Gamecube - Animal Crossing

Format
Gamecube
Publisher
Nintendo
Developer
Nintendo
Country of origin
Japan
Genre
RPG

Animal Crossing

By David Rasmussen
1st Jan 05

Studio - Nintendo
Age - E for Everybody
Genre - Real Time RPG

Welcome to the world of Animal Crossing.
The 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year world that continues to move and grow regardless of whether you're there or not.

You start off on a train, heading to a village (which you are about to build). On the train you meet a strange cat (Rover) who seems to talk, and talk, and talk and talk... and talk. You'll see that cat, by the way, everytime you get on the train... that or another cat with no face, but that's another story.

Anyway the cat calls ahead of the train (after hearing your story, short as it is) and contacts a Mr. Tom Nook (a raccoon that runs the only business in town) and he meets you at the station to sell you a home.
Problem is once you buy one of the four box houses (which means up to four people can play in each "village" (memory card) you find out that you don't have enough Bells (the currency of Animal Crossing) to afford it! That's when you end up working for Mr. Nook in his shop (Nook's Cranny) for a short time.

Once you met your neighbors (about six when you first start the game) and got to know the village a little better, your set off on your own to make your living.
You have to earn money to pay off your debt, and to do that you'll either have to do odd jobs for animals for items or money, or you'll have to buy tools from Mr. Nook and fish, catch bugs or dig your way to being debt free. That is of course after you bought several upgrades for your home (of which you can't avoid since Mr. Nook won't take no for an answer).

How do you pay your debts? You go to the Post Office (which seems to also act as the village bank) and you pay your debt there (just ask the post lady and look for the option to pay your debt).
You can also mail letters off the animal neighbors (of which you can put gifts in there to bribe said neighbors, which might result in them sending you gifts back), or send fossils to the Faraway Museum (once you get your letter from the museum and it's added to your address list) in order to get skeletons back that you can donate to the museum.

Eh? Well you see, besides the homes there are several places of interest to see in this game.

Mr. Nook's business
At the start of the game it's called Nook's Cranny, a small little wooden shack of a store. But over time (and payments you make to pay off your debt) the store evolves.
Nook's Cranny - 9AM to 10PM
Nook & Go - 7AM to 11PM (the best store hours of all the evolutions)
(The convenience store version of Nook's business)
Nookway - 8AM to 10PM
(the supermarket version of Nook's business)
Nookington's - 9AM to 10PM
(the final version, the 2-story big store finale -- this is also when you meet Nook‘s cousins who have come to work for him on the second floor of his store.)

You can buy just about everything here from plants, to tool, furniture, carpets, wallpaper and more to decorate and fill your house (more on that later).
Of course there are rare things that you can't buy here, but you can buy lots here.
You can also "order" things you've already bought (as long as it's not a super rare item then Nook will tell you it's unavailable), or (if you have a code) you can get things from Nook that you can only get via codes. Just tell him the code and that's that.

Oh, and once a year there'll be a holiday where you can get a model of Nook's original business (Nook's Cranny) from the mayor (he's at the wishing well, where you meet him all the time for festivals)

The Post Office - 24 Hours a day. Mail delivered every day 9AM and 5PM.
Where you mail your letters off. This is also, if you happen to have an E-Reader and a Game Boy Advance link cable, where you can hook up your e-reader to the game and swap Animal Crossing e-cards into the game... HOWEVER the Animal Crossing e-card thing didn't go very far. In fact it barely started before the whole thing ground to an unexpected halt sooner than anyone expected and they stopped making them.

Thus there are very few e-cards available for the game. You can swap either the e-reader game cards meant for use with the e-reader (of classic Nintendo games which there are lots of in this game to find and collect for your house so you can play classic Nintendo games), or you can use the exclusive Animal Crossing e-cards (in their own trading card pack) but there seems to be only one of those types of packs available from what I heard, so that's not very much.

For my two credits worth? It's just not worth the hassle to get the e-reader just for those few cards.
However if you want to go through the hassle it'll add a little extra stuff to the game.

The Post Office is run in shifts.
During the day the bright and cheerful postal pelican lady runs the office, during the night the grumpy cranky postal pelican lady runs the Post Office. The mail is delivered by Pete, the postal pelican.
Meet him as he delivers the mail every day at 9AM and 5PM to talk to him (in front of your houses).

Once you pay off your debt you can start saving bells in the Post Office (like a bank).
Once you save a certain amount you'll get a piggy bank in the mail for being a diligent saver.
Once you save a fortune in bells (and that's a lot of bells) you get a Post Office model.
Too much hassle. It's easier to find the cheat code for it than to save the money.

Dump - Trash day every Monday and Thursday at 6AM
This is where you take your unsellable stuff to dump... HOWEVER do it the day before dump day since it's a downward mark against your village if you leave trash out for long (more on that later).
You can also find lots of stuff here from animals which you can sell or use, so check here daily.

Once a year a festival will come up that provides you a chance to get a dump model from the Mayor.

Museum - Open 24 Hours a day... though the curator is a "nightowl".
The museum specializes in four things.
Paintings, dinosaur fossils, fish and insects.
Fill the museum and get a museum model for your troubles.
Collect all the fish and insects you can and fill your list pages and get a Golden Fishing Rod and Golden Net which are more efficient versions of the rod and net... oh, and get stuff for your house as well so you score doubletime which is nice since it's HARD work to get all that stuff!
I'd say it'd take an entire year to accomplish this.

