I really liked the original Animal Crossing on the Gamecube. Having a cozy life to manage in a new neighbourhood, with little to no stress was something I had never experienced in a game before. So when they said they were bringing a sequel out for the DS, a portable system, I was very excited.

So the game came out and it ended up being exactly as I had expected, the Gamecube original but portable. This is both for better and for worse. Just to get this out of the way, the game does not have many significant updates to the gameplay loop. You still start your day, do tasks for the villagers, and hang out around the town. You can now make new flowers, or build your constellations in the sky, but these are just minor minigames to the core of this game.

This by itself would be a bad thing, if not for 2 major differences. Firstly, its portable nature allows you to access your town and play wherever you would like. Unlike the GameCube game, where it was required to set time aside for your town, the portability allows more flexibility with when and where to play. It makes the game a lot more inviting.

Secondly, and most importantly, is that this game was one of the first to include access to the Nintendo Wifi Connection system. To put it bluntly, You could do local and worldwide multiplayer with up to 4 friends who own this game. This was an absolute game changer and allowed for a level of creativity and silliness that Nintendo is known for. The number of memories I have playing this with some of my grade-school friends, adding pitfalls or playing tag, are truly countless.

Nowadays, you would be much better off with either New Leaf or New Horizons, as they are much more fleshed out and interesting. However, this game introduced some of the core features that would be vital in their success, and to me, that makes this such a pivotal game. At the very least, check out this game for what it has done for the franchise.

I played a good amount of this, and it was cute, but it was very clunky and the entire social/multiplayer side of it was completely hamstrung by the fact that Americans, especially Americans in the midwest, did not have a Nintendo DS, carry a DS on their person if they did own one, or have the drive to trade the annoying friend codes even if everything else lined up just right. By the time this game came out the only thing anyone was playing in highschool was whatever shooter was popular at the time.

I started playing this game as an adult in the year of our lord 2023, EIGHTEEN YEARS after its release, and yet whenever I hear that sweet little robotic voice saying 'nintendo' and that midi masterpiece of an opening song playing through the shitty old speakers of my twelve year old DSi, it's like i'm a kid again playing this game in my childhood bedroom or under a tree on a summer afternoon, even though I never have. Animal crossing games are always infinitely cozy and comforting, and that mixed with the nostalgic graphics and sounds of the Nintendo DS makes for a game that I think stands the test of time.

I played this a lot back in the day but I doubt I'd ever play another Animal Crossing game to be honest. Even in a game that's not goal oriented such as Animal Crossing, we tend to create our own goals in order to enjoy the experience more. But even with the knowledge that Animal Crossing is a game without a goal, I still played it with a sort of completionist mindset. I tried to get the biggest house, the most amount of bells, the golden shovel or whatever, all the fossils for the museum... And having played the game in that way, I feel there's almost nothing a new Animal Crossing game can do that would make it a new or interesting experience for me.

I'm not a casual gamer. I play a game to beat the system and win. I even carry this mindset over to casual games like Animal Crossing. So I exhausted all of the game's surprises in an attempt to find some achievement in its systems, and what I found is that I fundamentally don't enjoy playing the game at its core - aside from the content treadmill that was leading me to complete the goals I set for myself. I think Animal Crossing is more for someone looking for a cozy experience talking with animal townsfolk than someone who's looking to max out a game's systems. I don't fit within the cozy gamer demographic so I think this series is just not for me.