the point going over your head. People say, "Nintendo is only doing this to sell more consoles!" But if that's true then what was their impetus for including this exact same feature in previous games in the series? Has it always been nothing more than a cynical attempt to strong-arm customers into buying additional memory cards, cartridges, and consoles? It's an absurd premise.
The first two reviews I can see as complaints that people would have. The third one sounds like it came from someone who doesnt even know what Animal Crossing is.
@Mountain_Man With the Gamecube, all saves were on memory cards and one save file filled the standard sized memory card (which they gave you for free with the game). Therefore, one village per memory card made sense. Third party memory cards worked just fine.
WIth the DS and 3DS, the saves were on the game card and like the Gamecube, I would imagine the save took up lots of space and therefore only one save per card made sense.
On the Switch though, the space is on the SD card and is far less limited and the Switch has a profile system which easily allows different save files per profile. Nintendo has gone out of their way to prevent this.
Now the cost difference is huge: $20 for a memory card, $40 for a DS/3DS game card or $260-$360 for a Switch plus game.
As one of the 0/10 reviewers, I can say the 0 is deserved IMO, because the multiplayer limitations have made the game non-playable for me. I'm sure my gf, who is Player 1, would give it a much higher score. But as P2, the game isn't even a game for me. It is absolutely no fun to be a glorified NPC in someone else's awesome world.
I've been looking forward to this game since it was announced. I absolutely wanted to play and love it, just as I've played and loved previous AC games. But my gf bought the switch and game, and I'm not willing to spend another few hundred to buy my own, so I don't get to enjoy the game. If the game is ever fixed (unlikely I know) so P2 can have the same experience as P1, I'll be happy to adjust my rating accordingly.
Who buys Animal Crossing for a storyline?? It's a sandbox game, there is little to no story, it's just free roam, and how is it locked to 1 island? Is there no account switching?
@FatalS 0 is only deserved if it's the worst thin you have ever played. You're just being dramatic.
The game was NEVER a multiplayer game. Every game in the series leading up to this should have prepared you for what you got.
@blockfight I kinda feel like it's a 0/10 for me. I got the game to play with my wife. She's so irritated by being locked to my progress, that she doesn't even want to play anymore. Instead of being something enjoyable, and a way for her to enjoy a video game, it's just given her yet another game to frustrate her into never wanting to play again. So I let her delete the save and start over with her has the Ambassador, but the damage has already been done. She spends more time worried about how her actions are going to hold me up or frustrate me than on her being able to enjoy it. This anti-consumer money grab has turned what should have been an enjoyable experience for us both into an aggravating, frustrating experience, and I wish I could get my money back. This is the first Animal Crossing I've been seriously disappointed by, maybe because it's the first I've bought explicitly to play with someone else.
Read the reviews, folks. Know what you're buying before you buy it.
@RavenFellBlade Do you not know how review scores work? It's based on how you like the game, not if it pissed off your wife. It sounds like someone got some enjoyment to have started the game (you)
Not judging, but the users on the Switch subreddit appear to be older than those here and also represent a broader range of console/game sharing situations. I've found their explanations of their issues with the game's design to be more nuanced. Those interested in constructive feedback can take a look there: https://redd.it/fo13xf
Daaaamn there are a lot of apologists here. The complaint about one island per console us an extremely valid complaint and really deserves criticism
Usually I'm the first person to hate on Nintendo but this was made clear before the game launched. People are literally whining about nothing.
@IKAY I've got 2 memory cards, and I can't store town data on my 2nd, roomier memory card. Only the 59-block large one.
@mariomaster96 You also have folks that rate everything a 4,5, or 6, because to them everything is in shades of average.
@Crono1973 But why didn't Nintendo simply ship the GameCube version with a larger memory card, or multiple memory cards? Why didn't the DS and 3DS versions use cartridges large enough to accommodate multiple save files? Why couldn't the Wii version have included a simple menu on start up to allow you to choose to play a different town?
Has it always been an unscrupulous scheme to force players to buy additional cards and/or consoles? Or are you committing the fallacy of special pleading by claiming that it's only true now but not then?
@lordzand Usually I'm the first person to hate on Nintendo but this was made clear before the game launched. People are literally whining about nothing.
LOL, anything goes as long as you warn people. Brilliant!
@bimmy-lee how bingocardtastic is this particular comment section? Just cracked open a big bottle of Stella and going to sit back and watch the show.
@NotTelevision Yep, an unfortunate misuse of the intended function indeed. That's an insult to those of us who aren't associated with a review website or publisher who do try to leave honest feedback on Metacritic and in areas like the Games You Recently Beat topic on the forums here.
@Mountain_Man Or are you committing the fallacy of special pleading by claiming that it's only true now but not then?
Did you miss the part where I compared the cost to have extra villages? $20 on the Gamecube, $40 on the DS/3DS and $260-$360 on the Switch.
Metacritic continues to show why it's not a reliable source.
@Crono1973
What I struggle with is the 'they're just doing it this way for the money' comments. The video game industry is not a not-for-profit endeavor. Of course it's for the money. The 'money' is the reason we all have a piece of electrogadgetry with which to make these comments. How much is a phone? And the plan attached to it? And the case on it? Remember when everyone was howling for Nintendo to close the coffin on the 3ds? Did anyone not realize that Nintendo's goal was for everyone in the household to have a Switch? Was the Switch Lite not the greatest clue ever of Nintendo's plan? It's a personal electronic device. The era of sitting in the same room and taking turns is OVER. Everyone fire up their Switch and we'll visit each other's islands.
@Scott_PdP Now you need to tell the other side that Nintendo designed it this way for the money, I already know that
@Scott_PdP I think the difference here is making a game have features that cost money (IE microtransactions). Or gimiping the whole game out to get you to buy a new console (the crazy theory going around).
While micros might be understandable as a source of rage this is just a crazy conspiracy theory that they expect people to buy extra consoles.
The person that mentioned Sony just showed that their "review" has an agenda. Figures, most people who review-bombed the likes of Three Houses and Astral Chain were salty because they weren't on PS4.
According to these people, the Switch has no games, but they're mad that they the Switch has the exclusives to does have. You can't make this stuff up. 😅
I am one of those who has been waiting for a new animal crossing to come out but I expected it to be a very modern game. I did not even consider the game would come out in the way it did with the whole one person thing. It was said that up to 8 could play and 4 at the same time. I expected it to be a split screen like it is in mariokart. I am not happy about the over the top rules! It is not fair to allow only one island per console. The console is 300$$$$ game 60! No, it isnt fair. I expected my daughter who grew up with the game to be able to have an island with her friends and me and the grandkids have another. I grew up with 5 siblings and under any circumstances do I like the rules as they are. How would you pick the primary person with a house full of kids??? Who can afford 460$$$ per person???
@peaceonearthxxoo You expected all this stuff and they didn't give it to you. Guess what you do? You just don't buy the game, you don't review bomb it.
@doctorhino You don't get to control how other people using rating systems on games. It is a 0/10 to me because it is not only not fun for me, but because I anticipated it so much that the letdown has made it an unpleasant gaming experience. To me, it has earned 0/10 points. It is the most disappointing game I've played.
For those mentioning that the one-island thing was announced before release, that's true, but it was announced long after we'd pre-ordered the game. I was immediately disappointed to hear I wouldn't be able to get an island, but I still held out hope that it wouldn't mess up my P2 experience too much. Obviously it did mess it up, and basically every part of being P2 makes for a disappointing time compared to any previous AC games.
The only game I'd rate worse for being P2 is Super Mario Odyssey, where you literally get to be the actual players clothing item. But at least that game still allowed for multiple P1 saves, so everyone could still get the actual game experience.
I'm totally fine with local co-op being trash as long as there's the option for each person to enjoy the game individually. New Horizons has made sure to prevent that. Your options as P2 are buy double of everything, be a glorified NPC, or don't play.
@Crono1973 "LOL, anything goes as long as you warn people. Brilliant!"
Yes, truth in advertising is a good thing. Giving a game a bad score because of a widely advertised feature is stupid. I don't like the fact that you need a Nintendo online subscription in order to use the online features, but it would be stupid for me to buy the game anyway and then bitterly complain about it.
"Did you miss the part where I compared the cost to have extra village."
That doesn't change the premise. Either it has always been a cynical cash grab, or it has never been. Take your pick, but before you choose, I will point out the irony of you defending this design in earlier games while criticizing it in this one.
The one island limit was made known ahead of release.
@FatalS If this is the most disappointed you have been by a game than I think you're going to have a hard future ahead of you in gaming, but SURE, give it a 0/10. (i'm actually not being sarcastic, I'm not going to question if someone is really that upset)
But it sounds like you were ill informed as well. At least take some credit it not reading up on the game like you should have.
The second review is funny. What did they expect? Did they watch a trailer? I find the game boring. Played New Leaf a while and got bored with it's gimmicks and attempt to keep you coming back. So I didn't buy this one. You don't see me writing a bad review for recycling it's monotonous chore filled mechanics all over again. It achieved what it was trying to. Baffled as to why so many like it, including an occultic tattooed, fully grown, beardy, metal head acquaintance of mine. Let live, is the key. I suppose the island tjing is some what understandable considering New Leaf didn't have such a restriction.
@FatalS "For those mentioning that the one-island thing was announced before release, that's true, but it was announced long after we'd pre-ordered the game."
That's your own fault for buying something before all the details about it were announced.
@FullMetalWesker Fair enough. I figured that if you are sharing a physical Switch console, you would be able to just communicate and cooperate to do things no matter who the rep is. But I can see where that might not be for others, especially when (as it seems to me) people are very much more in a "mine" culture (though that may just be me noticing it where I didn't when I was younger).
@Mountain_Man Yes, but that's ultimately not the main problem. The main problem is the combination of "one island only" with the "only the first player drives progression". If you had one island where everyone drives progression, or multiple islands where you had a "Mayor/Representative", this wouldn't be problematic. Both of them is unacceptable, and patently anti-consumer.
I, personally, like the game and will play it. The people who gave 0 reviews are clearly just angry . With a lot of hype it is easy to be disappointed. Nintendo said very little about the game early on and the one island thing was not initially mentioned. It was promoted as being able to play 4 at one time! 8 on 1 island. With those facts it is easy to believe that there was room for more than 1 island. They conveniently left that part out when promoting early releases.
@Mountain_Man Or are you committing the fallacy of special pleading by claiming that it's only true now but not then?
Fair enough, it's always been a cash grab but it's never been this expensive.
EXACTLY!!! Why don't people acknowledge that?
@WiltonRoots - I forget, do we count clusters? If so, I have bingos galore. Even if we don’t, I have so many bingos I could share them with the entire comment section, but I won’t, cause they’re mine!
@doctorhino You are not a nice person!
@doctorhino Reading up on what? Critics reviewing the game ahead of time didn't mention it (I think one mentioned it a bit the day before launch - "local co-op is tearing my family apart" or such). It wasn't until launch day that people started posting about the problems.
Re the hard future in gaming, probably true. Not many games are my cup of tea. Animal Crossing usually is. Probably why this ended up being so disappointing to me.
@Mountain_Man That's what a pre-order is. Gamer-nerd gf pre-order most of our games from series we like. Usually it works out great, this time it didn't.
@FatalS wait wait wait... Am I to believe you pre-ordered and paid for the game and ended up as not the primary?
And how is playing as non-rep impossible? Did you play and enjoy previous AC games? Does this one not provide a same experience? I'm inclined to believe that your poor [edit: autocorrect misfire] game experience is directly the result of a lack of actual cooperation and communication between you and whoever the rep is, a rep who might be actively not letting you participate. And bashing the game for that if such is the case is like rating Donkey King Country because your older sibling gave you an unplugged controller and was playing in 1 player mode instead of 2 player team.
@peaceonearthxxoo Which comment was that in reference to?
I don't have a lot of patience for people who think 0/10 is an acceptable score for anything but a piece of crap on the sidewalk.
@LavaTwilight very nuanced clear rational. Something so rare nowadays. Bravo!
@doctorhino I don't have a lot of patience for people who think 0/10 is an acceptable score for anything but a piece of crap on the sidewalk.
How about those who give 10/10?
