It's been around 2 months since Animal Crossing: New Leaf came out and after a few community projects and some mortgage repayments I think a review is in order!
On Trial Today:
Name: Animal Crossing: New Leaf
Platform: 3DS
Developer: Nintendo
Game Type: Life Simulation
Audience: 3+
Gaming Style: Casual
Franchise: Animal Crossing
I have always been a huge lover of the Animal Crossing franchise and (as you can see from my various rants right here on Clix it) I could not wait for the next installment to appear following it's announcement back at E3 in 2011. My Wild World town was called Sun Town (not very creative but hey I was young!) and my City Folk town was Sunville (again not very creative but I like to keep the theme running), in order to keep the "Sun" name in my town I named this town Sun Cove as a nod to the new coastal featurs in the game like Island and cliffed beaches.
Gameplay
The game is very fun to play and the controls are easy to work and new players will be running round like a pro within minuets of loading up. As usual there is no specific goal to the game and you are free to make whatever you like of the game weather that be a sparkling utopia or desolate wasteland (hopefully you'll choose the first!). The big game point this time around is the huge amount of customization which is available to you.
The Biggest point being the new Public Works Projects that allow the Mayor (that's you thanks to a bit of a mis-communication between you and the Mayor's secretary Isabel when you arrive). These projects allow you to build many object in your town ranging from cafes and lamp posts to campsites and bridges.
You can build these anywhere there is room and once you have decided Isabel will rope off the area and place Lloyd the Gyroid at the entrance to collect you money to fund the project (Other villagers will donate but its more like loose change, it will be you spending the big bucks here). You can pay off each project at your own leisure but you may only have one project on-going at a time.
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| Me Paying off my Cafe |
Once paid off the object will be built overnight and the next day you can hold a ceremony for the new public work, in which your villagers will celebrate everyone's (your's) hard work to raise the money.
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| "Yay for everyone!" |
As always you can wear any of your own (or others') designs as a shirt, with Pro Designs making a return so you can customize your threads using the front back and sleeves as separate canvases. In New Leaf it is now possible to project your own designs onto furniture as well as re covering many of the items available to you with the help of your local Re-Tail alpaca, Cyrus. Cyrus is the husband of Reese and they both work in Re-Tail, the recycle shop that buys your items for 20% more than the Nook twins and allows you to put your own items up for flea market at your own price, as well as letting you purchase items left for sale by other villagers. He is not available at the start of the game but as soon as you have completed certain criteria (which I won't list here as to not spoil your experience) he will wake up and offer his services.
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| My new bridge! |
Another great feature is the ability to build your house anywhere giving you free reign over your location. I placed mine by the main bridge and the slope to the beach giving me good access when I started up my game. After a while I did feel the need to build an extra bridge to stop me having to run around the entire town just to get to Re-Tail! Fair warning though, this freedom of placement is extended to your villagers so when they move in watch out or you may find those perfect cherry trees of yours have been demolished by a new french frog called Constau! (can you tell I wasn't happy about this when it happened?).
Another brand new addition to the game was the introduction of Main Street, Just across the railroads you will find an area where all of your local shops are in one handy location. The street expands the more you shop and I have nearly unlocked all of the shops, which is an achievement in itself!
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| Leif and the Garden Shop |
To the east of the entrance you will find the Nookling's shop, The Garden Shop, The Able Sisters, Shampoodle and Kicks. The Nookling store goes through upgrades as in other games but is run by Timmy and Tommy, Nook's nephews. The store upgrades the more you spend so go on treat yourself to a nice new chair or how about that wall covering? They also sell a new item called the fortune cookie which you can eat to get a numbered ticket to then exchange for Nintendo themed items (so far I have Link's sword, a Yoshi egg, Pikmin, Mario's Kart, a "?" block and an NES) these cookies are bought with play coins that you get from walking around with the 3DS on standby (the same currency used in the AR games.)
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| Labelle in the accessory department |
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| Harriet showing me her new hair dryer |
The garden shop is rather an extension of the first with the sloth named Leif selling 2 packets of seeds, a shrub (bush, sapling or ceder sapling) and either an Axe or watering can (both of which are no longer sold at nooks). The able sisters is much like before offering clothing (including trousers) and the custom design facility. Once friends with sable she will get a new sewing machine where you can turn your designs into QR codes and have friends scan them with their 3DS' to get your designs and vice verse.Adjoined to the familiar shop is an extention where Labelle sells her accessories (apparently she has quit her job at Gracie Gracie in the time between City Folk and New Leaf). Shampoodle is the same as before, offering ways to customize your hair with a riddle like question system and a funky dryer but with the added option of coloured contacts after 2 haircuts which I haven't yet tried!
