At first glance this is the same game as the previous versions but when you look closer there is much greater depth to what was already there.

Firstly pinning Animal Crossing down to a specific genre is a difficult task as it does contain many game play elements from other Nintendo games we have come to love such as tasks, interaction, collecting and exploration.  It would also be easy to also lump the ‘casual’ gaming tag to Animal Crossing which would be wrong as to get that sense of achievement in this game takes time and dedication with a large museum, for you to fill, containing 100′s of artefacts and broken down into collections, but more on that later. Then on top of this comes the social side which is implemented by letting 4 people play in one village, on one console, then allowing you to visit friends over the Internet.

When you begin this game you start off choosing your name and even your village’s name, or you can choose to transfer a game over from the DS version Wild World but this transfers names of your character and village ONLY no money or items will transfer. Once this is done then you enter the introduction which makes you realise the clever ‘Nintendo’ like details bought into the game as you are on a train journey and bump into a local of you village who chats to you on the way and gives you some basic game play details and a map of your village. Another neat feature to point out at this point is that everybody’s village is automatically created by the game, and will be different for every game including the positions on the shops, houses how much beach and river you get and also which type of fruit is on your trees, again proves that Nintendo have put a lot of time into this game. Once there you will be lead to Tom Nook, who is like the local Ian Beale or Tony Hutchinson, and own the shop and he gives out the loans so you can buy your first house.

Once you have chosen which of the 4 plots you like you are them employed by Nook, in which is very much a tutorial part of the game, and he gets you immediately running errands for him and carrying out tasks which gives you a basic idea of what things can be done in the game.  The problem with this tutorial, is that it gives the player the wrong impression of the game and leads you to believe that it is very task and errand driven which, once your stint working for Nook is over, leaves you with a feeling of what do I do now?

However after a couple of hours exploring around your village you soon see how massive and detailed this game is, and how bigger it is than its previous incarnations.  The most impressive building is the local museum, which is empty at first, but has room for 100′s of artefacts which are broken up into collections: Fossils, Fish, Bugs, Art and even Stars all which has to be discovered and filled by you.  Furthermore the curator of the museum also credits the person who donates that item to the museum which actually works and is a fun bit of kudos to collect, especially if there are 2 or more people playing your village. Then there is Tom Nooks shop which is the main supplier of items for you to decorate your house with, there is a huge range to collect and also some good old Nintendo classic items too, there is other suppliers of items too for you to discover and come across. There is even a certain amount of kudos and point to collecting house items and making sure your house is decorated nicely, as not to give too much away, you can be given a rating for the design of your house. The main task in the beginning is to collect enough money to pay off the mortgage for your house which brings up some difficult choices, sell your items to Nook to pay it off or start to fill your museum?

It’s at this stage I should probably point out that to further throw things in the mix that this game is played out totally in real time, by the use of your wii’s internal clock.  This is not just hourly, like the shops closing at 9pm or daily, different days see different visitors arrive by month and years too with dates also triggering in game events to their real life counterparts.  This adds a further depth to this game with Christmas and New years just gone they also had their in game celebrations too such as the visit of jingle on Christmas eve giving out presents and a large clock counting down the hours and minutes to the new year which then triggered a large firework display.  Oh and before you go thinking about changing your clock or resetting the game without saving there are factors in place to stop you from doing this. Firstly if you meddle with your clock the game will know and will result in your trees and fruit dying off and if done too much will see everything in your village dying, meaning a lot of work and hours being put in to fix it all. If you are also thinking about turning of this game without saving you will incur the wrath of Mr Resetti, who may sound cute, but has the most irritating squawk and will talk to you for about 10 minutes and require you to press the ‘a’ button after every sentence with no mean of skipping, it makes resetting the game virtually impossible. So live events must be played out on the day or hour that the events occurs, but you will be given enough warning and reminders by locals to help you see them through.

At this point some of you may be feeling some slight déjà vu with the same characters, events and themes playing out from the previous incarnations of the game on the DS and further back on the GameCube. This is where the city part comes in, once you have finished your job at nooks the bus stop, the main gates, becomes active.  Walk up to the bus stop and hop on a bus to the city which opens up much more opportunities and things to do.  The only disappointing things is that the city is not as big as you think, and isn’t anywhere near the size of your village. Nevertheless it is populated by other characters, and keeping with the real-time theme, is more busy some times than others and contains lots of shops and services to visit such as the cinema, happy room academy and even a psychic shop. This is also the place where you can get that mii make over so you can use a chosen mii in game. Once this make over occurs you can then swap back to your Animal Crossing person, and back again whenever you want.  There is a certain trade off in this though as you cannot wear certain items when in mii guise so if you buy or collect a great hat, or other such item, you will have to swap back to AC mode to show it off. But the very fact you can swap to and fro within the game is a very nice feature to have in itself. We are lead to believe that everything in the Animal Crossing world does have some kind of result towards it which throws up some interesting questions such as what part Gypsy Psychic will play in the game.

