Thoughts on Animal Crossing: New Horizons (7 Months In)! - wave2hi

Back in the days before our podcast started... when I met Sergio 3.5 years ago, he showed this amazing scrapbook of photos of his experience in Animal Crossing: New Leaf in full color, pages front and back.

I was astonished - I told Sergio that I didn't know this was a thing and that this is amazing... like just wow. Couldn't believe it, and I mean... if this isn't the definition of a super fan of something, I don't know what is!

One of the very first screenshots that I took - this was during the "What is the name of my island going to be?!" session.

Honestly (in my mind), I did not 100% comprehend how someone took so much time and effort into compiling all of his memories + things he did in his town with his villagers mainly because I just didn't know much (if at all) about Animal Crossing and what it is about.

Sometime later in June 2019... when there was an announcement of a new Animal Crossing (also known as Animal Crossing: New Horizons) coming out on the Nintendo Switch, I was still a bit skeptical about AC and why there are so many fans and love for the series, yet I was extremely intrigued about this new entry coming up. Little did I know that New Horizons wouldn't just be a game for me... it would mean something a lot more than I expected.

Sergio and me - I dig the sepia tone forreal.

When the game came out in late March of this year, covid just started to hit our country (United States) pretty hard, and we had to stay in as much as possible and exercise the proper precautions to protect ourselves from the coronavirus (especially with the #1 thing of wearing a mask).

The timing for this game to come out could not have been more perfect, and I was honestly really excited to give this well-loved series a try for the first time. It helped that Sergio was hyping it up as well (and I mean... when you have a very positive spirit like Sergio who does not only our Nintendo Jump Podcast, but also Haken, a podcast DEDICATED to Animal Crossing, you know that you're in great company and in the right crowd to be introduced to a series like this).

The homies on deck. CHYEAH just look at that dude with the suspenders. I heard he's decently well dressed for any contest that has to do with the Roaring Twenties.

Right when the game came out, I delved right in and spent 32092340583905328523 minutes (ahah just kidding, more like 10-15 minutes) thinking of the perfect name for my island. I thought about a lot of things, but one thing that struck me pretty nicely was the fact that I live in a beautiful city called Portland, and given that I have much love for the Japanese culture and many things about it (especially the language which I started learning more on), I opted to name my island "Minato" (港 or "Port" in Japanese).

From picking up fruit and various bugs, fossils, and fish to Blathers to meeting more and more villagers besides the original two that I still have (shoutout to my man Rudy and my homegirl Fuchsia!), it got more and more of that "daily grind" kind of feel that I've yearned to have in a video game especially since I'm all about that life.

This was one of the submissions for our community's Animal Crossing: New Horizons Memories Album Reel! DJ Wave... what what?!

The idea of the daily grind is so important to me because it reinforces the notion of having good, healthy routines to keep yourself productive and stay proactive in all facets of your life (especially if it has to do with both your physical and mental health) - I value this philosophy to the highest degree and it keeps me going and staying as positive as I can everyday.

As I kept doing the daily grind stuff (especially with getting more resources and materials to craft), I started to understand why people like Sergio adore this series - this isn't just a game, it's a lifestyle. I was starting to get it (not completely yet since I was still new to the series, but still).

Lucy's Piano was a delight to play on - oh and that's Megan. She's alright.

Even having friends over to my island or going to their islands were adventures on their own - it's always nice to see what others are doing to decorate + customize their islands, and even meeting other villagers that I was unaware of (including the elusive Apollo who I was obsessed over for the longest time since I did not have such a cool villager on my island).

As a person who used to be somewhat obsessed with getting as many PlayStation trophies on every game I played, it was cool to have the Nook Miles system integrated into the game itself - it keeps me going and gives me small goals to accomplish throughout my time playing.

One of my proudest projects that I've done on this island! A full-on, old school (no three-point arc) BASKETBALL COURT. CHYEAH YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS!

When I was finally able to unlock terraforming - that was when the magic of this game unlocked for me; despite the fact that you need to be decently precise with this way of manipulating your island (whether it be planting trees in a certain pattern but you find yourself being a space off and having to eat another fruit to shovel off the tree to replant the tree again, or figuring out how to create a set of waterfalls that is symmetric depending on your center point location of where you want the waterfalls to refer to), it's a lot of fun to take in the process of customizing your island and shaping it the way you want it to look - it is a bit time-consuming, but it's definitely well worth it.

"Nice flowers bruh," as I would occasionally say to others who decorate their islands full of beautiful, different color flowers, which got Darrel to get off his seat and go to the other room to tell his wife Bec what just happened in both chuckles and disbelief at the same time 😅. The flowers do play a huge role in the look of the island, and being a "gardener" is very therapeutic that I started doing the whole hybrid flowers thing as well.