@FatalS Here is an article from 10 months ago about it, freaking headline of the article
animalcrossingworld.com/2019/06/you-can-only-have-one-animal-crossing-new-horizons-island-per-nintendo-switch-system/
i can't seem to find this anywhere...so i am wondering...if i have a downloaded copy on my main switch and a hard copy on my switch lite then i can play two different islands, correct? And with the hard copy it wouldn't require the 'online' verification correct? I'm asking because my wife is playing on our main switch and i am going to get a copy for our lite to have my own island. Then we can visit each others islands also. No big deal though. I just want to make sure it works okay. i would appreciate the help if anyone knows for sure.
@DawgP Naw, my addiction is reptiles, not games. It's her game and she's entitled to be P1.
We actually didn't think the one island thing would be too bad since we both have different parts of the game we like. But we also both tend to play differently and the way it's set up where only one player matters ruined it for me. I have played previous AC games quite a bit, and will be continuing to play those instead.
@duffmmann THey need the drop the prices then! I can not afford that!
@Crono1973 I mean that can be equally as damaging to the integrity of the score but overall people who flood the internet with hate everytime a game doesn't live up to their expectations are making the gaming community toxic.
It's not even about being entitled, it's just the hate of saying there is nothing about this I like and the devs might as well have done nothing then gave me this. That's what a 0 means.
Many companies (especially EA) look for Metacritic as the easiest way to see if they game match up the expectations of their public, however, the only way to comment there is to accompany it with an user score. Well, what if I don't really care about that and just want to say something? Then just give it a 0/10 if it's negative, and 10/10 if it's positive!
But criticizing the game just for one thing? I know some (well, more than 200 "individuals", actually) are disgruntled about this, but why don't you just email Nintendo and/or the developers? Haven't you learned about Super Mario Maker 2, or the fact that ACNH will recieve updates that will fix some early complains? Don't mess with them. Still, I hope this makes Nintendo speak more about this limitation.
Who are those people, anyway? Almost no one review-bombed New Leaf when it came out, why do it this time?!
Well... at least people here talking in a civilized manner. That shows why companies like Nintendo need to talk more directly to their audience.
Most only complain about 1 island per switch, why so little people make noise about save file ( not sure if it's one time thing or you can eventually cloud save them as often as you like ) will come only for sub member?
Boo they are expressing their own opinion lets do away with freedom of speech
@kalosn But criticizing the game just for one thing?
Is there a lower limit to the number of things a consumer can criticize a game for?
I know some (well, more than 200 "individuals", actually) are disgruntled about this, but why don't you just email Nintendo and/or the developers?
So Nintendo can ignore them? Reviews are for consumer consumption. Why do you want only positive reviews allowed to be seen by consumers?
@doctorhino So I should review it 8/10 because it's an amaz-a-balls game and super pretty, except for the minor part where because I'm not P1 my experience of the game sucks? That doesn't make sense either. Reviews are meant to express your personal experience of the game. They are also editable should your experience improve/get worse.
I think the fact that it's getting review-bombed just goes to show how many people have been having bad experiences playing this. It may be an incredible addition to the series, but if it's not fun to play for a lot of players, it's not going to get top reviews.
I will add that I've seen a lot of replies to people's multiplayer critiques saying "good to know, I was going to buy this for my kids and now I know that's going to end up with fighting". To me that seems a big plus towards public reviews - it saves headaches for a lot of people who otherwise wouldn't have known.
While too me the 1 island per system doesn't affect me but I do support them doing it to get the message too Nintendo as Nintendo would just ignore those emails. The only time I disagree with review bombing is when games are exclusive or timed exclusive on one console or platform and people have too wait for it too arrive on their console or system.
@TheNewButler "You have to take review bombing as sign you have done something right. No one review bombs mediocre games."
This is something I disagree with. When Payday 2 added in lootboxes into the game and people (including myself) review bombed it. Then in your word they did the right thing too add lootboxes.
@Freddyfred @doctorhino This is confusing. You talking to me?
I am very confused about the nasty people berating people with an opinion . Of course it isn't too surprising because that is the way the world seems to work these days. "Agree with me or you are a jerk" mentality.
@FatalS Had to go up and read other comments to make sense of things. I was under the impression that you, personally, were the one who pre-ordered and paid, but ended up being not the rep.
And each their own, I s'pose. To my sensibities, New Horizons is nothing new in the Shared Space theming of Animal Crossing. Single island, single town, etc. It baffles my mind that people who share a console can't communicate and coordinate things together, but I'm sure I baffle many other people with my various things. Taste is a thing for which there is no accounting.
I still, though, think it's silly to claim the game is "0/10". It's functional, it's what it advertised on the tin, and it really is still external factors that affect your outlook on the game. If you set that as the bottom, then nothing matters. There is no "it's not for me, but I can respect its craftsmanship" about it. It's lumped in the same bucket as Warcraft 3 Reforged or Fallout 76 or Sonic '06 or any slew of other games from other publishers that are functionally broken and don't work and crash and have bugs that prevent completion in normal play.
And similarly, if you have problems with it, even if as a result of external issue, then it probably isn't 10/10 material either. A flux of 10/10 ratings on things is just as inane, in my opinion.
And if you like and can still play older iterations, by all means do so! Vote with your wallet and provide feedback, by all means. Just know that engaging in hyperbolic activity is the quickest way to get ignored.
@FatalS You are right! I started playing this game with my youngest daughter and enjoyed it so I was looking forward to it. I was on the pre-registered list. I am enjoying the game but was disappointed by the strict rules. I don't understand why nintendo had to do it this way for a system that is so costly with its games. I certainly do not think 0 for a rating is right!
@FatalS Dude, 0/10 is a joke score. Its' basically throwing a baby fit, so if you want to defend it fine. Next time just write nothing if you are too angry to be objective.
This is why user reviews fail, because people get angry and think they can make more noise with a 0 than a 5 so F it screw this game, etc. It's just people being frustrated, it's not good information to go by how good the game is.
@Crono1973
Is there a lower limit to the number of things a consumer can criticize a game for?
There should be, but I guess it all depends on the consumer. But most of these complains are about the island-locked-to-one console-thing. But hey, the game just got released, and there is still enough time for future updates.
So Nintendo can ignore them? Reviews are for consumer consumption. Why do you want only positive reviews allowed to be seen by consumers?
That's a good point I didn't thought much before. Nintendo receives a lot of mail every time, and it can be really difficult to check them all out, even if they actually do. I didn't specifically mean all negative reviews. There should be at least constructive criticism, which is always helpful. In this case, it's an excellent game even if I don't have it yet. I still see many video footage of it and, I'm liking it. However, there are still some missing things from previous entries. It will be interesting to see how the game has evolved one year later.
@doctorhino Who the H are you??? I bought and play the game and I enjoy the game and am certainly entitled to my opinion! However you do not have the right to be a jerk about my opinion! I didn't rate the game but offered my opinion. Who do you think you are??//
Been reading the Reddit thread, they get it. Not only do they see this as a way to sell more consoles, they make alot of great points about the online multiplayer design. Why does Nintendo make simple online interaction such a chore? One user (Maximelene) said:
The online mode is broken too. Having to watch a loading screen for 30 seconds each time someone joins your island makes opening it to visitors a chore. We tried to get 6 people on a single island, it was horrible. When the 6th player joined, 5 players had to wait for 30 seconds, watching a fixed screen.
On top of that, nobody can join if any player is currently talking to an NPC, or simply have its menu opened. And if someone disconnects, everyone is rolled back a bit, and teleported to the airport. And when someone leaves properly, everyone has to watch it in a cutscene.
On top
And that's not talking about the "interface" to join, which is essentially only text bubbles. If you try to use a Dodo code and it fails, you have to redo it from the beginning, including the not-so-funny-after-the-50th-time quirky introduction. It's tedious, and absolutely not ergonomic in any way.
After less than 10 minutes of that, we gave up. It's absolutely unenjoyable.
Does Nintendo just not know how to program online play properly?
@kalosn
I have been trying different sites to gain more info on the game and have seen people complain of several issues. People are having trouble with the multiplayer thing. People are having trouble playing period. Unable to join a game as 2nd person
@Crono1973 Is this typical when a new game comes out??? Too many bugs?? This is the first time I have done this so I don't know. I didn't realize I had to play blindly! NO instructions at all? LOL I thought we would get something...
@Crono1973 "Does Nintendo just not know how to program online play properly?"
My opinion, no they don't know. The only (sort of ) "online" I like from Nintendo is Streetpass. But sadly the newer bundle ( for the New3ds ) we have to pay did not last long. I had fun with the Zombie game, and always look forward going to the Mall to collect Mii .
@peaceonearthxxoo I haven't figured out how to visit other towns or have people visit mine. It's isn't straightforward at all but after seeing what others say about the experience, it's probably not worth the effort.
Review bombing or not, maybe companies should take some hints from the complaints.
@Nourldean RIght? XD
@EmirParkreiner Yes, it's one island per console. That can be shared by 8 uses in that console. There is no possibility of a creating a second (or 3rd etc.) for somebody else to play. Also, the person who initially creates the island is the "representative" (used to be called the Mayor in past ACs) who is "the boss" if you will and nobody else can progress the island except for that person. And there is no way to change who is the rep.
So, if my son started the island, he os the boss. Doesn't matter if he plays for an hour and gets bored, my daughter then plays 20 hours gets stuck not being able to progress any further. And now he doesn't want to play anymore so the only option is to completely delete the island and all of her work and start over... Only to be repeated the other way around at some point in time.
And no, you can't save on different memory cards or use different game cartridges. It's one per console. Also, Nintendo says they will allow a one time only (per account) save transfer to a different Switch in the future. Once.
@Northwind
Well, that's definitely weird and surprising, i didn't even know it was possible.
"At least Sony respects its customers"
That REALLY made me laugh out loud...
Having to share an island (basically your game file) is not appealing for most parents, such as myself. The concerns could be addressed by Nintendo.
Frankly, we are a two-Switch household but with six kids (and I’d like to play too!), I decided against grabbing the game. I love AC (tremendously) but the file-save system deterred me from purchasing New Horizons.
@Drack911
Thanks!
Sounds like Nintendo needs to update the game with a function to switch the mayor.
They do have a point though, considering for them, the game is literally unplayable. The rest of the experience really doesn't matter if they can't even play the game.
Nintendo is being hypocritical here. They make us buy a separate online subscription for each account on the same console. No sharing allowed. Then, they force all all accounts to share an island. It seems deciding when we have to share or not share depends on if they get more money out of it.
@kalosn Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a perfect example of developers getting feedback and active in fixing quality of life problems. From fixing Core-Crystle drop rates, fixing issues with the game running in Handheld mode (my entire second playthrough was in handheld mode to test the update and it was excellent) to general UI fixes. This isn't the 1990s or 2000s, developers listen to sensible complaints and fix these issues regularly. Even, Gamefreak took the issue with the National Dex to heart (more of an internal desire than due to review bombing) to add a substantial more pokemon to Sword & Shield through free updates.
I believe Nintendo EAD will be supporting this game and performing some lovely fixes to an already excellent game. So, I think people would be better served emailing or PMing NOA or EAD about their issues with the game politely and they'll address them. Even if its just being able to swap who the "island rep" is because I believe that is the real issue here not the one island restriction.
EDIT : And yes Monolith counts as Nintendo listening to their fans. They are owned by Nintendo and work on Nintendo series when not working on Xenoblade, like Zelda and Smash Bros. So, I'm sure EAD is going to be doing the same thing as Monolith did with Xenoblade.
@WesEds You can't blame that on Sony. It's usually the game dev's from separate companies who do that. Even if Sony owns one of the companies doesn't necessarily mean it's their fault. However, I don't agree that Sony cares about us. Microsoft and Sony have swapped places with Sony becoming the greedy peeps and Microsoft actually caring about us.
Nintendo has always been greedy. Look at past Pokemon games. Let's Go series, and Sword and Shield are the first games in the series to allow multiple saves per cartridge. Every one before that forced you to buy multiple copies if other family members wanted to play.
@SeerCoot If it's always been one per console with this series, then maybe they just forgot to change it?
Yeah, they forgot. LOL
@glenny3214 That was more because that's where the data for the game was stored on the cartridge. That was a limitation for the GBC, GBA, DS because they had no internal storage mechanism. And the one save per-copy was more to try to curb cheating because Pokemon was a social experience. The 3DS is a little bit different, because the 3DS had internal storage... but other 3DS games did that too, so we can't really say it was because of greed. Maybe more technical limitations. But, they've fixed that on the Switch with Let's Go and Sword and Shield so I'm assuming earlier cases were technical drawbacks of the consoles they were working with.
