i played this during lockdown, from hours to days, days to weeks and weeks to months until lock down ended and we could all walk outside and then i totally forgot about it. i think about all that time wasted on this game; was i enjoying it or just distracting myself?
i always think to myself, maybe I should get back to playing this game... i spent so much time on it after all and it would be a waste not to complete my island that i had been working on for so long, but the dread of min-maxing my revenue to pay off my debts and hope that the shop provides me with something i can use to decorate my island and to collect all the fish before the season ends and to make sure i water all my flowers and pluck all the weeds and buy all the items so i can save it in my catalogue and to make sure i talk to my villagers everyday and... well the list goes on. this is just busy work to keep me distracted from... um enjoying the game? but is it me that's the issue? maybe i should learn to have fun with this game. but then you realise everything is stuck behind your revenue so you're back at square one.
is this game fun? what does this game even mean to me? who thought doing god damn chores was fun in the first place? this game made me really think about what people enjoy in gaming, and this is one of those anomalies that i never quite understood. this game quite literally distracts you from the real life just so you can do more unnecessary distractions in game. imagine having to earn you dopamine in a game, haha couldn't be me.
i mean lets be real, what else are you to do during lock down anyways? this was released at the perfect time and i was at the perfect age to enjoy it. escapism into a world that is just as stressful as our own, but i was the one creating this stress on myself. maybe that was the point of this game, that life is about consistency and dredging through the mundane in life and hoping to find gold or a little semblance of happiness at the end of the tunnel.
who am i kidding, it looks cute and has cute characters and got baited into thinking this would be a fun game and continued with it out of obligation. hook, line and sinker. nobody enjoys this game, surely? they only think they do lol
i always think to myself, maybe I should get back to playing this game... i spent so much time on it after all and it would be a waste not to complete my island that i had been working on for so long, but the dread of min-maxing my revenue to pay off my debts and hope that the shop provides me with something i can use to decorate my island and to collect all the fish before the season ends and to make sure i water all my flowers and pluck all the weeds and buy all the items so i can save it in my catalogue and to make sure i talk to my villagers everyday and... well the list goes on. this is just busy work to keep me distracted from... um enjoying the game? but is it me that's the issue? maybe i should learn to have fun with this game. but then you realise everything is stuck behind your revenue so you're back at square one.
is this game fun? what does this game even mean to me? who thought doing god damn chores was fun in the first place? this game made me really think about what people enjoy in gaming, and this is one of those anomalies that i never quite understood. this game quite literally distracts you from the real life just so you can do more unnecessary distractions in game. imagine having to earn you dopamine in a game, haha couldn't be me.
i mean lets be real, what else are you to do during lock down anyways? this was released at the perfect time and i was at the perfect age to enjoy it. escapism into a world that is just as stressful as our own, but i was the one creating this stress on myself. maybe that was the point of this game, that life is about consistency and dredging through the mundane in life and hoping to find gold or a little semblance of happiness at the end of the tunnel.
who am i kidding, it looks cute and has cute characters and got baited into thinking this would be a fun game and continued with it out of obligation. hook, line and sinker. nobody enjoys this game, surely? they only think they do lol
5 Comments
some interesting insight here, which is somewhat muddled by the lack of realization that pretty much every single game in existence needs you to earn your dopamine, it's just that this one is very hardcore, completionist unfriendly. it's chill, supposed to be stress free, but that won't vibe with anyone who wants to "be finished with it already". none of the things you listed were every day necessities to enjoy the game, you could definitely skip some here and ther and cater the game to your mood, not the other way around. it's people who either get into the mood of the game, or do not have that min-maxxing mindset anyway, that end up enjoying this game. it's a time sinker like any other.
and yeah i definitely enjoyed this game no worries, it's mostly a you thing (which is not a bad or unreasonable thing at all)
and yeah i definitely enjoyed this game no worries, it's mostly a you thing (which is not a bad or unreasonable thing at all)
@Mewtsukki thanks for the perspective, dont get me wrong i wrote "imagine having to earn you dopamine in a game, haha couldn't be me." as a semi joke, i didn't expect this to get so much traction but anyone knows me knows im incredibly impatient with games so its crazy i even picked up this game to begin with. i played AC:WW when i was younger and i was always fascinated by how the game doesn't tell you what to do and you just make your own fun, and it has so many secrets that you'd never find them without knowing about them or just stumbling on them out of chance.
