Animal Crossing: New Horizons released with plenty of fun new features, all put in place to grant players an improved level of creativity. Terraforming was the addition that initially got everyone talking but, after 300+ hours of gameplay, I’m just as enamoured with the game’s Mystery Island Tour mechanic and ‘island hopping’. After all, once you hop you just can’t stop!
In New Horizons, island hopping is the act of moving through a series of islands in quick succession. This is usually to reap the rewards of each unique Mystery Tour or to search for a specific item, villager, or critter. It’s so much fun to visit uncharted lands, and the randomised element (no two islands are ever exactly the same) means that there’s always a surprise in store.
Why I’m Hopping Mad
Hopping on the seaplane to a Mystery Tour island will set you back 2,000 Nook Miles. It’s pretty expensive, but given the variety of islands and the guaranteed goodies that you’ll walk away with, it’s well worth heading to the Nook Stop in the Residence Services and redeeming some tickets.
Specifically, the Mystery Island Tour features around ten island templates, each with different characteristics and goodies. But these Island templates vary in rarity. For example, one hard-to-find type of island harbours large amounts of Bells, whilst other more common islands provide lots of flowers and fruit. Because the rarer islands are so few and far between, this is where the island hopping mechanic – visiting lots of island in quick succession – comes into play.
Gathering a large amount of Nook Miles tickets and setting off to Mystery Tour islands galore is a sure-fire way to earn Bells and fill up your museum. Additionally, each Mystery Island you visit includes a hidden furniture item in the trees, rocks that will provide raw materials you may have exhausted in your hometown, the occasional golden nugget, and a message in a bottle.
Available all year round, my favourite Mystery Tour island is Fin Island. Fin Island is one of the rarest island templates, and for good reason. This island’s waters are home to fish that are exclusively finned, the most valuable of all fish. Fin Island is the perfect place to turn a profit, but it’s also an excellent location for completionists who are eager to fill in their Critterpedia as the likes of Whale Sharks, Suckerfish and even the elusive Ocean Sunfish swim its waters. If it weren’t for Fin Island, my museum wouldn’t be anything like as complete as it is!
And My Castaway This Week Is…
Island hopping gets even more exciting should your home island meet a few criteria. If you have an open plot, an empty house waiting for an occupant, or less than ten villagers, then you’ll discover castaways wandering around Mystery Tour islands. And there are more than 300 potential friends to encounter!
Should you take a liking to a particular castaway, you can invite them to move to your island. When I first got New Horizons, villager hunting quickly became my favourite part of the game, and an unshakable urge to spend up to fifty Nook Mile Tickets at a time to find my dream villager soon became a frequent occurrence. As you might have guessed, I gave in to the urge a lot.
Prior to New Horizons and the amiibo update in New Leaf, players had no control of who came to live with them, and the residency of the entire town was decided by luck. In New Horizons, players who don’t have access to amiibo cards can still round up a host of their most wanted furry friends. Plus, even if the initial villagers you come across don’t tickle your fancy, who doesn’t love a bit of window shopping?
Though it may take a lot of Nook Miles Tickets before you’re face to face with your dream villager, for some people this mechanic is an addictive and rewarding process that falls in line with Nintendo’s overall goal for New Horizons. Which is, of course, to allow the player improved levels of customisation. New Horizons has already changed the course of the franchise, but now you can go searching for your ‘dreamie’ (an adorable term coined by the Animal Crossing community for their dream villager) just to make things extra special.
Play The Stalk Market
There is another way to go island hopping as well. With a huge pool of players mixing in the Animal Crossing community, multiplayer sessions are no longer defined by groups of close friends or family. Thanks to the Stalk Market (a way to buy turnips cheaply and sell them for big profits), there has been exciting amounts of travel across the globe, with players opening their Dodo Gates to strangers so that other players can reap the rewards of their turnip price.
New Horizons also released at a time where many people found themselves unexpectedly cut off from friends and family due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With no means to physically connect in a socially distanced world, gaming bridged that gap for many people including myself. Visiting my friends’ islands and chatting over the Nintendo Switch Online smartphone app was honestly a lifeline during a very stressful time, and I know it was the same for many other people too. Plus, I was able to steal amazing design ideas from Animal Crossing players who are way more creative than I am!
Island hopping may be new to the franchise, but I for one hope that future Animal Crossing games implement and even expand on the general concept. Island hopping is more than just an addictive aspect of gameplay, it reimagines the player’s ability to collect otherwise exhaustible items and find their dream villagers. It even offers a fun way for you to engage with your friends at a time when that’s not always otherwise possible. It’s a well-known adage that you can’t choose your family, but at least you can choose your friends and, thanks to island hopping, your Animal Crossing villagers!