Nintendo has actually historically been the least greedy of big AAA devs by avoiding stuff like microtransactions, loot boxes, and predatory DLC practices. There are some exceptions, but they've generally been more on the up-and-up with customers than an EA, Activision, Ubisoft or... this hurts saying this Blizzard.
8 years of Obammie created this garbage cancel culture..
I’ve been wondering when this article was gonna show up... it’s basically garunteed for every single major switch release
I don't care for review bombing, but the criticism is valid. The lack of multiple islands doesn't affect me, but it can hurt the game for those who have to share their consoles.
This is why I no longer consider user reviews relevant, although Steam and GOG seem to be the only decent source of user reviews these days.
@Adrik Are the personal attacks necessary?
@LUIGITORNADO maybe im selfish but im not sharing my switch with anyone if im honest, so this doesnt really affect me. Honestly, if there was anything we should be complaining about its the fact that a nintendo online subscription is needed to play with friends and that sucks honestly
@Wexter Blizzard fan, huh? Understandable. I love most of EAs games but hate the way they squeeze every penny from players. Sims series has been my jam for so many years, but with Sims 4 they want 40 dollars US for each expansion, like 20 for each game pack, and 10 for each stuff pack. In the end, for Sims 4 as it is now, it's probably well over 500 dollars
The people that seem to be mad are those who share a switch instead of having their own.
Also, the people salty about quest progression have never played World of Dailycraft lol.
Remember when a game came out and you just played it through? If you're didnt like it, you simply stopped and maybe sold it to gamestop eventually.
Now it seems like if there's something people dont like in games, they rage thinking it's an easy fix due to the possibility of updates and hotfix.
These are probably the same Karen's who rant on Yelp when their coffee isnt the right colored cup. lmao
Omfg.. animal crossing has Always had it so everyone on your console is in the same town and sh*t wtf are these peoples problems?
Whats the problem why would someone not want to be in the same area as the people you live with who play? If they had it so they had their own island on one console you wouldnt be able to leave items and sh*t for your family or whatever to get when they play.
Plus having them all on one island lets them work together to make their island better faster..
Lmfao a lot of the reviews prove to me that most of the people review bombing the game havent played animal crossing before.
Like the idiot that said
"The objectives of the game are not clear, there are multiple tasks but none lead to a greater objective or at least I did not see any interesting narrative that was spun in the background, it's sad and embarrassing that having superior hardware such as the Nintendo Switch the developer has opted for that annoying world in perspective of roller and they would not make the jump to the more open world as other sagas have done."
First of all Animal crossing is open world technically. Second they cant have too big of a map or it would be REALLYY hard to maintain and poo. Third the objective is pretty clear just because you dont know how to make money and poo doesnt make the game bad.anyone who has played AC before knows what they need to do
"Now, criticism of the way in which the game handles multiplayer is certainly valid - it's easy to understand why fans would be upset by the limitations - but hurtling scores of '0' at it certainly isn't." - this is your opinion, not a fact. Much like review system, as the customer, it is our right to weight reviews of the product(s) how we see fit. Say, we bought the switch and the game for one purpose and only one purpose (sure, this may not be what the average person is doing, but if the product developer didn't account for this, shame on them), to play Animal Crossing on our Switch with our partner(s). That poor product design, mentioned above, has now rendered BOTH products useless.
Now, I don't even have a switch, or animal crossing for that matter, but I care deeply about companies disrespectful behavior towards their customers. After we've bought it, it's our product! We have every right to use it and share it how we would like (within reason, no infringing on others rights)!
Now, to the point of that comment and why I made an account, without having any Nintendo products at all... That comment is telling people, who feel a way, that their feelings are not valid - that is RUDE! I won't say it is invalid, as I can see why you feel that way, the game developers put a lot of time into it, and as you stated the game has positives, but your statement is merely your opinion, and a rude one at that.
So, to any of you who gave it a 0 score review - good for you for standing up for what you believe in!
Peace out :ROFLMAO:
@Nourldean
What's so funny about Sony respecting its customers? They are not wrong Sony truly does respect its own customers unlike Microsoft is the only company that doesn't give a poo about its own player base especially with Xbox enforcement team unfairly banning people's Xbox accounts thinking they are gods with no way to contact them Microsoft still hasn't learned their lesson and they still won't succeed with Xbox Scarlet PS5 is going to dominate once again 😍
To be honest with you people I hardly ever believe anything what people say on metacritics or IGN or GameSpot A lot of times they are biased there is only one website that truly tells you how good the game is and also show the cons It's called trusted reviews at least they are unbiased and open-minded You have to be a sad little individual giving a game zero stars without considering the story the gameplay they only make the review about one specific topic That's not a review at all You're complaining like a little baby if you have an issue with a particular feature go report it directly to the developer The more you send feedback to them the better the game will be The game's success is determined by massive feedback by people who own the game😉👍
@RavenFellBlade "...unacceptable, and patently anti-consumer."
If that's what you believe then don't buy the game. Problem solved.
@Mountain_Man If that's what you believe then don't buy the game. Problem solved.
Can they also speak about the things they find anti-consumer? It's kind of a neat little thing you guys have going here.
"This game has one feature I don't like! Instant 0/10!"
Then literally every game ever made should be a 0/10. These people are idiots.
Anyone claiming they have a game where there is nothing, not one aspect, they dislike - I just do not believe.
That aside - it is absurd to dock a game so much for one issue. No one is saying people shouldn't criticize the game, because even I have: Animal Crossing New Horizons is NOT perfect and has some faults! But objectively it is no where near a 0/10! It runs flawlessly, it is visually impressive, it has a fun gameplay loop, it has few if any glitches, it never crashes, it has no micro transactions, it doesn't cost more than standard price for a game on the same platform. The lowest reasonable score I could see someone giving it is a 7/10. Anything lower than a 7/10 starts to suggest mechanical issues, serious gameplay flaws, uncommonly bad graphics, etc.
If the worst you can say about ACNH is the one island thing - then you just need to admit your "review" is just a malicious attempt to slander the game.
@Crono1973 And now we've arrived at the straw man fallacy portion of our program.
Unlike Hideki Kamiya, I find myself saddened to narrow avenues of communication. That said - in reading all the Animal Crossing articles today, my "Ignore" button has gotten a better workout than that red one on my cousin's Atari 2600 controller. All these comments about individual user opinions being invalid or fit only for suppression smack of fanboy authoritarianism to me.
@Mountain_Man I get the feeling that you 'speak with your wallet' people ONLY want people to speak with their wallet and keep their mouth shut unless they have a positive opinion.
@peaceonearthxxoo That is? Online Multiplayer looks really simple at first glance. It can't be any more difficult than New Leaf, right? And local multiplayer, you just play with other joy-con and that's it, right? Since I don't have it yet, I can't test multiplayer face-to-face, so that's just the cover of the book... right now.
@Wexter
Excellent examples! Both games had some "imperfections" when they launched (Pokemon moreso); Mario Tennis Aces is another example. This game will definitely be supported with fixes, quality-of-life updates and new content. It's still a bit hard to chat directly with them (learn from Xbox), but it's also a lot better than, say, 2013. I need to investigate the one island restriction issue deeper, but first I need the game itself.
The point is, this is a game that exploits creativity to the max and makes you smile when things go as you want (and surprise you, too). With that said, it makes more sense why players complained, and while it's nice to have constructive criticism that helps a game become more polished over time, putting zeros (or bombed-tens) on something like if everything on it was imperfect (or nonsensically perfect) feels like it came from last decade. I bet the one-island limit has a valid reason that wasn't revealed, and it's tied with a new unannounced feature that could be really surprising. If not, then expect it to be fixed eventually.
@duffmmann
I almost didn't reply to this, but what makes you think my kids are still at home? Do you think they are living in my basement?
I dont care what the haters say. Outside that one flaw this game is awesome and worth the wait.
LOL

Already more than 400 posts. 😆
100% accurate though. It's literally unplayable for anyone with more than 4 people who share a switch and only one of those people actually gets the full experience. Not to mention the nightmare of sharing resources. Screw Nintendo for making these choices.
@shyguy91 I've played every game in the series. With my family. Having separate towns for everyone every time. Limiting it to one town per console is absurd and unprecedented.
@Crono1973 "I get the feeling that you 'speak with your wallet' people ONLY want people to speak with their wallet and keep their mouth shut unless they have a positive opinion."
To be honest, I don't understand people who bitterly complain about something that doesn't cater to their personal taste. If you don't want to share your game with others, then New Horizons is clearly not the game for you. Just accept that you're not in the target audience, and move on. You'll be a much happier person.
@jcvandan
Programmer of what? There is a wide range of what you could program. And I doubt whatever you answer gives you intimate knowledge of Nintendo's game engines
Always research the features of the game before purchase, even if that means having to wait a few days after the release! Fools deserve to lose money on products they don't view before buying. It's a good thing nobody cares about these ridiculous reviews!
Giving a score of 0/10 is not non-sensical. If they still give it a nice score minus the point they are crying about, my question to Nintendolife is, would you have heard about it and made an article if it wasn't review-bombed? Of course not.
It was their desperate plea to Nintendo hoping to be heard and maybe make a change via update.
It certainly is a rubbish move by Nintendo.
@Crono1973 you're finding a way to complain that a company was honest.
"At least Sony respects its customers". Hahahaha! 😂
By adding no useful features in years to PS4, ignoring its classic PS2 library, raising the price of PS+, not including a 4K disc drive in the Pro model, to name a few?
LOL okay...
@Anti-Matter may i have C H I P sir
@Samwise7 Are you seriously for real? You haven’t bothered to read the other comments, the article you’re commenting on or any of the reviews? Really??
@FatalS I never pre-order anything, games or otherwise, unless I know exactly what I'm getting. To do otherwise is foolish.
@LavaTwilight Now imagine you don't want to play on one island with someone (friend, wife) but you want to play the game on the same switch? There is a clear motivation behind Nintendos' behaviour but with New horizons they stepped it up compared to the previous games where getting a new cartridge for £50 was enough, now you would need a new Switch for at least £199. And, not that I do it, but what people are trying to achieve by review bombing is that the sales are going to suffer and when Nintendo sees that they will hopefully stop being dicks. But I honestly don't see that happening because that would mean admitting a mistake and that would be a first for them. Shame that they are starting to go the EA way.
@miksmara Think about this logically: if Nintendo was really so greedy and unscrupulous, then why does the Switch support multiple users, and why do the overwhelming majority of Nintendo games support multiple save files? To suggest that New Horizons including a feature that has been standard in every other Animal Crossing game is suddenly some new underhanded scheme by Nintendo to sell more consoles is utter nonsense.
I get anger and frustrations from those players. I, too, find it very odd Nintendo does not give us the choice of rather to share or create our own island.
@Mountain_Man Well, yeah I know that they could have done much worse things, but I am still of the opinion that people should be as loud about the whole New horizons situation (one island per console, sh*tty cloud saves) as they can and force Nintendo to fix it. Instead of getting offended and being all iT wAs aLWays LiKe tHiS. Why not force them to stop it now?
It's increasingly obvious that these user reviews shouldn't exist anymore. They are unreliable (any idiot with a computer/phone can write a user review whether they have actually played/watched the game/movie/TV show or not) and often devolve into toxic social messages that achieve nothing. Indeed, New Horizons is already the fastest-selling game in the series by far and looks to be Nintendo's fastest-selling games of all time that isn't Pokemon or Smash Bros.
@miksmara
If Nintendo really wanted to force every single person to buy their own Switch, then the Switch wouldn't be able to support up to 8 unique user accounts to begin with.
Animal Crossing shares an island across all users on a single Switch system because that's the experience the developers wanted.
"The single-player content is truly fantastic, and the game does offer workarounds for multiplayer, even if the setup doesn't match up with everyone's hopes."
You can't say this and not give examples. That's poor writing and journalism. Make a new article about it to make your money, if you have too. Jeez.
People are idiots. And something tells me that one guy has never played an Animal Crossing game before.
I love this game! I bought the nintendo switch and sold my xbox one and ps4 to get away from the multiplayer and the stupidity of immature gamers.
