ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS is Chill Fun During a Stressful Time
I’ll be honest, I don’t know that Animal Crossing: New Horizons could’ve come out at a better time. People are stressing out and the chillness of the game is what many have been looking forward to over the past couple of weeks. I myself became more and more interested in playing it as I’ve never played any of the previous entries, but knew it was designed to be a very calm game. Nintendo was kind enough to provide me with a copy and I’ve had a lot of fun putting hours and hours into the game.
The game is very chill and relaxing which some people greatly appreciate. I know I do right now. The premise is simple. You fly to a new island and work to inhabit it along with a few animal-people. There’s not really a story to follow, no real guidelines on what to do once you’re there and it’s very laissez-faire. I know that this would drive some people nuts, but there are times that I appreciate this approach to a game. You can create your very own Villager, but for some reason, you can only create humans. I don’t understand why Animal Crossing doesn’t let you create an animal persona.
The game lets you go around collecting materials to craft into tools and decorations. You can also gather fossils, bugs, and fish to build up a museum (or hoard for your own personal displays) by Blathers the owl. You even get to live on the island with a tent that you can later upgrade into a house. You can do things at your own pace which means there are some people out there who are just furthering everything they can do while many others are just doing whatever floats their boat that day. Heck, the other day I spent quite a bit of time simply shaking trees to get materials and fruit. What you do is 100% up to you after the tutorial bit at the beginning.
I also love how you can create your own designs that can then be superimposed on objects or even the ground. People are getting very creative with this and it’s amazing. The pixel art definitely helps many get a small hint of a retro vibe in an otherwise very modern game. This addition was absolutely perfect.
The graphics for the game look great and the music is a perfect pairing. There’s not much to complain about on those fronts. So, what can I complain about? A few things.
My number one complaint is inventory management. You get an extremely limited inventory space at the start and your tools each take up a space giving you very little to work with. You can eventually upgrade your inventory and get a storage space in your home which does help a lot, but for me who is someone who has to collect every little thing, it’s very frustrating at the beginning. Also, it’s very unintuitive to rearrange your inventory slots. There’s no drop down for it like one would expect, it’s never explained, you simply have to stumble upon it like my wife did or know someone who stumbled upon it (simply hold A and start moving in a direction to move the item). Having a better tutorial for item management or simply having it in a drop-down would greatly ease several players like myself.
Second, the local multiplayer is not designed well. On the surface, it works great. You can invite your friends to play with you in local multiplayer and you run around the island together doing things as normal. The weird thing is that one of you is the Leader (this can be changed mid-playing very easily) and they’re the only ones who can interact with others and do really anything. Followers can gather materials, but those materials go to the shared recycle box in Tom Nook’s hut instead of going to that player’s inventory. Why? These led to me and my wife constantly changing who the leader was to do even the most mundane activities in the game.
My third complaint is the lack of camera control. You get very minimal control of the camera which can be very aggravating. I saw a balloon in the distance with a gift but I was in the middle of a conversation. Once it got done I tried following where it should roughly be, but there was no way to look around along the sky to see if I was correct. In addition to a lack of camera control, anytime you get something, your Villager faces forward instead of whatever direction they were looking in. This isn’t a big deal, but it got annoying when I was digging around and kept digging in front instead of going back and letting me fill the hole in easily. I just want to easily fill in holes and look around, is that so wrong?
New Horizons is a charming and relaxing game to play. Some players may be frustrated by the lack of structure in the game, but that’s part of its charm. It’s a lot of fun to sit down and build up your island a little at a time, but there are a few things that can be very frustrating to players. Also, Tom Nook’s a jerk.