Kicks, the shoe shiner from City Folk, has gone up in the world and has his own shop (named after himself) that offers a similar service to the Able Sisters but sells clothing for your feet! Shoes and socks can be brought from him to make your lower half look better, because Nintendo obviously take their shoe care seriously.
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| Check out my new hair :) |
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| Lyle and a tired looking Nook |
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| Me and Shrunk using "Flourish" |
To the West of main street includes the Post office where you can send mail and save your cash. You can also access the loan repayment system to repay your mortgage and you can connect to the net to download special gifts from Nintendo. Nooks Homes is next. Here Nook sells new mailboxes, pavements, exterior walls, roofs, doors and fences for your house making this you most customizable house ever. Lyle from the HRH is set up here allowing you to check your HRH points, eliminating the need for all of those HUNDREDS of letters they used to send you, big hooray fro a clean mailbox! Pete will be pleased. Club LOL is one down from Nooks where Dr Shrunk will perform his jokes for food, allowing you to learn new emotions, and this time you can learn them all! The Dream Suite is the next building where you can visit dream versions of other towns to get ideas of how to decorate your town and houses. If allowed you can also take some of their designs so you can use them once you wake up. Sadly you can't take fruit and things but come on, that would be too easy!!! Once per day you can also upload a "dream" of your town to Nintendo to allow others to visit from their Dream Suite's, you also get 5,000 bells for doing this so why not?
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Sure for the clients, absolutely
not for the 5,000 bell reward! |
Katrinas fortune shop is the next in line where you can get your fortune told to try and boost your luck for the day, which can be very powerful in making the day a day for gold finding or tripping and falling. The photo booth is situated after that allowing you to take a photo for you ID card, you can use emotions while inside to create some cool pics. (Just in case you wanted to know at any time you are able to press R and L to take a screenshot to your SD card, which is how I have been taking these pics here!). The Museum is on main street too but will be either east or west depending on the location of the coast in your town (it will be the opposite). At the museum you can donate bugs, fish, fossils and paintings as normal but once the second floor is built you can display your own exhibits buy buying a room and decorating it how you like! Celeste runs the Gift Shop upstairs too, where you can buy display cases and other museum stuff for your home or exhibits and silver tools once you have donated enough to blathers downstairs.
I could go on for hours about the Gameplay, and I haven't even mentioned the Island but I think I have covered the main points here, ill try to cover the Island games in and extra post later on!
Graphics
This game has a major improvement on the graphics from the Wii version. The world is much more textured, especial the animal textures, than before and the rolling world really looks 3D with the lighting and shading put onto it. The tree's have been re-designed too with a more rounded trunk, when chopped there is also a chance that the stump will have a design in the middle. Fruit trees have darker leaves than non fruit trees allowing you to tell the difference even when they are not bearing fruit which is a nice helpful addition to the game. The effects that occur during actions like the little kick of dust when running or the rock cracking when you find the day's gem rock all add to the charm of the game. While they re-introduced the grass wear to the graphics, Nintendo made the wear rate slower and the re-grow rate faster, especially in the rain, so the world feels really alive. The way some of the new bugs have been animated also look pretty cool, like the new "walking leaf" which takes the appearance of a furniture leaf and then turns into a big when you get close.
Music
The new music in the game this time around takes a more relaxed sound than in previous games, and certain times of day incorporated certain sound to create the feeling of passing time. For instance the midnight theme is really slow and full of metallic sounds whereas midday uses wood and piano to create a more awake and lively theme. The club mixes of KK tracks are awesome too, the theme nights where music from other Nintendo games are featured are my favorites as I enjoy geeky nods to other games.
Closing Comments
Overall I have LOVED playing the game and have really enjoyed myself while creating my town. The highly customizable content makes this game so free to play and allows me to do what I like when I like, so I can freely choose what I want to do with my game. The game is really fun to play and there are so many challenges to take on like creating the perfect town, growing and selling delicious fruit, completing main street, filling the museum, paying off your mortgage and more the game is practically endless.
It didn't take me long to decide on the score for this game and I doubt many of you will be shocked that I give Animal Crossing: New Leaf
5 out of 5 Clicks
I will try to keep you updated on my town here so check back
that's all from me for now
Josh!