Animal Crossing series was never meant to be a multiplayer game series. So with the ONLINE multiplayer, it's fun to go to your friends island's and grab resources that your island didn't come with. I like that everything you do in the game takes time. It helps binge gamers, like me to take it easy!
This game is great! The wait was well worth it! Skol, Nintendo 😁🥃🍷
@Archius9 another game or another memory card is $15-$35. Another switch is MINIMUM $200. Not the same thing at ALL.
@lordzand you're finding a way to complain that a company was honest.
If you quoted what I said then I might have an idea what you are talking about.
@Mountain_Man if Nintendo was really so greedy and unscrupulous, then why does the Switch support multiple users, and why do the overwhelming majority of Nintendo games support multiple save files?
So allowing saves per profile makes Nintendo 'not greedy'. That is your argument?
I am now ( testing ) playing as a 2nd player on my little girl's island. It's not really that bad to be honest. We get to switch leader back and fore. I get that the following player don't have the freedom to do whatever they want when they are not on leader mode, and have to be close-by the leader. But if you share the leadership back and fore, both parties will get equal playtime. idk, it's really not too bad. Achievement nook miles point can still be achieve when switch player.
The last review is absolutely ridiculous. That person has obviously never played an Animal Crossing game before. There has never been a “greater objective” in an AC game. It’s not a game with an extremely interesting narrative, the GameCube version was very bare bones compared to what we have now, it’s always been about playing at your own pace, doing what you want when you want and being able to relax with some cool animal pals.
But I can totally understand the people upset about not being able to have more than one island, even though my fiancé and I happily share our island and play together every night with the couch co-op feature, some people want separate islands and Nintendo should’ve done it the same way as New Leaf. But I really don’t think a 0/10 is fair because there are so many redeeming qualities that makes New Horizons amazing.
@Mountain_Man At first, I read all your messages as having been written in good faith. On reviewing all you have said here, I conclude that you are determined to act the troll, and just below the threshold that would be evident to most.
I am not going to argue the point about forcing multiple users in a household to buy individual machines for individual islands. I don't know whether Nintendo would be that crude or not. I will register my disappointment in the way you have argued things here.
You make absolute statements, writing things like:
How do you define "widely-advertised"? Is this "feature" (or rather, limitation) advertised on the back of the game case or anywhere on the packaging for the bundle? Are you going to claim that every potential customer can, and should, watch the relevant Direct?
AND
<I>If you don't want to share your game with others, then New Horizons is clearly not the game for you</I>
The first statement is incorrect - you have not always been limited to a single system or cartridge, as you were forced to acknowledge. And you know full well that the game is fully-featured for solo players.
I feel you are being deliberately obtuse in your other statements. When users protest the single-island limitation, and they provide examples about this hindrance to usability, you change the subject ("absurd premise! Their motivation is not a financial one!"), then claim they are missing the point. I am not discussing their financial motive.
You have referred to the single-island (or single-village) restriction as a feature or a design conceit, while entertainingly calling the Gamecube's memory card-based OPTION a "limitation". I do not know why the restriction was made for City Folk, when the Wii had onboard storage, but it does not justify the restriction in any way. Today, this is not a hardware issue: the Switch can write data to microSD or the internal storage. This is not a software issue - the Switch can write multiple save files for any game. This is a deliberate decision.
When you possess an ability but choose not to use it, the term is LIMITATION - choosing to refrain from doing something that is possible. A FEATURE in software is the ability to do something, not to REFUSE to do something.
You claim the single-village limitation is central to the series, but the VERY FIRST global release of this series assumed that multiple villages (at least two) would be the case in many households - the Gamecube had two memory slots, and the game was sold with a supplementary card!
I am beginning to think I know why your profile image reminds me of Charlie Chaplin.
To all those making the argument that a single-village or single-island restriction is a "feature", or a sound design decision...
Are you aware that software can be customized? Are you aware that usability, inclusiveness, and a family-friendly ethic imply CHOICE? And flexibility for different life circumstances?
There is no limitation in the Switch's hardware which forces a single-island scenario.
Now, if you wish to argue that the game's creators have a particular vision for how the game should be played - that, I can believe. Nonetheless, they are artificially creating a barrier which enforces that vision in a profoundly restrictive way, which I find shocking after playing something like BOTW, with all its user freedom. Make no mistake, this restriction is not part of the game's ruleset, because different users on the same island are not treated identically. Was Luigi restricted by Mario's progress in the original Super Mario Bros.?
And the sales will have the final word
Valid criticisms.
@TheNewButler you are aware that despite saying you aren't trashing negative reviews, you're literally saying that if someone doesn't criticize something in a way you personally find acceptable then their opinions are actually invalid.
You need to consider what you say before you say it because you've not helped your case at all. Reviewbombs happen because companies do stupid things that need to be called out in mass and fixed. By saying "this made a ton of people mad, but because they voiced their opinion in a way I don't like they suddenly don't have a real reason to be mad."
This is just fallacious argumentation. It's the equivalent of saying "you mad bro" as if that's intended to do anything but dismiss someone.
I remember my first video game...
It looks like the single island per system is the big point of contention, kinda like Dexit was for Pokemon Sw&Sh. It's something that customers need to be aware of. Especially as Nintendo offers Cloud storage and you could easily store the extra islands there. Also doesn't that mean that if I had a Switch and Switch Lite and kept one at home and took the other away with me for vacation I would be unable to access my island on the Lite? What am I paying Nintendo for if I don't have that functionality in NSO?
Nintendo has great game design, but abysmal quality of life design around it.
Please can we have a video of Alex reading the extreme reviews like he did with Zelda and Pokemon Sword/Shield?
I can definitely understand the frustration and want to leave a negative review. My wife and I bought the game digitally and then found out we could only have one island. I let her have it, and /then/ found out that other profiles on the console can't progress the island; only the creator can.
So we're left in a spot where I would like to play this game, but can't really do so. I can't properly assess the entire game, because to do so we would need a second console and a second game. In this case, I have a negative experience and would leave a negative review.
Ah yes, the stupidity of 1st world problems at its best. Never seizes to amaze me.
Me and my sister were so happy for this game and when we found out that we both couldn’t make a island disappointed us but we didn’t really care that we had to share a world. Then we found out that only the first person gets to decide where things go and progress the story that ruined it for us. Now the only way we both can play the game properly is to buy another switch, yeah thats not going to happen thanks nintendo for ruining a game me and my sister loved since we were little kids.
Anybody making comment bingo cards?
I feel like we're all already living on different islands enough right now
I have five kids between the ages of 6 and 15, and ALL of them are excited to play this game, which I just bought yesterday, and had NO IDEA about this one-island scam. That's what it is... a scam. And to all you people saying that leaving a 0/10 review isn't how you deal with something like this... funny how I don't hear you listing all your recommendations as to how people SHOULD deal with it. Personally, I want an update that will change this. And what is the best way to get a developer to listen? You take a crack at their bottom line. Please tell me what other methods of communicating my displeasure to Nintendo that you think are so effective? A hand written, sternly worded letter? A sternly worded voicemail? Please. Be realistic. Hit their bottom line.
I'm just mad about them complaining about something that's been a part of the Animal Crossing Series since the original you were always meant to have a single town per console and Nintendo actually brought something the series needed for so long which is the couch co-op if people even then we always knew the save data was on the system itself for Switch games we knew there would be one island per console Nintendo was very clear on that and it's not a feature that's better off gone you still have your own save data your own items and house it's not a bad implementation at all
@RavenFellBlade If I was reviewing this game for a website or blog, I would take into account the fact that this issue is in the game. That would not lead to me giving the game a 0/10. If that was the case, every gaming website would only have a 2 point scale: 0/10 and 10/10. You need to look at the bigger picture when reviewing something.
This website and others regularly review games where certain aspects of it have major issues, be it online or whatever. They don't then give the game a zero rating as a result. Enjoyment can still be got from it. Just not the way you were expecting.
Totally valid complaint, the one island per system concept is ridiculous but it not being open world is just silly. Not every game need to be open world.
450 posts and going strong people! Let's make this the biggest forum thread ever and show our overwhelming LOVE for Animal Crossing: Nee Horizons! YEAH!!!
I'm sorry , for those saying there is no excuse , you're wrong. This has been Animal Crossing formula since day one, this game has never been a couch co-op or party game, other players been able to play on your town or city or what ever has just been a plus. Don't fix what ain't broken I always say , or turn a game into what it never was, stop whining companies are not gonna bend over backwards for a few self entitled or idiots who don't do research on a product before hand. Be mad if a company promises something but don't deliver, to bad that isn't the case here. Also, no duh!!! This is a product made to make profit or revenue by a company that is running a damn business, so you all need a better argument than "they just doing it for money or profit", geez, who would of guess a business making something for profit??? In the end you can't satisfied everyone because if they try then they won't satisfy anyone, so far the game is already doing above and beyond, Nintendo always knows how to improve this franchise just right and been able to share your game is just a plus that you should be happy that is even an option. Is not like you can have multiple files on Pokemon or other similar games don't see any one complaining there. =:3
Lol there are plenty Playstation games where you can only have one save per machine, MGS4 is probably the most well known, and these games weren't review bombed for that. Another evidence Sony want to destroy the japanese industry by killing the biggest japanese editor.
Good. This is a disgusting business practice and I am glad to see them getting the backlash they deserve. I know this game is basically worthless to me because of this and I feel absolutely scammed since I didn't know about it before I bought it.
I know this place is called Nintendo Life, but you could afford to take your nose just a few inches out of their butts.
@Ryu_Niiyama I think this covers the original bingo card pretty well. Just replace "It's 2018 Nintendo!!!?!?!??!?!" with "It's 2020 Nintendo!!!?!?!??!?!" And everything else still stands. Gamers eh?
People are on lockdown all across the planet because of some highly contagious virus and yet in here you've got fully grown adults crying like toddlers because some game (which you don't have to buy) with fluffy cute cuddly characters in it doesn't do what you want it to do.
Normally I'd laugh, turn round and show my colleagues what this lot are crying over now, but I'm on lockdown myself.
The developers literally call this a communication game, it’s hardly in wonder they want you to live together and communicate. I think it’s a bit more telling that sharing is such an audacious move on their part, however, the restrictive nature of a lead player is a bit of a different story. Perhaps being able to re-elect the resident representative would be a nice touch. That way people can take turns taking the lead on the island.
@LavaTwilight
We're here to whine, so let's do it right
Gonna whine, whine, whine into the night
Raise your grubby little hands into the air
Gotta show Nintendo just how much we care
Keep your voices loud, and don't let 'em drop
'Cause the whinin' ain't never ever gonna stop!
Those might be valid criticisms of those that care only for multiplayer, but 0 is not warranted. This is an awesome game so far. I stopped playing New Leaf because I like it that much. 5/5. I hope someone comes out with a guide so I know what bug etc are available that month. We're almost in April so I dont want to miss out on March bugs and fish.
@Nintenda No need to be like that. I was asking if it was possible for Nintendo to do that and if people were justified for being annoyed at them. Nintendo are a very customer focussed company so I'm inclined to say they might have a reason for the 1 island thing as opposed to pure greed.
@Dr_Corndog Nice...
Intentional reviews to bring down something to get points should be removed and poster banned for life. If you don't like a game move on and play something else. Review Spoilers not apply if all your doing to make a buck.
@P-dizzle growing up I and my three siblings played in a single town in the "original" Animal Crossing on GameCube. We all were different ages from 3-14. We all generally worked together and communicated what we needed.
I know personally I would have not been able to fully upgrade the Nook Store on my own or complete the museum. So, playing with my siblings made that a possibility. We'd let the other siblings know what furniture we were looking for or help to finance our home upgrades (it was a lot harder to get bells back in the day.). When we found something we knew the others were looking for we gifted it to them by letter in-game. Or made some cash with the other sibling's character to help them out. I maybe upgraded my house twice... But it was always cool to see my brother's fully upgraded house and all the cool stuff he found. I even got him the Master Sword that was in the centre of his house.
As a parent, you just need to explain to your kids that this game is about communication and collaboration. You explain that they let their siblings know what they need help with (this especially applies to the older ones who help their kid siblings), and don't do everything by yourself. Then it becomes a project between the five of them to work together rather than something restrictive. Sharing, Nook Miles to get resources and voting on where buildings will go... Like well, a community.
