The original Animal Crossing was a huge title in my household growing up. My parents, siblings, and I all got a ton out of it in our own ways. I won't get too into it here, but it was something that brought the family together in a way subsequent Animal Crossings just haven't. New Horizons is probably the second-closest a game has come to resonating with the family, only I haven't played that one.

But I did play New Leaf. On two separate occasions, actually. First on my own, and the second time to prepare a save file for this Designing For video. This review is specifically for my second time with the game, but I'll discuss it in general.

A common criticism for Animal Crossing prior to New Leaf is the lack of direction for the player. Like you have stuff like paying off Tom Nook or filling out the museum, but a lot of that reads as pretty abstract high-level goals rather than the moment-to-moment stuff. I do think the appeal of Animal Crossing as a series is its often-aimless, player-driven experiences, but I also get it being the sort of thing to keep players who need structure away. Heck, it'd probably keep me away if I didn't play the original at a formative age. I get it.

Which is why New Leaf's retooling does a lot for the series. Becoming mayor and instigating public works projects injects new energy, giving more immediate goals while also leaving the choice of priorities entirely within the player's hands. The addition of Main Street is a great second take on City Folks's... city... better reintegrating the metropolitan characters and commercial buildings into the village experience. Reintroducing and expanding upon the original game's island was a great call, especially since giving a permanent Summer environment does a lot for breaking up the mood and tonality of the standard gameplay loop.

I think this is the first game where we really start to see the NPC subplots come to the front? I've always appreciated that the Animal Crossing series regulars, like Resetti, Tom Nook, and the Able Sisters all have ongoing storylines, with the characters developing behind the scenes over each game. It's been like this since Wild World started recontextualizing series regulars, but you really start to get status quo changes with New Leaf. If you're familiar with these characters, it's really neat to see Labelle bury the hatchet with Sable and move back in with her sisters, or Blathers get over his fear of fish, or Totakeke balance his drifter musician nature with a day job he's finally willing to call his own. And I will admit - suddenly finding out that Kapp'n, that good ol' salty sea dog I'd known for years, had a wife and daughter and mother all working with him at a family business legitimately got me to tear up.

But even with all this - the mayor stuff, the advanced plotlines, Tortimer Island, and so on - I didn't stick with my original playthrough for super long. Like Wild World and City Folk before it, I didn't have anyone else to play with, so I sorta fell off New Leaf after a while. Good game, but not much for me to hold onto. I watched the game's popularity grow over the years, silently pleased to see series newcomer Isabelle become a runaway fan favorite, happy that New Leaf suddenly got DLC years after the fact (practically unheard-of for a major game release). And for the longest time, that was it.

But my buddy approached me one fine summer day in the middle of one of the hardest years of my life. He had a video he wanted to do for Designing For, just in time for Christmas. But it'd require a village in New Leaf, built from the ground up, a bit lived-in, and would I be able to help him get it set up? And so I started a new save file and spent months gradually building up a town, little by little.

And I gotta say, I really went places with that playthrough. I wasn't able to pay off the house in full like I'd hoped, but I made quite a bit of the town all the same. I went everywhere with that game, chipping away at it bit by bit. I took that game on a business trip to Chicago, and fished from the top of Willis Tower. I took that game with me to a deer stand during that year's family hunting trip (and boy, did I feel like I was somehow betraying my deer villager doing that). Everywhere I went, every bit of free time I had being out and about, visiting family, going on the road, starting work on my longterm writing project, I continued to work on that file. A small sense of constancy amid changing job responsibilities and shifting friendships.

I think Animal Crossing as a series is best when it's able to become something that exists as part of your life. It was like that for my family in its original release, and it was like that for an awful lot of people through New Horizons. And for a little while, it was like that with New Leaf. It was a hard time of my life, but it gave me something stable I could work towards. And that helped a lot.