i didn't really mention in my review but i never found that with this game. i suppose the whole completionist mind set is me trying to grind out the fun and to find out all the fun little secrets this game has to offer, but my intentions were not to 100% it or anything. for the most part grinding was only there so i could build my island the way i wanted, but i guess that was my downfall and i should have just worked with what i had. i tried my best to search for what i enjoy in this game while playing and pondering afterwards and i found fruitless hence the review. this is a review 3 years in the making in all honesty.
one thing i also didn't mention was the friend aspect. i liked the multiplayer aspect for 5 minutes until you realise how much of a hassle it is getting 8 people onto the same island that you end up just sharing screenshots instead. i think it is cute that you get to interact with people and leave notes on their townboard, it was fun little moments like that, that i really enjoyed. over time i've learned that a lot of this shit is superficial anyways and only shows how much time you've spent on the game rather than anything special, but that may be attributed to hanging out with a lot of min maxers grinding bells and "cheating" with the turnips and maybe thats why it ruined my perception of the game. maybe in another timeline i hung out with people who actually enjoyed the game instead of min maxing it, maybe it may have shown me what there is to enjoy? but i feel like no matter how much i give this game credit the negatives heavily outweigh the positives (FOR ME, very important note).
i dont talk positives much in this review because they aren't even that special unique to this game so i didn't feel the need to share. i am just sharing my perspective after all. (also that last line is a joke as well, no malice intent heh).
i didn't really mention in my review but i never found that with this game. i suppose the whole completionist mind set is me trying to grind out the fun and to find out all the fun little secrets this game has to offer, but my intentions were not to 100% it or anything. for the most part grinding was only there so i could build my island the way i wanted, but i guess that was my downfall and i should have just worked with what i had. i tried my best to search for what i enjoy in this game while playing and pondering afterwards and i found fruitless hence the review. this is a review 3 years in the making in all honesty.
one thing i also didn't mention was the friend aspect. i liked the multiplayer aspect for 5 minutes until you realise how much of a hassle it is getting 8 people onto the same island that you end up just sharing screenshots instead. i think it is cute that you get to interact with people and leave notes on their townboard, it was fun little moments like that, that i really enjoyed. over time i've learned that a lot of this shit is superficial anyways and only shows how much time you've spent on the game rather than anything special, but that may be attributed to hanging out with a lot of min maxers grinding bells and "cheating" with the turnips and maybe thats why it ruined my perception of the game. maybe in another timeline i hung out with people who actually enjoyed the game instead of min maxing it, maybe it may have shown me what there is to enjoy? but i feel like no matter how much i give this game credit the negatives heavily outweigh the positives (FOR ME, very important note).
i dont talk positives much in this review because they aren't even that special unique to this game so i didn't feel the need to share. i am just sharing my perspective after all. (also that last line is a joke as well, no malice intent heh).
for what it's worth, i generally like to give games the benefit of the doubt. for the longest time i thought i enjoyed the game! i thought it was special to me.
i gave some time to think about it, i realised if i lost my island would I still enjoy this game? all this time spent gone and i will have to reset. do i enjoy the game because of the time i've put into it or do i actually enjoy the game for what it is? and yea sure enough it was the former.
i gave some time to think about it, i realised if i lost my island would I still enjoy this game? all this time spent gone and i will have to reset. do i enjoy the game because of the time i've put into it or do i actually enjoy the game for what it is? and yea sure enough it was the former.
@patmeharder loved the follow-up on this thanks! sorry if I sounded belittling the comment about interesting insight was not supposed to sound like an offhanded remark, I genuinely enjoy reading why people might not enjoy X or Y aspect of games (especially ones I like) and yours was pretty much very well put!
I only had issues with your conclusion as to why it might have been unfun and the broad statement at the end, which like you said were most likely jokes so sorry for pressing further ahahah, because of course this is your own personal opinion and not and end all argument for the game.
But thanks for indulging on this anyway!! I painted some broad strokes, but I can totally see where you're coming from, especially since I almost engaged with this game in the same manner. You're right about Wild World being more mystical though, I still keep thinking if it's something with the time and how young the franchise (and I) was, or if it's actually the game. Didn't suck the fun out of it for me, but it did feel like something was, perhaps, missing.
I only had issues with your conclusion as to why it might have been unfun and the broad statement at the end, which like you said were most likely jokes so sorry for pressing further ahahah, because of course this is your own personal opinion and not and end all argument for the game.
But thanks for indulging on this anyway!! I painted some broad strokes, but I can totally see where you're coming from, especially since I almost engaged with this game in the same manner. You're right about Wild World being more mystical though, I still keep thinking if it's something with the time and how young the franchise (and I) was, or if it's actually the game. Didn't suck the fun out of it for me, but it did feel like something was, perhaps, missing.
NOWITSREYNTIME17
8 months ago