My little sister was scared of playing Majora's Mask growing up. She couldn't play it by her self the traditional way. So I shared my file with her. I'd collect the masks and do the dungeons. She'd then goof around with them when I wasn't playing. She's now fully grown up, but still remembers that and Majora's Mask is now one of her favourite games she has completed it multiple times. Sometimes as older siblings us sacrificing the purity of our "own file" or in this case, "own island" actually creates a deeper bond with our younger siblings and allows them to get the help they need to enjoy a game in their own way... Even if it can be annoying at times. 😅
@TheNewButler again, thank you for proving my point. You just keep saying criticism has to come in a way you personally approve of or it's entirely invalid and unhelpful. You're not actually making any valid points here, you just keep insisting that your way is the only way which couldn't be further from the truth.
@Mountain_Man
buying a cart is way different than buying a full console. I played almost 2000 hours on new leaf and at some point I did decide to get a second cartridge so I could start a new town. I've been waiting for animal crossing ever since I got my switch on day one and bought a copy for both of my siblings (3 switch household) and I was aware of this limitation. I believe at some point I could have been nice to get a second island but I'm definitely not going to buy another switch just for that purpose.. So yeah at this day and age I do believe that it's a very harsh restriction. And I don't really understand the reasons behind it. As I said in my comment, I don't get why Nintendo would do something like that, but at the same time I get even less those who bought the game knowing it was going to be this way and now are complaining.
Loving the game so far tbh, it's a nice break away from all the hard core games and competitive multiplayer games, it's nice to relax and slowly create a new island community and the added craft mechanics make this animal crossing more engaging and more to do with your time.
Onto the criticisms I can understand some of them, me and my partner luckily have a console each but only one cartridge (don't ask) but for those who want to play together on a single console but have tk share an island and it's resources is pretty crappy.
Also the online multiplayer is a bit boring, it needs some minigames like new leaf had. Maybe an update or dlc with add this hopefully.
And finally the last review was from someone who was expecting a story to this game which most of us know animal crossing does not have, but I can't help wonder if maybe a short story would make this game better (maybe going to different islands saving other characters from perilous situations due to an evil protagonist, or something along those lines)
I can understand the ire against the single island per Switch, but the anger about "no clear objectives" is inane...that's part and parcel of the entire AC series to date (well, main games...HHA may have a defined endgame, but I've not played it); the whole draw of the games is that there is no defined goal and one can keep playing as they want to for as long as they want to.
@popishighbrow actually Blathers gives you a presentation on anything you donate to the museum... While I do believe that some NPCs will be returning further down the line , there are some I don't miss at all. Pelly, Phyllis, Digby and Porter where really one dimensional characters that added something just because of their looks. I really don't miss them. The villagers are greatly improved this time around, you can catch them doing way more things, yesterday Antonio and Rhonda were racing up and down the main square for like 10 mins and it looked like they were having a blast. I would rather have more fleshed out neighbours than have Digby just sitting in the same spot day and night so that he can let me visit the spot pass lot...
@majordomo383 "I hope someone comes out with a guide so I know what bug etc are available that month."
There will be an Official Companion Guide coming on April. Or google, there are some already posted.
I believe that the one island per console thing is supposed to be a feature to allow multiple users to work together on a singular island, and to build their own houses. Its not a new feature (in New Leaf, all profiles had to share one town). If you're complaining about something as trivial as sharing an island, maybe Animal Crossing isn't your cup of tea.
@Nico85 yes i know that, but you used to be able to read them in the museum as well. You can't anymore. If you don't hear it when you first donate it, it's gone.
Phyllis had personality. It was hilarious talking to her in the evening being a grumpy b*tch. Honestly it's the little things like this that made the game charming, and if you don't understand it would be pointless trying to convince you.
The post office has been in every game so far so I thought that crew definitely had a place in every title. So it was surprising.
The villagers improved? I haven't noticed that much. The dialogue to me is not so interesting so far, that's for sure. The writing has seen better days.
@UnknownReader THANKS!
I pre-ordered it.
People still don’t realise that metacritic is the cesspool or toilet of review sites.
Paid critic reviews and public review bombing is all that exists there.
@TheNewButler first sentence: "i'm not insisting my way is the only way"
Last sentence: "certain ways are completely invalid."
So your way isn't the only way but ways that aren't your way are invalid and shouldn't be listened to? Again, my first reply to you still stands. You can't keep saying your open to other ways while in the and comment saying all other ways are invalid. It's just covering your rear and it doesn't work on anyone that actually reads your comments completely.
@Nico85 "buying a cart is way different than buying a full console."
Don't you think buying a whole console simply because you don't want to share one game is a bit extreme? And, no, this isn't some devious Nintendo scheme to sell more consoles. Otherwise, explain why they would allow multiple players to share an island at all?
@P-dizzle "That's what it is... a scam."
That's ridiculous. The series has always and without exception for the past 20-years been based around the concept of multiple players in a household sharing a single town. The fact that you didn't make an informed purchasing decision is your own fault. Nobody "scammed" you.
@popishighbrow "If you don't hear it when you first donate it, it's gone."
You can bring bugs, fish, and fossils to Blathers at any time and ask him to describe them for you even after they've been donated.
@Crono1973 I shouldn't have to quote your own words back to you.
@Mountain_Man you are either not reading my comments or you are just to oblivious to understand what I'm saying. You are taking every single one of my comments out of context.I told you that we have three switches between my family and myself and I personally bought three copies of ACNH, one for each switch to gift to my siblings.
I said that if, at some point, I should have the desire to start a new Island (like I did in new leaf) without wanting to erase the one I have now I would be forced to buy a whole new console. I think we can agree that this is way more inconvenient than buying another 60 euro game. Or do you want to fight me on this too?
I never spoke about not wanting to share an island because that's not something I'm interested in. All I said is that this is a feature that's been there in every previous game but - buying new console for second island = more expensive than buying new game on same console. Where in my comments do you see me talking about devious schemes? Don't put words in other people's mouths just to have them fit your narrative.
I too am a nintendo fanboy but you need to open your mind a bit.
@popishighbrow
you absolutely can, you can bring anything you've caught to blathers and ask him to tell you something about them.
I agree that phillis was hilarious... for the first few times.
Whereas my villagers in new horizons sing, sweep the floors, notice if I wear something that they have gifted me, run to greet me, make comments about things around them, talk about other villagers, mention things that they are looking at in the museum, read books and make comments about them. Every single day I've seen them do something different and they feel much more alive than ever before. See, it's theses little things that make the game really charming, if you don't see them there's really no point in me trying to convince you.
The writing has seen better days? New leaf was widely considered to have the most bland villager interactions in the franchise.
I honestly think that this is the best entry in the franchise by far, maybe you not been able to let go of certain staples of the older games is preventing you to fully experience the some.
@Nico85 "I said that if, at some point, I should have the desire to start a new Island (like I did in new leaf) without wanting to erase the one I have now I would be forced to buy a whole new console."
And? Animal Crossing has never allowed you to start a new town without first nuking the old one from orbit. The only exception was the GameCube version, and that was only because of a hardware limitation (no internal storage), but every subsequent game has had this feature. I don't know why people are acting like this is some shocking new development.
@lordzand Then I can't respond because I don't know what you are talking about. I have many posts.
BECAUSE IN NEW LEAF YOU COULD START A NEW TOWN SIMPLY BY BUYNG A NEW CARTRIDGE AND NOT A NEW 3DS, do you see the difference? Jeez it's like talking to a wall ...
@Mountain_Man And? Animal Crossing has never allowed you to start a new town without first nuking the old one from orbit. The only exception was the GameCube version, and that was only because of a hardware limitation (no internal storage), but every subsequent game has had this feature. I don't know why people are acting like this is some shocking new development.
I think you are confused.
I am curious about this hardware limitation that you speak of with the Gamecube.
@Crono1973 thank you....
@Nico85 No problem, I have been explaining this to the guy living in the mountains since yesterday (or maybe the day before) so I know it's been explained to him. He's likely just pretending not to understand.
@Crono1973 DS/3DS, buy a $40 copy of the game for a new town. Have as many as you want. You could have 6 or 9 extra towns for the price of 1 extra town on the Switch (depending on which Switch model you buy).
(3DS) $40 copy + $15 -$25 for Powersaves and get as many extra town as one like.
So if you go to a different profile on your switch it puts you into the same island you had on the other profile? If not then whats the Big deal, I dont know any family that uses the same profile as everyone else in there house. P.S. I dont have a switch so Im just guessing on how they work. I only watch supermega play new horizons.
@Yallmad So if you go to a different profile on your switch it puts you into the same island you had on the other profile?
That's correct, only one island per console. All profiles must use the same island.
Normally, I think review bombing is a ridiculous over-reaction. This one, I actually can see the perspective of the review bombers, mainly because it seems so unnecessary. If there's any sensible explanation for why you can only have one island, I haven't heard it yet. I can see this being a disaster in families with multiple children but only one console.
It's not a bomb if it's true. How many casual gamers read gamer news looking for technical info on a game marketed for families? This game is awesome, but it's not what it was sold as, and for all those parents having to cough up another $400 to keep family peace in times like this? Zero is generous. If I wasn't playing alone, I'd be leaving zero, too. Fix it, Nintendo. One island per cart, not per console.
This is literally the epitome of bad journalism.
Basing the game's worth on a single function, especially one so trivial to the average player as local multiplayer, and then going on to give the game a 0/10 rating and writing a heated article about your opinion and posting it on a popular website.
The only reasons any soundminded person would do this are either to rile up a normally peaceful gaming fan-base, to fulfill a sinister corporate contract, or to gain some sort of personal self worth.
This is why the world burns around us.
Yes, I did make this account for the sole purpose of writing this.
And yes, I am screen-shotting this comment, so that if it is deleted, I know that I was right about what I said.
Good riddance.
@Mountain_Man Good to know thank you.
The fact that anybody gives a game a zero is quite ignorant, but Nintendo needs to fix this problem. A family should be able to play together on the same Switch. But whatever people want to believe, the new Animal Crossing is a quality game. It is one of the most relaxing games ever.
@CashMadness It is one of the most relaxing games ever.
I've seen my share of memes about getting 30 iron nuggets to progress in the game.
@shyguy91 I've played for a long time. I never shared resources with the fam. We had our own towns. We checked yesterday. The saves with kids name, my name, and hubs name all exist independently. I can pop it in DS, Wii, or gamecube right now. The reasoning behind one player getting ALL the goods first is beyond me. I will never have an opportunity to play without another switch. Player one has to complete daily tasks. I'm basically an NPC. I didn't pay $50 to wait years for my turn.
@TheFox I agree. For example there’s no way I could play this game, because me and my sister both share the same switch, and there’s no way we’re getting a new one, it’s a completely out-of-reach game for us.
@Mountain_Man Omg NO we do not share a town. I feel a video coming on.
@Yachtman24 I don’t think you read the article fully, I’ll summarize (correct me if I misunderstood something) the game saves to the chips physically soldered to your Nintendo switches motherboard, so there is no way, without literally buying two switches, to play the game. This article is simply complaining about people who rate the game a 0/10 because they can’t play the game. The article is somewhat confusing in what it calls “multiplayer”, which actually means “multiple people being able to play the game on the same console”, and singleplayer which means “one person playing per console”. Hope this helps
Is this the largest comment section on a story yet?
I get the one island thing, I just wish I had known about it before buying it and we could have set it up differently. My biggest problem with it is that it isn't really made obvious to anyone unfamiliar with the franchise or when you first set up your island. I absolutely should be made clear that only the first player can progress.
My daughter is the main and obviously don't want to blow up her island to start again. Not about to leave negative reviews (ultimately it doesn't matter) but I have never felt so let down by a 49.99 game before.
