Review: Animal Crossing: New Leaf (Nintendo 3DS)

The Animal Crossing series has had a relatively short life and is already known as one of Nintendo’s iconic game franchises.

The series allows the player to don the shoes of a virtual avatar and live their digital life however they see fit. The innovative advantage the series has over similar genre themes is that the in-game clock is synchronised to the clock in real life, so when it’s 9am, it’s 9am in the game.

The latest title in the series, Animal Crossing: New Leaf is a Nintendo 3DS exclusive and as the name suggests, aims to reinvent the series.

The Review

Animal Crossing: New Leaf starts out with your character sitting on a train headed to a new village. While there’s no strict story in this game, the basic chain of events that kick off the premise have you becoming mayor of the village as the guy who was supposed to fill that role mysteriously disappears.

And that’s as far as the game will hold your hand: the rest is up to you. You are expected to own a house and receive a mortgage from Tom Nook, a character who appears in all Animal Crossing titles.

While the mortgage is a lot easier to pay off this time around, there are many other places to spend hard earned Bells (the games’ currency). As mayor, you are expected to cater to the every whim of your townspeople which will involve building ‘Public Works’ projects, such as bridges, light posts and benches.

These not only liven up your town and keep you busy, they also add a huge degree of customisation. You are able to place your Public Works projects virtually anywhere you want. You’re not just customising your character, you have direct control over the look and feel of the entire town.

This goes deeper with the ‘Ordinances’ system which allows you, as mayor, to set guidelines and laws for your town. Choose to run a Beautiful Town, and your residents will water plants and keep the town tidy, removing weeds and garbage so you don’t have to. A Wealthy Town, not he other hand, will make sure the buying prices are higher than usual, allowing you to quickly save up some cash.

The best part about this system is that it’s entirely customisable. You are able to change what type of town you’re running at any time.

But we’ve only really scratched the surface of the wealth of customisable options Animal Crossing: New Leaf offers. The more you play, the more you craft your village into something that’s uniquely yours. It’s a fantastic feeling.

It’s also incredibly addictive. Fishing, bug catching, picking fruit, collecting fossils, exploring the special island and playing the fun games over there while trying to build and customise a larger house will basically take over your life. All these actions may sound monotonous, but they feel fun and never get boring.

For example, fishing is as much a game of skill as it is a game of odds. Bug catching requires players to have a keen eye and incredible patience. Growing fruit requires a knowledge of the seasons and careful planning of crops to ensure constant yield to maximise profits. It’s all surprisingly engrossing.

The in-game clock is plugged into the real-world time, so the game progresses in second-by-second real time. This means that you can spend 5 hours fishing and still have plenty of time to finish other errands; those who have played a game such as Harvest Moon will appreciate how the time system works.

There are some small niggles, though. The lack of in-game calendar is kind of frustrating at times. There are plenty of birthdays and events that take place throughout the year, it would be nice if you could access this information in one place. Instead, the game relies on your memory. Of course, you are able to mail reminders to yourself if you wish, but it seems like a simple calendar would save a lot of leg work.

Also, for the tens of thousands of items there are to gain and customise, there is a severe lack of storage options at your disposal and harvesting fruit on a particularly bountiful day will take you hours of backtracking.

But for every downside, there’s a solution: you don’t have to grow fruit trees. You can make money by selling fish, or just selling sea shells that wash up on the beach. Animal Crossing: New Leaf begs you to overcome these small frustrations by simply exploring the wealth of other options you have.

The Verdict

Animal Crossing: New Leaf is a highly addictive, highly accessible game that all Nintendo 3DS owners need to experience. There are few games out there that offer daily enjoyment like this one, and the refined presentation the Nintendo 3DS hardware affords makes it the best Animal Crossing game to date.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf is a game that is as challenging as it is nurturing to your creative side, and it’s all wrapped up in so much charm you would be hard pressed to find a more satisfying experience.