Immaculate vibes, man!

I will always have New Leaf as my preferred Animal Crossing game, but after playing this for a bit I really respect the origins of the series. Sure, its more simple, more rough around the edges. But that makes it interesting! It may not have the endless content of New Leaf, but its got a unique feel, I respect that.

I will definitely be playing this more. I may write more detailed thoughts once I play a lot more.

I've been playing a lot of the first/early installations of the many Nintendo franchises recently, and what strikes me about Animal Crossing in particular is that they clearly hit the nail on the head first try.

The fact that this game has almost all the classic Animal Crossing mechanics and quirks that make it so loveable and recognisable is very impressive. I think even the most casual New Horizons player could pick up Animal Crossing and not feel like 'wow this is old and clunky' etc.

There obviously are some big differences that differ this from the rest of the series, like the grid map system that's tied in with the camera, as opposed to a 'globe' sort of view - but to be honest I don't mind it so much, it even feels like a nice twist from playing the modern versions.

My main issue with the game is that the gameplay becomes quickly repetitive and there isn't a whole lot to do apart from make money. There are almost daily random events, but they're usually over in a minute or so. If I played this in 2001 I'm sure I would have been hooked and could have played this almost daily for a whole year, but I'm 30 hours in and without changing the season manually, I've ran out of stuff to keep me interested (there's really not much to do in winter).

The villagers, art style, music, museum, furniture/interior design aspect - it's all genius and stuck the landing so well that it's mostly unchanged 20+ years later. While I would still just recommend people to play the latest game, of if they're looking for something more retro I'd still just recommend Wild World - however I'm glad I got some solid hours in.

The first game in this Nintendo franchise to be localized, where your player avatar lives in an idyllic little town full of charming animal residents with distinct personalities. Though the main objective is to pay off your house, the game is all about managing and improving your virtual life, collecting items through activities like fishing and fossil-digging, and interacting with the townsfolk for seasonal events and prizes. Considered one of the best entries in the franchise for its art direction and world. The series continues on NDS and 3DS. The original Animal Crossing (Animal Forest / Doubutsu no Mori) came out for the N64 and received a translation patch later on, but is inferior in every way to the Gamecube port.

I personally think this is still easily the second best animal crossing. This to me is exactly what ac as a series should be. While i would rate Dōbutsu no Mori e+ probably 4.5 as it is just the definitive version of this game, adding onto whats already an amazing experience (a shame it was never translated over), this easily deserves its rating. The villagers have a certain sass and realism to them that you just cant find in the newer games, they interact with you as if you're actually THERE living in the town. Obviously its gameplay loop is outclassed, kinda clunky and outdated compared to the future entries but it still has that nostalgic and enjoyable vibe to it that just gives off Animal Crossing to me. I LOVE this game, even if it is outdated.

While completely outclassed by its sequels nowadays, this is still a landmark title, both in the GameCubes' library and Nintendo's history. The premise of this game is simple, you have bought a house and moved to a village of animals. Pay off your debts and live your life.

It is such a simple premise, but incredibly addictive. The freedom that it allows the player was quite unheard of for its time. Of course, you had games like Harvest Moon that gave you farming simulators, but this felt much more simplistic and stripped down. You could collect fossils, grow flowers, make friends with the neighbours, decorate your house, and buy new clothes for your character.

All of this and more was at your own pace, but that is where I found the biggest flaw of this game. This game is based around a clock, so it felt like after a certain amount of playtime I was forcing myself to keep finding things to do. This is steeped into the design as well, since if you buy out the shop, then that's it for the day, or once you find all the fossils in the ground for the day then you can't find any more. Unlike future titles, which have more content to supplement this, its lack of content causes burnout to happen much quicker.

This is still a great game, but it's hard to come back to given how much each sequel has improved upon it. Give it a shot if you have the chance to play it, but you would be better off playing New Horizons or New Leaf if those are available to you.

K.K. Slider himself delivers Animal Crossing's thesis at the beginning of the game when you first boot it up. If you haven't given this entry in the series a shot, I'd recommend you try the game first before reading this review. This isn't a case where there's spoilers or anything like that, but I do think it's best to read this after experiencing the game for a while. This written from a retrospective lens rather than as a recommendation.

Animal Crossing is the strongest champion of virtual interactivity in video games.

This video game provides a world you live in for as long as you take care of it. It's like a bonsai tree that you maintain and cultivate, which gives it something akin to a life. Animal Crossing uses that life-medium hybrid to converse with players about living as an individual in a social world similar to our own. It makes lighthearted satirical fun of the world that made it in its friendly assholes and utopian capitalism. It's a fun world made to encapsulate and interact with reality.

Animal Crossing gracefully manifests what other mediums could only dream of doing; it creates a world for the player to necessarily immerse themselves in. The game achieves its immersion through participation with only brief, unassertive guidance. Unlike popular media outside of video games where their fictional worlds are statically and directly communicated, the towns of Animal Crossing and their meaning to the player change in ways not limited to the player's interpretation. The purposes within Animal Crossing shift to what players make of it through options in interactivity. Beyond the few tutorial tasks in the introduction, the game gladly welcomes its players ignoring any and all of the intent in its creation.

Animal Crossing encourages communication within its own community and beyond. The game tells you to share your town with your real friends outside of the game. It doesn't want to replace; it wants to support. The game constantly seeks to reflect you in your written letters, your brief friendships, and your impression on the town's nature, and it urges players right from the introduction to share your sandcastle town with others. Villagers from your town can move to the towns of other players you have interacted with. You can visit those other towns from other players by putting their memory card in the second slot. Animal Crossing can be a medium for connection.
There's something tragically idealistic here in what I see as this Animal Crossing's most unfortunate flaw. Animal Crossing has high hopes in this social dream that is a dated and ignored burden to fulfill in the present. However, I do find that this flaw does give towns some neat physicality. I can remember myself as a kid imagining the miniature towns being stored inside of blocks in those tiny memory cards where all my villagers continued to live out their lives, while the GameCube and the CRT it was hooked up to were a magnifying glass and an avatar. This flaw also did not exist in the series for long, as Animal Crossing's unfairly disregarded sequel introduced a much easier way to share your town with others.

Like the villagers in its towns, Animal Crossing itself won't last forever. It only has seven years left. After 11:59pm on December 31st, 2030, the in-game calendar will break and reset to January 1st, 2030. The game will still be playable, but it will no longer function as intended. Animal Crossing discs in their unmodifiable state on their GameCubes will succumb to this as their discs rot, memory cards corrupt, and consoles break. Future Animal Crossing games have been made, but none of them with the sass or the abstract zaniness that came in the first entry. The sequel I previously mentioned traded the sass for a pensive melancholy vibe. That sequel's banal follow-up completely eroded even that new identity away.

The series has recently built itself a new identity as something closer to a dollhouse in its bestselling, joyous, resortlike entry (read my review here). New Horizons captures what the world wanted as an escape from a pandemic at the time of its release. Compared to the original, New Horizons is more likely to go down in any history of video games for its popularity and the social impact it had. New Horizons serves as an artifact of its time. In contrast, Animal Crossing brings forth a far less idealized (but still very fun) reflection of reality. As the experimental origin of the series, it does less to interpret desires of the masses, and does more to capture a sentiment about modern lifestyles. Animal Crossing is artistic ethnography embedded in a toy with indifference towards being seen as an art. It's not a film, not a painting, not a sculpture, not a song, not a dance, not a book. It doesn't strive to be anything like them.
Animal Crossing for the Nintendo GameCube could only want (and deserve) to be recognized and respected as itself; a video game through and through.