@popishighbrow I don't really want to waste time replying to someone as bitter as you so I'll try to be brief. You say that you have all these animal crossing experts that back you up well, I have mine and we are all having fun therefore you opinion isn't more valid than mine. I don't care if you don't like the game nor am I trying to defend it because I'm a nintendo fan like you implied. But i have to tell you your comments make very little sense , we haven't even seen any holiday nor a fishing tournament and yet there you are whining cause the "this entry feels barren". Not to mention the nonsense about the recycled dialogue ... you have to back these things up man otherwise you just look like an ass. (same as you did when you said you couldn't get any info on fish and bugs once donated and have been proven WRONG) I played over 2000 hours in New Leaf and I'm thrilled to see what's coming for NH. You keep doing whatever it is you do or hopefully try to find something to enjoy.
your second comment was just too stupid so I won't be addressing that. BB
The only reliable thing in whole metacritic is 'most helpful user comment'. Metascore became a trash these days, Userscores are even worse, critics only cares about stories and world designs...
Metacritic is already dead.
LOL 🤣

Already more than 500 posts ?
If you are looking at user reviews instead of website actual game reviews at this point, you need your head examined.
@popishighbrow dude why would i be mad? I love the game and I can’t wait to see how my island will evolve. You on the other hand seem so angry that you have to spread misinformation in a sad attempt to trash the game. I believe kids these days would refer to what you’re doing as being “butthurt” . Just chill , if you don’t like the game it’s fine. No need to convince others that it’s bad just because you don’t like it. Move on.
@Crono1973 I noticed but that's not something I'm going to adjust my way of posting for.
I used to post a lot here too but I never refused to because people didn't quote my post back at me. More power to you.
@blockfight Did you completely miss the part where I bought this game with a very specific purpose in mind, and that it has done precisely the opposite of that for no real reason beyond pure, unadulterated greed? I really don't care about any lame excuses for what is clearly an anti-consumer decision, and my "review" holds to the specific effect it has had on me. I loved the previous games. I desperately want to love this one, but it's instead become contentious and lead to significant frustration. Incidentally, I haven't posted a review of the game, and I'm not going to. I understand that it works "the way it's meant to". My argument is that "the way it's meant to work" is bogus, anti-consumer, greedy BS chosen explicitly to push you into buying multiple consoles.
@lordzand I used to post a lot here too but I never refused to because people didn't quote my post back at me. More power to you.
I don't understand why you won't tell me what I said that you object to. What kind of a game are you trying to play here?
@RavenFellBlade maybe you'll research games before buying anymore. Ive no intention of buying this game and even I knew that this was a feature of it.
Be angry if you want. Nintendo owe you nothing.
@RavenFellBlade I have always played Animal Crossing as a single player game. Using memory cards and an extra copy of New Leaf to get different fruits. With New Horizons Nintendo made that type of gameplay much more expensive.
Lmao, people will complain about anything and everything nowadays if it doesn't suit them. The game is fantastic! Best AC yet.
@Crono1973 you can get different fruit from other islands and friends via online connectivity....so no. It is not "more expensive" if anything it's easier, and cheaper than ever to do so.
@RavenFellBlade lol I'm so confused as to why people are saying they need more consoles to play this game.
@HXLXIII ...and yet what was stopping Nintendo from allowing each profile to have a save? Trying to sell NSO, more consoles?
@Crono1973 which is really not very difficult to do...
The online feature needs a ton of work but what can I expect from Nintendo when it comes to online multiplayer. I don’t share a Switch but I do think people have valid complaints about the one island per Switch. Because at least other Switch games let you set up alt accounts for the same game. I don’t think it’s enough to bomb reviews with 0 or 1 star though.
This article is missing the entire point of why people are rating it a 0. People feel like they have no other recourse to try to coerce nintendo in to fixing the mistake. If people rated it by the first-player experience only nintendo would never realize there is a problem.. Nintendo would go about saying "Wow this game is getting great scores; We made an other successful AC!" and they would never fix their mistake and they would continue to make the same greedy decisions in future ACs or even other games.. What if they decide to do the same thing for pokemon games in the future, to where only ONE person can play PER CONSOLE? Should they also rate it by only the 1st-player experience and ignore that no one else can play with out buying an other switch?
And by the way, many of the ratings of 0 or 1 or 2 ARE accurate ratings IF you are rating the game by its entertainment value of being player 2 through 8.. If you are playing as player 2 through 8 you can literally do hardly ANY THING in the game except decorate a house and pick up sticks and bugs.. Many people rating the game literally CAN'T play it as 1st player because some one else in their family is already 1st player, so what are they supposed to rate it? Their experience is 100% gimped as 2nd player..
@FF777 If people don't like design choices made by Nintendo, they should say so by not buying the game. Then Nintendo might listen. Vote with your wallet.
As it stands, this game is one of the fastest selling Nintendo switch games ever. And the vast majority of people love it. I guess the vast majority of people are wrong.
@blockfight I guess the vast majority of people are wrong.
I never understood this mindset. Most people don't know if they like it UNTIL they buy it.
I remember when Final Fantasy XIII was so hated but ALSO was the fastest selling Final Fantasy game up to that point.
Just because corporations care more about sales than consumer opinions doesn't mean that consumers should act that way towards other consumers.
If people don't like design choices made by Nintendo, they should say so by not buying the game. Then Nintendo might listen.
So Nintendo won't listen to the opinions of consumers as long as the sales are high and you want to blame that on consumers? Shouldn't you be blaming Nintendo for not listening to consumers?
@Dromosus “I do wish there was a "Don't let your seven year old daughter be the first player" warning screen at the beginning.”
My 6-year-old played first on launch day... We bribed/badgered her into agreeing to restart the next day with me as the resident representative and it was absolutely the right decision for all parties. Dodged a real bullet there.
These are games people play for years. They really should patch in the ability to change the rep in the future. It would also be cool to have NPCs mention to other players if they’re waiting on something the rep needs to progress.
@Crono1973 in terms of people liking it, the game has been out about a week now. I listen to 4 different video game podcasts. All 4 love the game. Yes they have issues with certain aspects of the game including the issue being raised here. But ultimately it was still being talked about as a game of the year contender.
Are any of these podcast presenters review bombing the game because they don't like certain things about it? No.
I understand your opinion. But Nintendo is a business at the end of the day. Their sole purpose is to make money. Just like Microsoft and Sony. If you don't like the way they try to achieve this, don't support them. By all means voice your opinion though. Im not trying to shut anybody up. Debate is good. This is purely my opinion.
@shyguy91 User Reviews are the only relevant thing. Ignore the 10/10 and 0/10 ratings (or read them forthe lulz) and read 5,6,7 /10 ratings, that usually gives you a solid and genuine impression. Critic scores are irrelevant, Kotaku reviwers can't eben beat Demos these days lol.
Interesting to see all those comments.
At least The review bombers don’t really see that it is a design choice to stimulate coorparation.. Personally I like a it a lot that I share an island with my kids.. We’re building a nice community plaza, and showing our island to our own friends and exchanging stuff..
But... the kids are dissapointing they’re not island reps, and are now discussing who’s going to be rep on their mother’s switch were they will be next week... So it certainly has it’s disadvantages... also waiting for one to get mad, and destroying something made outside by their sibling...
And sharing the resources with three makes you restrain yourself a lot...
I even saw a 0 points review because the reviewer "don't like how you have to go to the airport to send postcards" – many stupid people out there in the internet...
I say this is as not a player of this game but if what I've read about the limitations is true I think that criticism is valid. That is some EA level BS and 100% deserving of a 0 rating even if you enjoy the rest of the game.
A game can be an incredible experience but if it is ripping you off that negates the positives.
@MetaBunny You are infinitely wiser than I am. We're a week in noww and I just don't have the bribery leverage during a lockdown!
So, I don't own Animal Crossing and never will. I have far better things to do with my life than play a mediocre plant watering simulator (and if I really want to go there then I'll play Dragon Quest Builders instead) but I gotta say ..
This doesn't look like review bombing AT ALL. It looks like legitimate complaints. All of it.
@vanYth Why are you calling them stupid? When exactly did you have to go to the airport in real life just to send a postcard? EVER.
I feel like you're missing the whole point of his complaint and just act biased to justify the game purchase to yourself.
@shyguy91 Eh, critics aren't most accurate either. Witcher show comes to mind. it bombed so many critic reviews yet user scores on metacritic were overwhelmingly positive. In other words, it really can go either way, so at end of day I don't trust either score, I trust my own experience.
@UndercoverPneuma I really don't need to "justify the game purchase to" myself as I am very happy with it. But maybe you can explain me the point of the "reviewers" complaint if I missed it. He/she didn't wrote more but gave just 0/10 with this given reason.
And I don't find it strange to send the postcards from the airport. Well, I never lived on a small island where the only way to or off the island is the airport, but it sounds logical to me. I could bring my postcards to the service center, but then someone else has to transport them to the airport...
"At least Sony respects its customers."
Ok, I laughed way too hard at that one.
New Horizons is a breath of fresh air to me tbh. Only gripe I have against the game is the fact that there are quite a bit of loading times due to constantly going in and out of homes and stores etc. It's more of an annoyance than a game breaker though.
Can you imagine being stuck in thr same house with those people for a month in quarantine?
It's what they get for being greedy a*******. I hope they do the right thing and patch in the ability for multiple islands.
Those people might want to try playing on the same island them. It might be even more fun to co-op on creating the most beautiful island. It’s not like they would’ve been able to play at the same time anyway if there was two islands on the same system. At least with a single island you can co-op. I’d love to have a second human tenant on my island, so it would be interesting to see what they have been up to while I wasn’t playing.
@Hask #521 Okay, this sounds like a valid point:
”Only the first person who played the game can help build Nook's Cranny, upgrade the Resident Services to a Town Hall, etc.”
I really thought all human players were practically equal on the same island.
@Hask
Its not just that either. I wouldnt mind playing on one island at all, but it seems most people havent understood the real problem here.
There isnt just one island. Its only one player(the one who create the island in the beginning) who is able to progress.
In my home, I created the island, and now my girlfirend, which would like to play the game alot more than me, cannot progress without logging in on my character to do the donations, because secound characters cant even make donations or have any real progress outside the 1st char.
This effectively means, if you are two in the same house whom like to play the game fully, you need two switches. If not one of them will have to play a shallow version because they cant even help progressing on the only island....
I can see how this issue seems minor if you dont have anyone else who want to play. But when you do, it gives a distaste and disgust that takes all the fun out of the game..
In my hones opinion I could agree on it being 0/10 when you are encountering these issues, because it makes the entire game just an annoying bad experience.
I love how Nintendo pushes families to interact, but sometimes it comes back to bite them. It would have been way better to make this an option or make same-console islands connected via a bridge. Making everyone share an island was a cute idea, that doesn't work well in real life. My son - the island owner - has stuff everywhere and tells me not to touch anything. LOL
While the game does so so so much right - the decisions they made around one island & one permanent island rep per switch is game-breaking. Every player after the first has legitimate reason to rate this game 0/10.
And the fact that I even thought about buying a new console to get around this limitation disgusts me. Think about that for a second. The way that a game is designed is encouraging you to buy an ENTIRE NEW CONSOLE. Outrageous.
"Now, criticism of the way in which the game handles multiplayer is certainly valid - it's easy to understand why fans would be upset by the limitations - but hurtling scores of '0' at it certainly isn't."
Why not though? This is a legitimately game-ruining experience for second players, who can't progress through the story or start infrastructure projects. Every player in the house apart from the first is basically getting a demo mode rather than the full game. Not everyone has £200-300 to buy a brand new switch just to play this one game.
The £50 required to buy the game is a lot of money on its own for many people. Additional £200 purchases should not be required for households with more than one player.
There is no other Switch game that does this. And yes, New Leaf only had one mayor, but least with New Leaf you only had to buy a new cartridge if the second player wanted to be a mayor too, not an entire new (expensive) game console.
People are 100% within their right to think this restriction justifies a low star rating. It's literally just a number, it's not verbal abuse or anything like that. The numbers don't even have well defined, commonly agreed upon meanings - some people think 5/10 means "terrible", others think it means "average". Having a go at people for giving a "too low" score just seems odd to me, because I don't think anybody considers these scores a precise form of measurement for anything.
If giving a 0 star rating is too extreme and hyperbolic, then surely NL giving a game with such a massive flaw a perfect 10 is also extreme.
A lot of this comment section seems much more "extreme" than the 0 star ratings. None of the 0 star reviews I read were mean about people, but this comment section has multiple people saying very nasty things about anybody who gives this game a low review rating. It's totally hypocritical.