Flick, Danny (one of our gaming friends from our community), and me! This was during my "I gotta look like a fly pilot at this juncture.”

One of the things I really do enjoy about New Horizons is the ability to trade with other human players that you know who have their own islands - since everybody is set to have different colored items (especially the lighthouses), I was set on this mission to get as many different colored lighthouses as many as possible (since I wanted to give off the look of the whole Golden Sun thing with the lighthouses + as an island named after "Port", it made logistical sense to have lighthouses scattered throughout the four corners of my island). It felt like we were trading Pokémon cards or something haha!

As I got deeper into playing this game, I soon found out that there was something called the "Stalk Market" which references the process of which turnip prices are different twice everyday of the week; you would usually buy turnips on Sundays (the only day of the week to do so), and then you can use tools such as turnip prophet and turnip calendar to predict and determine when your nook cranny store would have the highest selling price that would occur on your island during that week. That got pretty addicting for me for a while because I was itching to get as many bells (the AC currency) as I can (I guess you can say that i was trying to be the greatest bellionaire that never was).

This was one of the days where fireworks were a big thing! I'm guessing that this was on July 4th? Not too sure but hey! Sprinkles is one of my favorites :)

I got pretty lucky in the beginning of my turnip days of this game and got some pretty good turnip selling prices on the isle of Minato - This was one of my favorite times in the game not because of how many bells I can make, but because it gave my gaming friends a really nice excuse to visit my island and check it out! I always love having others come to my island and it's always a grand ol' time. The concept of having other human players to interact with on your island is far from being mundane - it is one of the strongest points about this game.

I stress this a lot because with being able to interact with other human players in AC:NH, I've learned that there are so many people (especially in our Nintendo Jump discord community) who are very altruistic with helping you get the items that you want or need to make your AC experience just that much better. I have never encountered such generosity and positivity in any game or series that I've played. That is pure bliss and an incredible thing to be a part of (especially in a year where a lot of unfortunate things have happened, especially covid-19).

Oh you know, just two awesome dudes chillin in an awesome villager's house with pink bandanas looking awesome and thinking about the next awesome thing that they would do on their awesome day together at this juncture.

Although the joy of playing New Horizons has been quite an adventure, it doesn't come without it's flaws: You've probably heard about the usual things that a lot of people complain about this game (whether it be tools that you use suffer from "Breath of the Wild" syndrome, Bunny Day, only one island per Nintendo Switch, and how slow and tedious terraforming can be).

One of the things that I personally find a bit lame is how you can't really interact with the items that you have besides just placing them on display for everyone to see (e.g. with my basketball court, and given that the basketballs that I've acquired over time are multiplicative and scattered on the court and throughout the island in the hopes that my villagers can use them somehow...like oh I don't know, take them to the basketball court that I made and shoot the basketballs into the hoop?!)

Gotta dig both pumping iron + the flourish reaction (that's probably my favorite reaction in this game).

I think this is a design decision and maybe something that the AC developers intended to keep this way just because it would be a lot more of a development effort (coming from this with a developer background myself) to do so. Maybe, that's just me thinking out loud.

Another thing is that there's really no mainline story to the game (which could be a bit of an unfair criticism given that this is more of a social simulation video game) - even though it's more of a sim, I do wish that there were a bit more of a story to New Horizons that the developers can give us so that the game can stay pretty fresh and intriguing to delve more into the lore of Animal Crossing.

During one of the fishing competition days + Koyoto (in the red baret) gave me an ocarina to join team ocarina. Also, look at my blue soft-serve hat! One of my favorite hats of all time in this game. Totally fits my vibe of how I want to look in terms of being silly and cool - more cool though than silly. 60/40 split.

Especially for those who are brand new to the series, I could see why the second point I made could prevent a lot of people from putting more time and hours into the game just because at some point, things start to feel mundane and the "daily grind" can get monotonous and not fun anymore - I can definitely see it from their point of view. I think part of not having a singular story to drive the narrative of this game is inherent in what kind of game this is - social simulation.

I will also go as far to say that a different way of viewing New Horizons is that it's not up to the developers to give you a story to follow, but it's up to you to make your own story and craft a narrative that suits who you are, what your island is all about, and how you've grown throughout the development of your island in both the daily grind and the myriad of interactions that you have with both your villagers and other humans who play New Horizons too - that to me is one of the biggest motifs about Animal Crossing, and I think it's a very powerful feeling to have. It is quite seldom to see games do this and do this well (you can reference Minecraft as a great example of this, and that game has sold tremendously well over the years).