Comments 53
I still busy with Terraforming my island and collecting money from my Non native fruits to increase my funds for purchasing inclines and bridges.
Those are very expensive items tho...
Omg island hopping is a major highlight. Picking a new neighbor from a mystery island is maybe the most thrilling event of any animal crossing game
I haven't done it in months, I was on very similar islands far too often.
It is a nice distraction though - and it's not like there's anything left to invest my nook miles in!
@KoopaTheQuick yea, but the author is not referring to just going on island tours. It’s the process of picking a new neighbor from a mystery island. Different experience
@KoopaTheQuick Yeah, Mystery Islands are cool but I miss the Kapp’n islands. Luckily, I think this will be the early August update.
With all due respect, Mystery Tours lose a bit of their charm eventually, specially when you have ten neighbors and no new potential neighbors spawn in the Mystery Islands. As of that point they're mostly just good for extra materials and rare fruits.
It'd be nice if you could at random find visitors in the Mystery Island, such as Leif, CJ, Flick, Labelle and convince them to visit your Island the next day or buy rare products from them. Or if you could find find Redd and get a hint on which will be the fake and real art pieces he will bring on his next visit.
The only time I island hop these days is when someone moves out and I want to get a cool new neighbor. I went through 26k Nook Miles to get my last one.
"...given the variety of islands..."
On the contrary, Mystery Tours offer very little variety. The vast majority of the time, it's just your island, only smaller, and the other times, it's just minor variations (as in one type of non-native fruit, and that's it). Mystery Tours could have been a great way to allow us to explore and populate our islands with a variety of non-native fruits and flowers, but, no, Nintendo apparently is reserving that only for people who are willing to pay the online fee to visit other player's islands.
I still love New Horizons, but the Mystery Tours feel like such a wasted opportunity.
The island hopping for specific villagers feels like a mobile gacha mechanic in my opinion. It even gave the game a unhealthy online black market economy because of that with Nook miles being sold for real money. I mainly use the mystery islands for some bug farming once in a while. (which is basically the same I did in New Leaf on Tortimer island while that even had the perk of it being always summer for sharks and beetles)
Edit:
Like said before mystery islands are also fairly limited in the kinds of fruits or flowers you can get from them. You are only able to get your natives island fruit or your sister fruits type from them, same goes for the flowers which also only is one of two types per island. So after you got your sister fruit and second flower type growing you can only get the other types of fruits from playing online with other players and buying the flowers from Leif or Nook's Cranny.
I guess the Islands are the most useful for getting resources, but after the first two weeks of playing the game I got more resources than I needed stockpiled by normal gameplay. It feels like they mostly were introduced to get enough iron nuggets to build the original version of Nook's Cranny.
@KoopaTheQuick they’re also the best way to farm crafting resources, gold nugs and diy recipes so I visit at least one a day. Maybe not that exciting but still very useful
I'm find the Island Tours very limited. Probably have done a dozen or so and only came across bamboo and pears. With no friends who play, it's a real impossibility to visit another persons island, despite having online subscription. There should be a higher yield for non native fauna & flora. Other gripes is villagers not doing house calls. With the amount of varied objects, it would have been nice to create communal buildings like bars etc. I do love ACNH, it has way more scope for expanding than what it currently has.
I have 100k in unused nook miles. Hopefully there’s a better incentive to use them in the future.
Nah. The island tours are not that interesting i'm afraid. Esp. when you have all the amiibo cards and play the stalk market a few times. With your villager and money needs sorted, trying to needlessly rare islands for fish just isn't worth the effort when you can just farm fish bait instead. I've got 170,000 Nook Miles with nothing i want to spend them on. Why-oh-why there aren't more Nook Mile catalogue items to buy i don't know. Only the fencing seems to change. Sigh.
New Leaf islands at least had mini-games, and could be visited 'with friends'.
mystery tours just get really boring after you collect enough materials or arent looking for villagers. at least in new leaf stuff like beetle hunting gave me incentive to earn bells to buy expensive gracie items, or island minigames to reward me tokens to buy exclusive island items. just like the games current state, mystery tours are pretty barren
I put about 300 hours into the game during the first few months after it released. I definitely got my money's worth and it was really fun, while it lasted. I feel pretty burned out on the whole experience at this point. Island hopping gets old pretty fast, in my opinion. I got to tarantula island a few times. That was exiting, but I found most of the other islands pretty underwhelming.
I’m sure I had successive mystery tours where I haven’t seen a single washed up bottle. Are you supposed to be able to find as many as you want?
I was under the impression you were limited to one every 24 hours, no matter how many trips you make.
The only other reason for me to go on mystery tours is to scout out new islanders, so other than that, I don’t bother.