There's so many people talking about how great the game is, and how they shouldn't rate it 0 stars just because of one issue. Are you dumb? I bought the game with my hard earned money, and I decided to let my wife play first, considering that she's never played before, and I've played since wild world. I then discovered that I HAD, key word, HAD to share an island with her. We have COMPLETELY different play styles, and Nintendo just wants to plop us both on one island? Whatever. Fine. But here's the real catch. She becomes the "Resident Representative" and she does EVERYTHING. Is this some kind of joke. I bought the game! It's MINE. However, Nintendo deems that it's important that she logged in first. Worst of it all, I can't do ANYTHING. She progresses whilst I do absolutely nothing. Can I donate to Tom Nook to start the museum tent? No. Can I upgrade to Nooks Cranny? No. Can I gather the items for the three villagers that have to move in? No. Can I do ANYTHING related to infrastructure? No. But want to know Nintendo's compromise? Spend $360 on another switch and game. Yeah, I Call BULLSH*T on that. You can't go and tell me that the games great, and I shouldn't give it 0 stars because of the island limitation. Well guess what. What am I SUPPOSED to write a review on? How great it is fishing and catching bugs all day, and thats all I can do? Sorry that I can't share the experience of being the resident representative. Maybe If I could, I would enjoy the game and write a positive review. But I can't because I CAN'T DO ANYTHING! And you know why? Because I didn't play first. Doesn't matter that it's my $300 switch. Doesn't matter that I spent $60 on the game. No. But because I didn't click "play" first, and Nintendo somehow deemed that important. This is a cheap trick to get you to spend $360 on another switch and game. Congratulations Nintendo. You ruined me as a customer. I LOVED Super Mario Odyssey, Luigi's mansion, Zelda, Mario Kart, Super Smash Bro's, Super Mario Maker, yet somehow, you wanted money SO bad, and I hope you realize how many lives and customers you ruined.
Well I agree with their comments about the one island per console basically trying to get people to buy extra consoles but a 0/10 is ridiculous, personally I give it an 7/10 due to the issue listed above and also the repetitiveness of the game, I mean I make sure to play an hour a day but after that hour there's not much else for me to do
If the one person island thing, is a game breaker for some, then they should be able to give whatever score they want. If that's 0, then so be it. People researching the game can read the pro reviews and get a balanced opinion.
I’m fine with people complaining about a feature they don’t like... but that is not how review scores work! So that one thing is annoying. What about the graphics? The music? The gameplay? Does the game function?
The only situation where a zero out of ten is a sensible review score is when you pay money for literally nothing.
Well it's back to number one in sales charts so these comments are not hurting it.
And I for one like the 1 island per console. My Daughter, Son and I all collaborate on improving the island. The three of us have all logged in every day for weeks to do our bits, and we all discuss what to do next, share resources with each other etc.
"Last month, we reported that Nintendo's latest major release was being review-bombed by angry and upset fans."
I'm not sure that 'fans' is the word I'd use for most of these people...
If they were 'fans' they'd know that every previous Animal Crossing has even tighter restrictions and you've always needed to buy separate copies to play with different players. Why is it suddenly an issue now, especially when New Horizons actually gives people MORE options for multiple players than previous games. not less.
User reviews are effin' pointless because of things like this.
Well, but at least that's fair criticism (mostly), not like e.g. Astral chain where it was only said: "stupid anime-game", "why isn't this on ps4" etc
"who likes doing chores to get out of debt from a raccoon?"
Nintendo should put this on the back of the game's box! 😂
Fans still have time to stop this crap before the game's user score drops below the current 3.9 of Big Rigs. After that, their air raids will arguably achieve the final invalidation of a whole package of electronic activity. By which I mean Metacritic (or what little of it was ever there to invalidate by default), not ACNH.
And once again, bad news from the sanity realm: "one island per console" design choice is a valid cause for some personal disappointment, but not for 0-3 points out of 10. Question: how does Electroplankton have a 7.0 despite no option to even temporarily save the music played? Answer: it has astronomically less fan scum preying on it.
fortunately the 1 island actually works well for me, i game more and my wife just got into this game so me progressing it is actually better for us both to engage. but i can see why this is a nightmare for some and an absolute dick move by ninty.
How can you review a game you have not played! Reminds me of a guy at uni who said 'Lord of the Rings' is rubbish and had never watched the films.
Yes you can only have one island per console but you have to review the game as a whole not just one point. People giving it 0s is not fair on the people that made the game. Be thankful that you have the game if you don't like it don't play it and move on as there is loads of great games to play!
Island sharing is bit annoying, but me and husband are still married and managed to agree on turns who plays when. Only annoying is that he is "island representative" so i cannot start any inclines/bridges or housing. But so far we have not fought where a bridge should be.
if there is more than 2 players in household, then it can be really annoying.
"There isn't clear mission" ...because there isn't. This isn't adventure or rpg.
...I always rememver Xenoblade Chronicles review from Amazon UK, where someone gave 1 star because they didn't understand the battle mechnanism and was stuck in the first bigger fight because they did nothing.
...or another where some shooting game, where they yelled it being ridicilous and nothing dies blablabla. Someone commented "you can switch weapons from button X" and original reviewer said "what? you can change weapons"
the fact only 1 player can make all the decisions is legitimately terrible. They absolutely could have designed around 1 island per switch to ensure that at least all the players got the same experience. Luckily I play solo, but that is a major design flaw in a game that so heavily endorses togetherness and a shared experience
Stupid trolls; don’t they have anything better to do with their time and lives?
Apparently not...
If they can’t differentiate fantasy from reality, it’s obvious that they are completely insane.
Wish they’d all disappear within a puff of smoke or collectively have their access to the internet permanently severed.
Toothless little miscreants...
@Crockin
Yes as I said my kids and I are working together on the island, which is great for us. (I can see it would be a deal breaker for others) But it is chuffing annoying that only one account can do certain things.
Not enough to give game 0 out of 10, but then I wouldn't give it 10 out of 10 either.
No game is perfect, there are aspects of this game that annoy me, but it’s a well crafted game with fantastic art, animation and mostly free of bugs. It’s a polished title that certainly doesn’t deserve a 0/10
Maybe these people could go play “Life Of Black Tiger“, they might enjoy it more.
Or they could work on their spelling and grammar instead.
@jcvandan Cus None of the games in the series do that, it's always been one town, if you had other people playing the same system your meant to help make it grow team/family effort
Review bombing is petty, but Nintendo could very easily fix this.
> Locking saves permanently to one Switch forever is ... when the Switch Pro comes out? You will never be able to move your save. Ever.
> Restricting New Horizons to one island, one player per Switch rips out entire experiences that otherwise could have been had with New Horizons and makes the game much less fun. This game is completely useless for families too. Does Nintendo even understand what the Switch is, as a platform? They don't seem to.
Both of these are offensive levels of anti-consumer behavior. Nintendo both misunderstand Animal Crossing and the Switch itself.
Nintendo needs to fix these issues ASAP.
@Teamugi Animal Crossing has always been about one area (Island/Town) for a single person and everyone who has a copy of the game gets their own island and can visit others. The whole visiting thing would be nerfed by having several islands on one console so they've done the next best thing and had one island but only one person in charge.
The ONLY thing Nintendo could easily do is have an option to change your island's Resident Representative at any time, but that runs the risk of someone coming and building stuff if they don't know how.
It's not Nintendo misunderstanding Animal Crossing, it's all those who seem to be new to the series. This edition actually gives you MORE freedom than in the past.
"... who likes doing chores to get out of debt from a raccoon?"
Might be the best sentence ever uttered in human history.
The only time I even visit Metacritic these days is whenever there's news of some game getting review bombed.
That site is seriously low down on my list of "people who's opinion about games I care about".
Clearly the review bombing is doing nothing seeing as Animal Crossing is at number one again in the UK.
Would have been better for Nintendo to give the game a single player only per console, most likely. It's a single player game, after all, with multi-player restricted to separate consoles, like it's always been.
Anyone who writes a review without actually having played the game ("The game is probably...") misses the point of reviews, which is supposed to be feedback from customers who have already bought and experienced it. What they offer are opinions on why they haven't played it - which belong in forums, not review sites.
1 Island per console is exactly what Animal Crossing is supposed to do. It's been this way since the first version.
Also the one person to make the important decisions. It's like a ship, and a ship has one captain. The captain makes the big descissions.
It should bear repeating, but if Nintendo really wanted to force each user to buy their own Switch, then the Switch wouldn't support up to 8 account profiles to begin with.
Animal Crossing imposes a one island per console restriction because the developers want it that way as they believe that's how the game should be played for best experience, not because Nintendo is trying to scam you.
What I seriously don't understand is: why on earth AC is based on 105 reviews, and Trials of Mana only on 11...?? What's going on with Metacritic??
@pblive @pblive Except, no that isn't how Animal Crossing has functioned in the past. Animal Crossing Gamecube, Wild World and City Folk all had 4 separate saves and 4 houses*, with all players having equal access to the game.
New Leaf only had mayor functions for the first player, but while unfortunate that didn't break the game for other players. Also that was a portable only game for a reasonably cheap handheld, it was feasible to have 2 or more 3DS systems - Switch is an expensive hybrid console.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons locks almost the entire game out for every player except the first one, even locking out seperate profile saves - Nintendo lock out the entire Switch to everyone except the first player.
When is this going to be fixed with a patch?
EDIT: Wild World was 1 house only - but all players had full access to the game.
Geez, just get over it. Everyone knows Metacritic’s user reviews are worthless, both the 10/10 and 0/10 alike.
@pblive I love Nintendo - I always have, I always will.
But when they do something awful (anti-consumer policies in this case), or they get something wrong (50hz releases on the Virtual console in Europe), Nintendo can only fix their mistakes by understanding they made them.
Defending Nintendo everytime makes Nintendo weak, not stronger.
In all fairness, I agree with a lot of the complaints about AC NH. I don't condone review bombing but considering that Nintendo is pretty tone deaf on things like this, maybe it's the only way for them to react? I doubt it, but we'll see.
@SuperJoeUK I’d say I’m having a close to 10/10 experience as a single player, but man the decision to design it that way for a shared household is beyond ridiculous.
The contrast in the comments when this first came out is ridiculously amusing.
One month ago: this is stupid, they should ban user reviews.
One month later: yeah actually this is understandable.
I don't really understand the complaints with the one island per system. This has ALWAYS been the case, the only one you could argue it wasn't was Gamecube but that was only because it was based on memory cards so you swapped out memory cards if you wanted a different island. This shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone.
As a "second resident" I don't even feel that restricted. My wife is the primary resident and ya she decides more things, but I can still collect, donate, visit other islands, build my house, landscape and design the island. As far as I can tell the only thing my wife can do that I can't is decide where new buildings go. If you're in the same household you should be able to talk to each other anyway.
I will say the multiplayer simultaneous needs work, though. The fact that the followers can't access their own inventory, the tool wheel, or pick things up into their own inventory is dumb.
For as long as people can find a way to make a point, they will. Of course nobody thinks this actually deserves an absolute 0, but they say it to make a point.
If I were family member #2,3,4, whatever, I wouldn't be getting the same experience. Say Player 1 has played for a few hours to start. They do the 'island rep' stuff, but also find all the bugs/fish first, do a lot of fossils, etc. Now Player 2 rarely gets to be the one finding things first, quite annoying and definitely a different play experience (annoying) but might still do a few things. Player 3 joins a few weeks later, gets to make even fewer discoveries, fewer decisions, definitely a less enjoyable experience again from Players 1 and 2.
Just because it's always been the case in AC, doesn't mean it has to be now. Lots of things are different, but you don't hear the same people saying 'oh, it's never been like that, change it back to the old ways!'. Lots in the AC series actually had individual quirks that didn't go from game to game. I'd like both of my kids to at some point have that AC experience of running the island, of being in charge - but I won't be buying them a new Switch to do so, so unless Nintendo patches it in one day, it's not going to happen.
Has the guy above not realised he can now play co-op with his wife on the same console? This wasn’t possible before on other versions. Also the Wii, GameCube and 3DS versions all had players sharing the same village.
@BigBluePanda family member in video game industry - trust me, it does if the complaint is correct. Maybe not with the current game, but I guarantee the next AC doesn’t function like this.
@RadioHedgeFund I’m a resident on my son’s island. You miss out on a lot of the creative nature of the game.
Between this and the Sonic movie getting a 93% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes (should be way lower imo), I think I've lost all trust in non-critics' opinions.
