This week marks the 15-year anniversary of the release of Nintendo’s community sim game, Animal Crossing, on Japanese shores. This marks a good time to take a look back at what makes Animal Crossing a beloved game for so many people.
A New Life
Photo Credit: Rice Digital
With minor differences between opening sequences, every game starts off the same. You answer questions that’ll determine how your character will look, give your character and city a name, determine what your town will be from a roster of randomly generated towns, and then you head off. For reasons never explained you never seem to have a house, but lucky for you good old Tom Nook is willing to build you a house right on the spot, for a small loan.
That’s really it in terms of a story driven goal, and that’s one of the beauties of it. You aren’t forced into a goal or a story to follow or anything. Tom Nook doesn’t seem to even care if you repay your loan or not, even offering to further upgrade your house whenever you finally pay off your previous loan. This laid back easygoing life is built upon more by the variety of things to do around town each day. Planting trees and flowers, furnishing your house, and fishing are to name a few.
The Villagers
Photo Credit: Neoseeker
It is nigh impossible to talk about Animal Crossing without mentioning the villagers that populate every town. Living up to the name ‘Animal Crossing’ all of the villagers are animals, ranging from Alligators to Chickens to Ostriches, and each of them follow a personality archetype that stays the same throughout all game appearances (with a few exceptions). Even knowing that, I know so many people who have their favorite villager who they always love and look forward to seeing in each new game.
To so many people these have become more than just characters in a video game. They have become actual residents in a town you share with them. You aren’t just left with the villagers that come with your new town though, people move in and move out. There’s something about seeing your favorite villager tell you they’re moving out in a few days or going in their house and seeing all of their things in boxes that can really connect to anyone.
Gentle Escapism
Photo Credit: Games Like Finder
Many people agree on the fact that video games are used as a means to escape the day to day lives we experience and do things we may otherwise never actually do in life. Animal Crossing does this in a very soft kind of way. They give you a world with lovable characters and all the time you want to give it, and they let you shape it into how you want it to be.
It’s oddly empowering. You can create a perfectly beautiful town with villagers you love and everyone as happy as they can possibly be. You aren’t a god or a hero, you’re just a human in a town of animals.
The Best Villagers
Now this is a bit of a hard one since villagers come and go, so this will be a focus on the permanent villagers who work at various places in the world.
1. The Able Sisters
Photo Credit: Play Nintendo
The story of Sable (The oldest), Labelle (Known as Label by her sisters), and Mabel (the youngest) is a heartwarming story about family that spans over two games. In Animal Crossing: City Folk you learn that sometime after their parents died from an accident, Labelle tells her older sister, Sable, that she wanted to go off to be a fashion designer.
Sable wants the family to stay together and gets in an argument with Labelle, who then leaves. Mabel was too young to understand what was going on then. Sable starts sending Labelle letters and in Animal Crossing: New Leaf Labelle is back working with her sisters and it’s safe to say that she is happy being there, even picking up Mabel’s speech patterns unconsciously before correcting herself.
2. Isabelle
Photo Credit: Smashpida
For those of you who have played Animal Crossing: New Leaf or really even know about it, you should have seen this coming. Isabelle is your secretary, and seems to love the job with everything in her.
She is always available to help out with anything you need, from constructing public work projects to enacting ordinances in your town, no matter what time of day it is. She even admits to sleeping in the Town Hall to make sure everything gets done. She’s like that person you know who tries really hard to make sure everything is right and can forget to take care of themselves.
3. KK Slider
Photo Credit: Wiki
Totakeke Slider is a laid-back wandering musician that is always there every Saturday evening to play a song you request. Later on in Animal Crossing: New Leaf he seems to have settled down a bit, becoming DJ KK every night that isn’t Saturday.
He doesn’t seem to care about the money, as he seems to provide all of his performances free of charge. He’s like that guy you know who is just super laid-back and is just nice to have a talk with.
Honorable Mention: Mr. Sonny Resetti
Photo Credit: Wiki
Resetti sure is something. He is in the game to teach you the importance of saving. Every time you quit the game without resetting he comes to scold you, progressively getting angrier and angrier until he resorts to making you do a variety of tasks to even play the game such as repeating a phrase by typing it in.
He would even pretend to delete your entire town if you reset too much. In Animal Crossing: New Leaf the Resetti Surveillance Centre is gone, but can be rebuilt as a public works project to the gratitude of a very thankful Resetti.
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