As for gathering materials, it would help if they could extend that delivery service from Harv’s island (where it is absolutely useless).
I’ve spent over 850 hours on this game, and haven’t hunted for villagers once on islands since getting the initial 3 that are mandatory to obtain this way. Also haven’t been on a Mystery Tour since about May, as there’s just nothing I need from them anymore.
@KoopaTheQuick Yeah, the shanties were super charming. I miss those too
Yeah, I found out you max out at 99,000 miles, so I have to get tickets and sell them to Timmy.
@Folkloner 170,000 nook miles? When I got to 99,999 I thought it stopped adding more. I'll have to check again! Not that it matter much, I've obviously got more miles than i need
@Mountain_Man Big Business is my favorite silent comedy. I even got to see it on the big screen at a silent film fest a few years ago! Nice pic!
I wish there was a good chance of Redd being at a mystery island. I feel like I'm never going to fill the art wing of my museum...
As said by others above, I think there's absolutely no point in visiting the Mystery Islands after having reached a few milestones in the game. You can get all the creatures on your own island and no one will appear if you already reached the 10-villager limit.
I also have 100K+ Nook Miles that I don't know how to use (I guess it's bound to be that way for whoever has played the game long enough — or exploited the turnip mechanics in an efficient way), and having to purchase each NMTicket individually is also a huge put-off if the idea of island hopping ever crosses my mind.
@MajorTom You mention Tortimer Island, and I agree with you. Even though it was exactly the same island every time, it still felt rewarding to visit because you were guaranteed to bring home several thousand bells worth of rare beetles and fish on every visit. Not so with Mystery Tours which more often than not feel like a pointless excursion.
I had sworn off turnips after realizing my island, for whatever reason, probably just drew the short stick when it comes to turnip prices. They're continuously abysmal. So I figured I'd make money through other means....
Until last week, when I decided to give the stalk market one last try. I'm very weary about online play (though I know it's essential to New Horizons). But I figured I'd try the Turnip Exchange site and see if I can turn my fortunes around. I did and made a pretty nice haul. So now I'm looking to turn that haul around this week and make huge windfall.
As for the Mystery Island Tours, I think in the four months the game has been out and the countless tours I've taken, I've probably only seen the same four out of the 10. So I really am curious as to whether there are some unknown conditions that need to be met before encountering a specific island or if some are season specific.
"(no two islands are ever exactly the same)"
No, they can be exactly the same. The variation is so low that even when they aren't exactly the same, they're still indistinguishable from previous ones. It's a fun system at first, but definitely wears thin very fast.
And.. no, dreamie is not an adorable term. It's awful. And so is the culture built around desperately doing whatever is necessary to get a specific "popular" villager! Particularly the buying and selling or trading of them online, but the gacha styled going to thousands of islands just for a chance to find one is bad too.
If you are sharing your island with other players, it is a good way to get more crafting materials.
I’ve gotten the money island once (a bunch of rocks with bells). I have never gotten fin island or rare bug island.
I prefer to let the game randomly cycle through new villagers, and I already have far more bells and Nook miles than I'll ever need, so the mystery islands are not of interest to me. As others have suggested, it would be cool if Jolly Redd and others — but please, not Sahara — showed up there occasionally, or if Timmy and Tommy had satellite stores there with different products and stalk prices.
Villager searching on the islands is pretty fun. It's basically playing the slots but it's always fun to see what animals pop up. Hope the next one is dreamie. I have all my most wanted villagers now so I won't be able to enjoy island hopping as much. Maybe if I could have a second island I'd do a whole new theme with themed villagers!! I'd love that but alas.
Is this article 3 months old because I think most of us knew this is April...
"Gathering a large amount of Nook Miles tickets"
It should be "large NUMBER of Nook Miles tickets". Sorry to correct your grammar, but I noticed several instances in this article where you misused "amount" when it should be "number". If the thing you're talking about is countable, then use "number"
It's like "large amount of food" and "large number of hamburgers". Similar to to the words "fewer" and "less"
Most islands have absolutely nothing if interest except for the potential new villager, and going through the tedious ticket buying process and dodo dialogue for one chance to find someone you like takes entirely too long to be any kind of fun.
Maybe if there was a higher chance to find islands with resources that aren't pointless... oh wait, Nintendo already removed one of them.
@KoopaTheQuick Totally agree - glad people are finally saying this - those games need to return.
I only go island hopping like once a month when a villager decides to leave, otherwise I haven't really needed materials for months
@60frames-please Honestly doesn't top at 100 000. I have nearly half a million.
I'm not too fussed about mystery islands. I did some scorpion harvesting for big bells, but sometimes it takes many tries before you get a bamboo island and didn't have the patience.
