Animal Crossing New Horizons took me by storm the first day it came out. I played it during my morning coffee. I played it when I was unwinding at night. I tracked the stalk market with my friends with an almost perverse glee. In here, I was in charge of this little capitalist enterprise. In here, I could buy things.
New Horizons felt at its best during it's opening weeks. The steady drip-feed of unlockables was straight up addicting. I loved seeing how much my island would progress on a day-by-day basis. But once that constant march of development slows, the game begins to slow down with it. This momentum of development will ultimately come to a straight halt after the opening segment. From there, it lets you jump right into what the series is known for- the sort of create-your-own-fun daily chore simulator. This is where New Horizons ends up falling just a little short. Despite all it's customization, despite all of its fishing and bug catching and fun little distractions, at the end of the day I'm drawn the most to interacting with the villagers, who come off as mostly bland caricatures of past iterations of the game.
While New Horizons contains the same bubbly (and extremely well designed) animal villagers of most other games (rip brewster), I find they don't have the same impact on me as the cast did in Wild World (my first and only AC game before NL). Prolonged interaction with villagers in New Horizons can get you only a few dialogue options, which tend to just recycle the same sort of tame platitudes at you as you go about island life. Maybe it's weird that I miss the snooty villagers calling my sense of style trash, but it was the sort of mild, snarky, g-rated rudeness that really cemented my villagers as villagers to me. While New Horizons tries and succeeds at capturing a physical feeling of being a fish-out-of-water, any social implications of "newness" are pretty much tossed to the wayside in favor of more customization options, which isn't really my thing. Still, I'd recommend it for people who love crafting, love cute character designs, and enjoy a mind-bogglingly big collect- a-thon with little to no stakes at all.
New Horizons felt at its best during it's opening weeks. The steady drip-feed of unlockables was straight up addicting. I loved seeing how much my island would progress on a day-by-day basis. But once that constant march of development slows, the game begins to slow down with it. This momentum of development will ultimately come to a straight halt after the opening segment. From there, it lets you jump right into what the series is known for- the sort of create-your-own-fun daily chore simulator. This is where New Horizons ends up falling just a little short. Despite all it's customization, despite all of its fishing and bug catching and fun little distractions, at the end of the day I'm drawn the most to interacting with the villagers, who come off as mostly bland caricatures of past iterations of the game.
While New Horizons contains the same bubbly (and extremely well designed) animal villagers of most other games (rip brewster), I find they don't have the same impact on me as the cast did in Wild World (my first and only AC game before NL). Prolonged interaction with villagers in New Horizons can get you only a few dialogue options, which tend to just recycle the same sort of tame platitudes at you as you go about island life. Maybe it's weird that I miss the snooty villagers calling my sense of style trash, but it was the sort of mild, snarky, g-rated rudeness that really cemented my villagers as villagers to me. While New Horizons tries and succeeds at capturing a physical feeling of being a fish-out-of-water, any social implications of "newness" are pretty much tossed to the wayside in favor of more customization options, which isn't really my thing. Still, I'd recommend it for people who love crafting, love cute character designs, and enjoy a mind-bogglingly big collect- a-thon with little to no stakes at all.