I’m not particularly enjoying the game. It’s not as bad as zero but in my book it’s not a 10 either for all the reasons people keep listing. One particularly frustrating issue is that Nintendo doesn’t allow me to play the same island on two switches, I’ve spent $500 on consoles Nintendo, please reward me by seamlessly transferring saves so I can just pick up one and go.
Nintendo can't hear you over the money they're making. Imagine a single player just spamming islands.
Haha, user reviews.
I'm glad that's a thing of the past on the eShop.
YES, I know you had to own the game, and had to have played it for at least an hour, but it was still useless noisy information to me.
This is why Metacritic is a joke of a review site. They have no measures that prevent people from review bombing a game just for the heck of it. Anyone who takes metacritic seriously is also a joke.
I wish my life was so easy that I could afford to get this upset over a minor aspect of a video game.
Biggest game on social media. One of the fastest selling Nintendo games ever made. Will probably end up being the highest grossing exclusive of the generation.
I'm sure Nintendo is really torn up, man.
With that said... sigh... the single island per console thing is a terrible design choice. Especially considering how sub users can't progress the development of the island and, as such, are little better than visitors. And not being able to even shift save data over to a new console without using some arcane method only Nintendo knows...
There are some really bad design choices here. Ones that make it a 0/10? Obviously not. But people want their voices to be heard, and, well, review-bombing is one of the few tactics that really get noticed.
Nintendo I am sure hurt by the 0/10s. They are going to dab their tears with the millions they are making from their new best seller
Well the 3rd newest “reviewer” lacks basic grammatical and spelling skills so I think we can wipe this one off.
I have no interest in Animal Crossing, yet I can see the appeal and with record breaking sales, I’m sure the public meta critic score is really hitting Nintendo Hard.
This just proves Nintendo and other companies right: having public review sites like this is absolutely pointless.
Okay, I get people's fustrations but this is ridiculous. The game isn't a 0/10 just because of this lacking feature. The game still has SO MUCH MORE going for it. The game looks amazing, there's still that core AC experience, with loads of items to obtain and customize. I have almost 300 hours in this game and I don't think a game that's given me that much play time is a 0/10.
Complain all you want about a lack of another Island but you still have a good whole experience outside of a multiplayer feature.
Maybe because I play this game on my own, I'm not effected by Nintendo's decision. It's a bummer for kids who want to play with their siblings or family, etc. However 0/10 is wild. That's not even a fair assessment of the actual content.
Maybe Nintendo will reconsider this decision in the future. For now they are uneffected.
4000 reviews that are pretty much split 50/50, that will make a huge dent in this awesome games sales.
@neufel,
Which is why we should just leave them to it, nobody bothers about them anyway, we all know their childish motives.
People complaining that you can only have one Island per console have obviously never played an Animal Crossing game. It has been like this since the very first game. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t make it a flaw. It’s a very intentional design choice.
@LUIGITORNADO,
You do surprise me fella,
@Sandro89,
Yes the awesome sales for this game shows that Nintendo's decision is wrong, and the final nail in the franchises coffin.
Or in reality the main audience couldn't care less, and it's a few moaners on the internet as usual.
I told my kids it was one island per console and made sure I played first since I suspected first player would make decisions similar to New Leaf. It has literally not been a problem at all in my family. In fact it is nice to work together toward a common goal in a game. We're slowly building a network of other family and friends with their own islands that we can visit, trade with, share turnip prices, etc.
Sure one island per Switch is probably partly to sell more Switches and copies of the game but I think there is more to the decision than just that. There are definite real world positives to sharing a virtual world. If I were reviewing the game myself I would rate it pretty high and the "one island per Switch issue" would be mentioned along with the potential problems and benefits but since it hasn't ruined my enjoyment of the game (in some cases it has enhanced it) it probably wouldn't negatively affect the score I would give it. Still I recognize it is a big problem for some.
@johnvboy
This. Also, the people defending the small minority of whiners review bombing this game here go to show just how out of touch with reality a lot of Nintendo Life frequenters are.
@gokev13 Right, and that’s how every AC game has been set up before. Families play together in the same town and help each other out and trade amongst each other. Complaining about it now just screams ignorance. I’m glad your family is enjoying playing the game the way it’s meant to be played, nice to see people appreciating it!
Agree one island per switch kinda sucks, it doesn't affect me and I helped my GF buy her own switch since I know we wouldn't want to share an island anyhow and we both would be playing non stop, so multiple islands on one switch wouldn't help my personal situation either. Regardless, I can definitely see how this could be a huge inconvenience for many, and I hope they can somehow change it. That said, the comment that claimed that this decision made Nintendo WORSE than EA is laughable, EA would probably give you Bells, NMT, and other items via loot boxes, and holidays wouldn't be free updates, they'd be a season pass. This is a beautiful, customizable, escape that I can play with loved ones via online in these trying times, and that makes it a fantastic game to me. Besides in prev iterations I believe it was one town per card/cartridge, not the same thing I know, buying an extra game isn't the same as buying another switch, just saying it's the norm for this team, I hope they take the constructive criticism buried in this hate, to heart.
Just goes to show how popular and successful Animal Crossing is. People don't bother to review bomb anything that's unpopular and unsuccessful.
@Phostachio
In Wild World you even had to live in the same house which I am sure was probably due to technical limitations. My girlfriend and I still managed to enjoy the game together. Now here we are with playing an Animal Crossing game with our kids.
Again there can be a lot of real world benefits to sharing a game like this together.
those idiots deserve to be perma banned from the internet.
I get that there's a situational component here, but...the back of the box acknowledges the one island per system. And I haven't had any issues being a non-Resident Representative, either, though I hope they patch in the ability to change it. Metacritic needs to scrub the reviewbombs the same way they did for Astral Chain and Three Houses. Such a shame this happens to a lot of big Nintendo games now...
Wow almost 600 comments! Think we can make it? What about 700?
On topic, idiots will be idiots. Guess they got tired of protesting and started review bombing? 🤣
I mean I have a couple gripes about the game, but that’s only because features aren’t present that were in previous entries - ordinance im lookin at you! And because this is the 50th entry of the series and we need a turnip bin by now.... make it function like Trash Can basically and able to drop inside or outside.
Still loving the game and just how expressive and creative this version is. Waaaaaaay more than any other.
There's only one thing sadder than review bombing a game, and that is knowing full well you don't enjoy that particular style of game and buying it, then giving it a bad review even though you knew you were not going to enjoy it. I myself simply chose not to buy it. I am happy it is doing well though and that millions of people are enjoying their game. I have the same opinion with Pokémon, I won't play a Pokémon game after trying one, but I'd never poo poo other fun with it. All the best.
@Phostachio,
Funny thing is those people that defend the moaners, will always feel it's Nintendo that's out of touch with it's fans.
Hahahah, everyone can dump off their pseudo-review without having even played the game on that stupid unreliable website?
Metacritic, you are THE SH1T in terms of gaming. The real! And you will never be good, ever.
Honestly, who is dumb enough to take this serious? Metacritic was a bad idea since the very beginning, and the weekly sh1tstorm that's happening over there is clear evidence.
right now, my score for the game is 9 out of 10. just like many others i have my complaints about the game.
unlike many others, i stopped caring about the one island per system. however, i would like more customization over the island.
unfortunately no one knows the true amount of people who hate, dislike, or don't care about that limitation. (that information is needed so Nintendo can find the proper way of fixing it.)
right now one of the best parts of the game is that there is always something to do. some of them allow us to get as many bells as we need (or want) even though it may take a while.
i read the review above about the second player not being able to experience the game as well as the first. i think that is wrong, but only because they inoroved the multiplayer experience of animal crossing over the years.
and besides the whole "who likes doing chores to get out of debt from a raccoon"; doesn't that seem to be a part of the game that we all know and love and probably stopped caring about. its just a game, so who cared about being in debt from a raccoon. lets just be thankful that we are not in debt to a skunk or a dung beetle...lol
P.S. my first complaint about the franchise was for the GameCube version of the game and it had nothing to do with the game itself. it was about how many older sister lost the memory card that i stored the saved game data for my games and i was more so concerned about the saved game data for my other games over animal crossing. I had 4+ towns, so who cares about the first.
@Yorumi You don't seem to understand that the features weren't actually cut. Rather, Nintendo has always planned to release additions as rolling updates. The developers seems intent, at least for the first year, to prevent "time travelers" from unlocking a year's worth of content in a couple of weeks. For us legit players, the pace of the game and the roll out of new features as you play is essentially the same as it was in previous iterations. New Leaf might have technically included everything on the cartridge, but the player didn't have access to most of it until after many months of play.
people being attacked for expressing their feelings about a game.. what an internet
Progress being gated to the person who begins the game? Thats a genuinely bad design choice.
Everything else sounds like sour grapes to me. I feel like having multiple islands would cheapen the experience. I'm genuinely sorry for anyone who bought the game thinking that you could do this. As a fan of the series I didnt expect any different but i'm sure for many people this is their first animal crossing. I hope that in time you can grow to like the game for what it is, because it's really quite neat.
@pblive @Mountain_Man for those saying that it used to be more strict - I would gladly buy another cart for another island.
but we don't have that option - so wouldn't that make this installment "more restrictive"? Players are limited to buying another Switch or Switch Lite
Nintendo: Sorry! Can't hear you over all the money we're making on Animal Crossing!
“If you don't pay for online your only option for completing the museum is absolutely excessive time traveling.“
I don’t know what you’re even talking about here. If you want your museum complete in a week then I don’t think you get the point of Animal Crossing and I’d recommend moving onto other games.
Also you are just telling your own perspective. I can play that too.
The game has given us a month of sweet fun, so it has completed its purpose for what it promised me.... everything else is FREE UPDATES while you see “cut content”.
I don’t think you get that Animal Crossing is a slow burn and a game you get to play through the whole year.
If this is your first entry then welcome.... if not then you knew exactly what to expect. Also, holding events through updates was made exactly so Time Travelers weren’t spoiling the game.
Enjoy the game, you won’t “finish” it in a month. Everything’s coming and let it be a surprise everytime. That’s why this entry is so great.
@Yorumi "you don't know that because Nintendo has not announced what is actually coming."
Actually, we do. Nintendo announced before release that seasonal events and other content would be released as a series of free updates. You're right that we don't know exactly what those are (that's the point; Nintendo wants us to be surprised), but it's a safe bet that things like Lief, Crazy Redd, and the art wing of the museum were not last minute content cobbled together after release.
"the game essentially requires online."
I disagree. I don't have online access, and I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. Yes, some things might be slightly faster and easier if you can visit other people's towns, but that was true in Wild World and New Leaf as well. Animal Crossing is deliberately designed to take a long time to "complete". Anybody wanting to rush through the content in a couple of weeks, or even a couple of months, is going to find it frustrating.
@Yorumi where do you get that he appears once a month?
He appears randomly once a week or two. Never a month.
And at this point not having online for your Switch is barely an argument for Nintendo’s game design choices.
Animal Crossing is more social than ever, get with the times, don’t be cheap and get some friends.
@Yorumi the difference is that you pay extra for lootboxes... you’re not paying anything extra for these updates.
So your point is moot.
Also it is not “cut content” that’s what you’re not understanding. The content is being drip fed.... just like Splatoon, and since AC is designed to last for at least 365 days, this is a welcome mechanic that I don’t think you’re understanding.
You should really play a different series.
@Yorumi Who the hell said anything about loot boxes? Did you miss the fact that Nintendo is releasing the updates for FREE? You don't need an online subscription to receive them.
@Yorumi Didn’t know you only paid Nintendo Online for this game .... ohh that’s right, maybe I did pay for NSO for another game and I’m reaping the reward of my service with AC.... yet AC is at fault.
What are we complaining for next? .... amiibos?
@Yorumi you can’t compare a loot box with a free update.
So, for you, any free update in a game is an excuse for getting mad?
“THEY SHOULD HAVE PUT MY FREE CONTENT IN IN THE FIRST PLACE, THIS IS A SCAM! WORST COMPANY EVER!”
Again, content being drip fed... just like ANY other AC before this one.
“You’re telling me I have to wait a full day for content? A full month?” .... Ummm are you new?
If you don’t like it you can always TT.
But, judging your arguments I don’t think you get what Animal Crossing is about.