Yeah this is definitely one of the most disappointing aspects of the game for me. Ten templates is nothing and you usually just get the basic island anyways.
Wow, I would respectfully disagree. I find the island hopping to be a huge let down for new horizons, I loved it in new leaf and I felt like I came away with something every time I visited. Now I feel there’s no reason to go island hopping so now I feel as though I have an inexhaustible amount of nook miles because I never leave my island
@Crockin but what of you're in a situation like me where you have all villagers and are content with that? This game is lacking content and we all know it
Mystery Islands stopped being interesting to me after I got the exact same 5 or 6 islands literally like 50 times. I've also had pretty bad luck hunting for new villagers; I've consistently ended up getting stuck with the dregs out there.
@PickledKong64 Yea there’s definitely some things that aren’t here but, Idk if I subscribe to the notion that this is lacking from a gameplay standpoint. Everyone’s experience is different, but I’ve gotten like 6-700 hours out of this game already. There must be something substantial about it.
Eh, I don't do mystery tours very often, I think the last one I did was back in April? I play the game in short bursts here and there when I need a little break from whatever other big games I'm playing, and also just before bed. Mystery tours necessitate a time commitment if you want to be thorough. Still, I have over 120k Nook Miles in the bank with nothing to spend them on. Maybe I'll dedicate an evening to going on some tours.
The mystery tours are just bland. They blur together so quicky and there is such little variety. It's a good idea, but they need to do more with it. Add some abandoned buildings, or ruins to explore. Or add some off season islands or maybe some islands with a cave.
My biggest problem is that random villagers just move into empty houses so fast. Last time a villager moved out they left on day 1, on day 2 the house was empty, on day 3 I didn't have time to play and on day 4 a new one had already moved in.
Without new villagers to meet the mistery island tours are pretty bland because most islands have nothing special on them.
The puzzle island event some time ago was pretty fun. I wish we would get more of those.
Okay, my challenge is I have no friends playing this game, so I don't have all the fruit. I would love to have a little tree grove with each of the fruit. I have apples, peaches, cherries and coconuts.
The mystery island only gave me cherries after dozens of times visiting. Can anyone here give me advice how to get more fruit?
thanks!
To me, New Horizons isn't anywhere in the same league as New Leaf was.
I played New leaf religiously every day without fail for years.....NEw Horizons I was bored with it after a month of it. Now I only dip in when there has been an update...it seems so barren and soul less compared with New Leaf! Everything is a grind and a chore rather than having a fun coffee with residents and popping to the dream suite to see other peoples towns around the world..or meeting new friends on an island with Kapp'n.
VERY disappointment with New Horizons, I must admit.
The islands in "New Leaf" offered the chance to meet other players online and make friend, iirc. Not so in "New Horizons". Missed opportunity for enhancing the online experience a bit.
@georgesdandre Ok, got it. Thanks
Looks like having those 453 amiibo cards saved me from insanity!
The problem with New Horizons is you can go hard and play the game nonstop since the game released and now you're in a situation where the game is downright boring. I have 10 villagers so I no longer see any new villager prospects outside of randoms showing up at the Campsite or by scanning in my limited number of amiibo in to the game. All of the recurring events are just dishing out items and prizes that I already have so what's the point in participating again? When new updates hit, the content is enjoyable and new for all of a couple hours. And then it goes back to being boring. I wish Nintendo would take a bit more of a community approach, hosting online events that involve people working together and different items could be made available instead of just the same old same old like the bug events and fishing tourney's keep giving. I'm really hoping seasonal events like Halloween and Toy Day end up being more in-depth and engaging than the really lacklustre Stamp Rally we had in the museum. I feel like New Leaf didn't get this boring this quickly but New Horizons has been a downright slog and boring AF after the initial launch weeks (and again outside those couple of hours after updates go live).
@TheCatCountry or they could've had all the content at launch. I swear today's gamers are so adhd. Old animal crossings never needed updates because the game was actually COMPLETE!
That's what I thought, but i was hoping someone here had a workaround. thanks!
Weird point of view... For my those mystery islands are both limited (as said above by lots of people), but also breaking animal corssing's illusion of living in harmony with nature, since you're basically aloud to strip everything down, destroying lots of natural habitats.. The game sof new leaf, but also having special fish or indeed Redd or other sparce visitors would be nice…
further more, although i like island hopping with my friends, the explosion of internet sites etc. makes it a race to collect all, instead of simply enjoying life...
Even though i've played horizons now for 400+ hours and love it, the sheer gamification and monitarisation of the game makes me feel the Original spirit has been (partly) lost...
Tap here to load 53 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...