Doubutsu no Mori e+

released on Jun 27, 2003

An expanded game of Animal Crossing

This is the japanese only version of Animal Crossing, with the addition of support to e-Cards for the e-Reader.


Released on

Genres


More Info on IGDB


Reviews View More

Much the same as my thoughts on the Gamecube version, but the features and additions in this really make it the definitive early Animal Crossing game, without question. I know the translation project has become more about decomp so we'll need to be (extremely) patient, but even the great work cuyler did in translating as much of the game as we have was greatly appreciated in helping me to see a fraction of this gem. Can't recommend this enough for enthusiasts, but the English Gamecube version will still do for newcomers.

"If you've got some real tight friends somewhere nearby, then you know it'll all work out."

i've been a huge fan of the animal crossing series almost my entire childhood, starting with me first seeing tom nook and totakeke as trophies in super smash bros. melee, getting animal crossing new leaf the day it came out and dedicating thousands of hours to it, and culminating in me spending almost the entirety of not just one, but two vacations obsessing over the footage we had been shown from animal crossing: new horizons just to get that game on day one too. it means a lot to me in a way that a lot of series just don't. it's been there with me through some of the most important times in my life, nights where i felt desperately alone or trapped in my own thoughts of self realization, and my first true experience with this franchise came with animal crossing: population growing for the nintendo gamecube.

animal crossing for the nintendo gamecube is a game that means so much to me due in part to how utterly stupid and sheltered i was when i had played it and when i was growing up in general. obviously this isn't at all to say that people who prefer old animal crossing or like animal crossing at all are inherently stupid at all, it's easily one of my favorite franchises of all time. growing up, i didn't love that the villagers were mean. to this a lot of people would probably say
"oh, well that seems pretty normal. i don't think a lot of people liked the mean villagers as kids,"
which i would respond to with a firm
"i did not know they were supposed to be mean."
most of it i thought was the villagers being silly animals who would say mean things just to be silly, kind of like a squidward situation. obviously after growing up and learning more about socialization i grew out of those notions, and while i appreciate it more knowing they are just kind of jerks for the sake of it, there's kind of an inherent charm to the dialog that i feel like most people don't have. it's near impossible for me to read the dialog in animal crossing as deliberate meanspirited insults as much as it feels like two friends being assholes to each other in that way where you can both tell none of it is serious.
if "i didnt think the villagers were supposed to be mean" is shocking to anyone, i hope it does not come as a surprise that 70% of the time when i played this game, i just didn't save. i had weird notions about how video games worked growing up (i thought if i peeled the sticker off of my cartridge for dragon ball z: buu's fury i would get back the save i deleted off of my uncle's cartridge with the sticker missing) and trying to remember i think it had something to do with wanting the skull shirt and mistaking me forgetting to save the game as it being a day one only shirt, but i genuinely couldn't tell you. needless to say, my experience with animal crossing is probably one that a lot of people didn't have.
when i played animal crossing, it was less about getting used to a small town where nobody knew me and everyone thought i was kind of a poser jerk. it was a game about meeting new people, and i think that shaped a specific vibe for me that i wasn't ever able to capture again since it stemmed purely from childhood naiveté.

but that wasn't all i felt couldn't be captured again.

at its core animal crossing for the gamecube is a much slower, much more spread out experience than its follow ups. everything is slow paced to the point where unless you really wanna work at something or decide to time travel, you won't be doing much when you play each day. it's a nice laid back experience accented by your snobby neighbors and one of the best, off-kilter aesthetics any game has ever had (it's a genuine shame how much they tone it down for later entries). every inch of the game is oozing with character and just the vibes of letting you live your life at your pace. fast forward to animal crossing new leaf, and the series has a lot of quality of life improvements and small new things with your villagers at this point, but it also has a lot more to do. your check in for the day can take anywhere from an hour to five depending on your plans for the town or how many bells you need for your next project, and animal crossing has suddenly become more than just a daily investment. it's a daily investment that lasts over an hour a day if you interact with your mayoral duties and it's expanded on even more with the wonderful welcome amiibo expansion. more things to do is always good! but when i'm in the mood for a game to put myself at ease, i can't say i go back to new leaf that often.
then there's new horizons, which gives you even more to do while also cutting out a majority of the soul and content that made up previous games. the entire game is now busy work, only slightly offset by the fact that checking in daily genuinely does not matter at all which certainly isn't winning it any points.
i just wanted a game i could engage with that captured that slow, my own pace feeling without having to sacrifice the new features from the later games, especially with how new horizons is so easy to get burnt out by.

and that's finally where doubutsu no mori e+ comes in.

doubutsu no mori e+ is an in-depth expansion of the original animal crossing. not only does it add more bugs, fish, villagers, music, minigames, and even a more restricted prototype of the public works project system from new leaf, but it also adds more character. if you have business with nook but his shop is closed, you can bang on his shop with a shovel until you wake him up. he will do business with you, but because you woke him up while he was sleeping, everything is 40% more and he'll take what you give him for 20% less. the reset surveillance center makes its debut in this game, which lets you meet mr. resetti and his brother, don, outside of the context of being yelled at for resetting your game, and that's just the special npcs.
the villagers in your town become a lot more fleshed out in a way that's reminiscent of later titles. you can become best friends with them, you can eavesdrop and listen in on a conversation two of your animals are having, and they even comment on the goings on around town, like your house and nook's store being upgraded. that's just the surface, but a lot of these new features are aspects that were completely absent from the original until wild world came out in the west.

but that's the kicker. "until wild world came out in the west." as of my writing this, the only way to play this game is in an unfinished fan translation and holding google translate up to your screen every time you see something you can't read yourself. it isn't the worst way you could play it, if you can decipher the context and intention behind what's being said instead of just taking google translate at its word you can make it work as a hold over, but most people aren't going to want to play it like this. for the most part, people are going to pass this entry by in favor of wild world or city folk, or in a lot of cases new leaf and new horizons, and that just bums me out in a way. there's a lot of character in this game that shines dimmer and dimmer as the series goes on, and the only way to experience that character and laid back nature in english is a version that's missing a lot of things that, to me, give animal crossing its charm.

i implore anyone who's a fan of animal crossing to try this one out or at the very least keep an eye on the fan translation. there's no ETA and the newest public build is over 2 years old, but a lot of work is being done and it'll be worth the wait once it releases. it's one of the most vibrant and interesting games nintendo has ever published, and i hope one day this is what people think of when they think of the definitive animal crossing experience.