Right outside my most recent resident who just moved in not too long ago - Audie! The Wolfie of legends and fashion beyond the ages of many islands over.

At some point earlier this year in the summer + given the fact that I worked my way up to getting a 5-star island and was curious to see what other 5-star islands looked like online and get some sort of inspiration on how to make my island "better" and take it to the next level - I started watching more and more YouTube videos on super duper "perfect" 5 star islands that are amazingly and creatively themed with castles, Japanese cities, Pokemon, and others; however, because of this, I got easily overwhelmed and unfortunately, I started getting more obsessed over trying to make my island as "perfect" as possible because in my mind at that point, that's how I'm going to satisfy more of my experience with this game and really take it to the next level.

It resulted in me in taking an indefinite break from New Horizons (to which Sergio was like... I just have one word for you. RUDY) and got me stressed out over how my island wasn't ideal and didn't live up to what I think it should be.

Probably the most well-known alias that I've accepted on the isle of Minato - Butterbean. Also, Eugene is a pretty kool koala.

After some thought and a week of not playing AC at all, I realized shortly after that New Horizons isn't about customizing your island to be the most perfect or to compete and see who has the best island/ideas - it's about expressing your own creativity in a non-pressure situation where you can work within the confines of the island that you are given and take it one day at a time.

Having this mindset got me back into playing and I started to enjoy AC a lot more instead of feeling the pressure of having it be one of the best in the world along with the other islands that I've seen on youtube that are just glorious in every sense of the word. Since then, it's been a very refreshing change, and I've just been growing flowers that I want (instead of growing EVERY SINGLE flower possible), along with slowly terraforming / changing up my island a bit at a time + moving my villagers' homes at my own pace without having the pressure of having the ideal "customized" island.

OH HELL YEAH YOU KNOW THAT'S GONNA BE ONE OF THE GREATEST TEAMS IN 3v3 BASKETBALL HISTORY - PUT ME IN COACH.

I'm pretty fortunate in this situation because I'm a lot happier with playing AC:NH more than ever, and it's just been a lot more of an enjoyable experience ever since. Coincidentally, this re-aligned with the "daily grind" mentality that I've embraced and loved about this game since I started playing.

As a retrospective, I'm not 100% sure how I got into watching more of those youtube videos of those ballin' outta control well-designed islands, but I think it was one of those things that I was just curious about and definitely got carried away with how I felt about those islands (having to get to a point where I was just super envious about it).

The flourish with the original three villagers on the isle of Minato - Wave, Fuchsia, and R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-RUDYYYYYYYYY

Perhaps the biggest motif of this game that I truly embrace and love about it is summed up in one word - community. The number of interactions that I've had with people across different islands and in discord communities (primarily our Nintendo Jump community) has been the most uplifting and most positive multiplayer gaming experience that I've ever had in my life. Never in my lifetime would I imagine myself being 300+ hours (and still ongoing) into an Animal Crossing game.

Not only have I learned a lot about Animal Crossing, but I've learned a lot about myself in general and how I like things to be and what constitutes as my daily grind from this game to how I live my life. I've learned that I'm definitely not the most creative and efficient islander, I'm not the most knowledgeable about the ins and outs of New Horizons, and I'm certainly not the most ambitious about how I want my island to be compared to other islands that other people have out there online (granted, a lot of them have spent over thousands of hours into their islands, which is truly impressive and admirable).

Halloween shenanigans with both Fenyx and Lou (two of our awesome friends from our gaming community)!

What I have learned is that this game has reinvigorated my positive spirit, and has given me a new lease on what a community can truly be in a form of a social simulation video game that has given me more than I've asked for. I've been motivated and inspired to be more altruistic not only in the game, but also in real life with both our gaming community, and with people that I care about in general.

If I were to put a score on this game - it's easily a 9.5 out of 10 for me. It is truly a must play for anybody who wants to have a fulfilling multiplayer experience out there and maybe you'll be able to learn something about yourself along the way.

This isn't just a game, this is a lifestyle - the concept of paying it forward is so strong here. After 7 months of putting time and effort into New Horizons, I can truly say that it has been one of the most unbelievable experiences (not just gaming) that I cherish in my life. Before I sign off, I want to give a big shout out to the following people who have been very influential and altruistic during my journey as a fellow islander (either by real name or username): Sergio, Naprat, Snoflakeferie, Chuy, Laura, Lou, Bec, LightningNaga, Dragon, Koyoto, Light Blue Lakitu, SonicKing, and Tequila.

Thank you all for making my AC:NH experience that much more fulfilling and wonderful. Without y'all, I don't think I would have had this much fun in Animal Crossing.