Police Station - Open 24 Hours a day
Meet Officer Cooper, the hardest working cop in town... in fact the only cop in town.
And meet Officer Booker, the most uncertain lost & found officer ever. Take anything in this room, Officer Booker won't mind one bit.
You come here, of course, for free stuff. But you also come here to speak to Officer Cooper to find out about what's going on in your village, as well as get a map (if you're visiting another village).
But Officer Cooper is known for more than just keeping the peace, he is also one of two animals who has created their own music (other than KK Slider who I'll mention shortly), and he's known for his Exercise Radio (go to exercise class everyday during the month he holds it and he'll give you an exercise radio for your reward which you can use to exercise with).

The Able Sisters - 7AM to 3AM
Nearly open 24 hours a day, the Able Sisters is the place you go to design your own clothing designs that the animals can wear (if you put them on display for the animals to pick up).
You'll need the GameBoy Advance link cable for this, but it's worth it since you can make just about any design you can think of! Of course you have to consider the "artform" (nothing too complex since it'll be such a teeny design) but if you have a creative side and want to express it? Here's your chance.

Kapp'n's Boat - Available only if you use a GameBoy Advance link cable.
If you link your GameBoy Advance to the game you can find Kapp'n (who some think is a Kappa) waiting to take you to the island (which you'll name). The island has one animal, which you can sell stuff to.
There is also a second house that you can put things in and decorate however you please, probably as storage or something... I haven't figured out the exact use for the house yet.
Oh, you'll find four aloha shirts on the island (in the house you can use) when you reach there.

One note - Use an umbrella. If you don't and stay too long you'll become sunburned, and one day exit your house with cracking skin, and gaping large black freakin' holes where your eyes and mouth were.
Ah. The one horror element of the game. This freakish transformation also happens if your game is shut off while your on the road (traveling) (you lose all your stuff too if that happens, which isn't nice).
The only cure for this is jumping on the train and traveling, or going inside and saving the game.

Whew! And I haven't gone into the meat and potatoes of the game!
There's KK Slider (get music from him once a night on Saturdays, and this is the only chance to view the ending credits), the mayor (every holiday seek him out and he'll have a gift for you, he also has a few other jobs but you can find that out yourself), and all the many animals who'll come and go into your life.

And you have to do maintenance.
Maintenance of your house because you'll be enrolled into the Happy Room Academy (another thing you can't avoid) and they rate you on the cleanliness of your home (and how well it's designed interior décor wise) which probably means you'll need to watch more of that house makeover show... what it's name...?

Second is maintenance of the village. Pull weeds, clean trash, dig up stuff (which is good for cleaning), plant trees (about 14-18 per acre is a good thing) and after two weeks of having a perfect village you'll be presented with an unbreakable golden axe (which is nice since you can take your frustrations out on neighbor's homes with it and it'll never break).

Uh... stop me now, I could go on forever... but a few more.

Holidays are great, but I don't know what kind of holidays the UK version will have so I guess you'll have to find that out yourself when you play.
Some of these holidays feature some weird characters (Jack, King of Halloween for one. Tom (turkey) and Jingle (Santa's trusty reindeer) being more of these weird characters) who'll have some rare furniture sets for you IF you're ready to earn them... you'll find out how as you play.

An addictive game that never ends, you'll find something to do in the village each and every day and some new thing to do... of course the game is not THAT addictive, but you should find yourself playing a few hours a week (if not a few hours a day) because it's good.

I could go on, but I'd be rambling on forever and ever.
And if you look above you'd have noted I HAVE gone on forever and ever.
Let's stop now before I go further... and talk you to into a coma.

Animal Crossing Breakdown
What's Hot? - It's a real time RPG that has infinite diversity in infinite combinations... ooh! It's an IDIC game! How Trekkish of me!

Well it's good. The only game that changes each and every day, all year round! New festivals, visiting animals (I didn't even talk about Saharah, Wendell, Crazy Redd or Sow Joan yet) and more things that'll keep you busy all year long! Add new villages (memory cards) and you'll have travelling animals (who travel from one village to another to set up home)!

When it comes to all ages gameplay this is one of the best I can recommend!
You can't beat this one, one of the few bright gems of the GameCube worth checking out!

What's Not? - As time goes on it might grow dull, but that's why you need more people. The more people you'll have (and the more villages) the more there is to do.
For some the game is even an obsession... until it becomes boring. But while this game won't become a lifetime obsession it will be a nice addition to your permanent collection well worth playing year round (even if you aren't playing it all the time).

Though I guess it's time might be drawing short since the new version of this game is coming soon for the upcoming new game platform from Nintendo. But I still think it's worth owning it.

Moments to Remember?
What's not to remember? The list is long, long, long and I could go on.
The best is the animal interactions, and the festivals. Some things are a drag, but most of it is fun.
Heck, you can even play at 2AM in the morning! Someone will be up to interact with you even at that hour, and that hour you can find Wisp the Will-o-wisp and that has it's own "job" once you find it.
It's memorable. Period.

What to Ignore?
As you can expect this is a real time RPG, so resetting the game is not recommended.
You'll get a firm "reminder" if that happens, by the way, so nuff said.

Otherwise? Hmm... ah. You'll find out about that soon enough.
The pain of catching some of the impossible to catch insects.
Etc. Etc. etc. etc.

Overal1?
I could probably write a book just on the virtues and hints of this game, but since this is just a review I'll be stopping now before I go too long (too late).
So if you can? Pick this up and play it! It's massively addictive, and while it won't be the be all and end all of your collection, it will be a game that deserves a spot in that permanent collection and played whenever you need a breather from the hardcore games to take a little time off with your animal friends.

They'll remember, by the way, and complain if you've been gone for weeks... or months...
They can even remember if you've been gone for a year. Believe me, it's true.

-- David Rasmussen 1st Jan 05

Gamecube Animal Crossing Images