The other area which will see previous owners returning and new ones joining is the online mode. This allows people to enter your village or for you to go out and visit other peoples villages. As well as the social aspect to this th
ere can also be benefits too, such as your friends probably having different fruit on there trees which are ultimately worth more money in your village, but also means you can plant those fruit trees which can then in turn give you an endless supply of money. The setup of the online area of this game seems fiddly compared to previous Nintendo wifi games, and still uses the same swapping friend codes system that the wii uses.  If you didn’t get given your code during the initial setup you will have to visit the main gate, this is where most of the network action occurs. Now there seems to be two misconceptions about the online side of this game which I want to right in this review.  Firstly that there is no option, as in Mario Kart or SSBB, where you can meet anybody who are playing Animal Crossing on the internet.  So you wont have some stranger from some far flung corner of the world turning up at your gates. This has two sides to it as it does initially seem a bit of a disappointment but this may have been introduced due to the cases of virtual vandalism that occurred on the DS versions. You also won’t be bumping into virtual strangers in the city either as this is only populated by game characters and not internet folk. The second misconception is that you can visit a friend’s village anytime, even if they aren’t online.  You cannot do this as both of you have to be online and one of you has to have your gate open, which is done by the guards on the main gate, before someone can enter you village.

It’s this decision of no strangers which makes the swapping and collecting of friend codes not only a necessity but also more laborious.  However once this is setup things work a treat you can open your gate and let someone in or you can visit someone else’s. Once you have opened your gate you can carry on playing as usual, and as another nice small touch by Nintendo, when someone enters you will be shown a cut-scene of your friend entering your gate and the name of the friend entering.  Once inside they can then explore your village, shop museum and plunder your seas of trees to their heart’s content.  You have a few choices of communication while playing together through a friend menu that appears this gives you the option of choosing from a pre defined selection of sayings or phrases and typing on the onscreen keyboard.  Also if you have a usb wired or wireless keyboard this can be used to type out messages too. The messages then appear in speech bubbles over the characters head and can be seen even if you’re not in the same area of the village.  The other option of communication comes in the form off the wii speak microphone which comes bundled with the more expensive version of the game.  There is a setup menu for this on the games HUD-like pop up menu when the wiimote is pointed at the screen.  This can be used by anyone who has it but doesn’t require all visitors to have one and means that they can hear you but they have to type answers to reply.

Once out of the online side Animal Crossing still provides social communication between friends such as being able to send your friends messages using the post office in game and selecting which friend you want to send post to.  There is also a menu on the ‘HUD’ which is titled Friends and gives you a list of their names and villages.  The last form of communication is a very nice little feature which allows you take photos anywhere in game, although this is more of a screenshot, so if friends visit or you want to show off the fact you where there at New Years day etc photos can be taken then sent out of game via the wii’s photo channel.  You will soon be swapping photos in no time and showing off your latest achievements.

In summary Animal Crossing is such a detailed and deep game with lots of things to do but as these tasks don’t drive the game and yourself forward sometimes you can be left with the feeling of what shall I do.  But once you get used to this you will soon realise that it gives you so much scope to explore the world and play how you want that it doesn’t matter what you feel like doing.  This means you don’t have to put time aside to complete a particular task or even carry on where you left off.  If you have half an hour to spend gaming you can boot up Animal Crossing and Fish till your hearts content but you will get a sense of achievement out of every aspect of the game from fishing, collecting fossils or finding out what happens when you pay off your mortgage to walking around weeding and keeping the village tidy.  This brings me onto the task of trying to explain how deep, detailed and talk about those classic Nintendo touches that have been brought into the game as I have not even gone into the levels to which they occur.  When you suddenly realise that you have to plant certain trees or seeds in certain areas for them to grow successfully, such as orange trees being planted in grass but near sandy patches or wowing at your the first appearance of your newly grown money tree that’s when you realise the level of depth in this game. In fact this game will leave you wow’ing for a long time to come.

Animal Crossing – Lets Go To The City Review score

Graphics – This is well above par for a Wii game, bright and colourful with Nintendo’s unique quirkiness and comic style.  It also has camera controls in open areas and in your house which lets you get to see the whole picture or see closer detail.  Star spotting at night just shows how lovely this game is and house items and clothing has a close attention to detail which just adds to the overall look of the game.

Sound – Sound in a pretty standard affair but with neat touches thrown in like classic Nintendo themes playing in the background.  The only downside to the game is the sound of the character voices with only two choices, 1) annoying 2) even more annoying.  You will be left wishing there was a third option ‘off’ or reaching for the volume control, so as speech plays a big part in the game it slightly lets it down.

Gameplay – There is a lot to do on this game with a sense of achievement and pride in every nook and cranny. The level of attention to detail contained in the game and played out with real time events  using the wii clock will keep you coming back for more, especially if you miss a monthly or even yearly event as the only real option is to make sure you don’t miss it next time.

Multiplayer – Animal Crossing really brings social gaming to the wii with so many ways to communicate with friends you will probably communicate more this way than any of the more conventional methods, and it also utilises the wii speak hardware. The use of Nintendo’s friends code system, and the laborious way in which to set this up, added with no way of meeting new people, unless you swap codes, brings the score down slightly here.

Overall – This is a great addition to the wii games catalogue, and long over due in many eyes, although at first glance this is the same game as the previous versions when you look closer there is a much greater depth to what was already there and with the additions of the city and online play gives the game a much more social feel.  Definately a slow burner that will still be being played next Christmas.

Written and Reviewed By:- Chris Bowness