Customer Reviews

Animal Crossing

5 star:		(106)
4 star:		(54)
3 star:		(30)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

This game is totally addictive- I thought it looked pretty stupid when I saw commercials for it but it is a blast to play. HOWEVER, that being said, if you purchase this game be sure to do a good deal of research before beginning. There are a lot of things that you will not be made aware of until you are already well into the game and it feels like it is too late to start it over as you have built up an inventory, developed friendships with your neighbors, and paid off your house.

First of all, there are several different town layouts. I did not know this and just took the first one offered to me. Apparently if you are not happy with this layout you can keep restarting until you get one you like, and there are some really nice town layouts out there, one that I especially wish I had gotten with two rivers and an island that seems much bigger than my town.

Secondly, this is something that you are not really told in the instructions or in the manual-- DO NOT RUN AROUND your town!! Doing so will wear your grass down until it is gone and you have large patches of brown dirt everywhere. Some people's towns are practically desert wastelands. This is not just an aesthetic issue- it affects game play, as you need grass in order to catch certain bugs, to plant trees and flowers, and during the winter the snow 'is' the grass so where there is no grass there will be no snow. You need snow in order to make snowmen, for which you recieve snowman furniture that cannot be obtained any other way- it is not for sale, it can only be gotten by making the perfect snowman. If you have no snow, you cannot do this. And apparently making the snowman also kills the grass. This is a feature that was built into the game called "animal tracks." It is supposed to work where after a couple of months the areas where your character is always walking, such as to Nook's store or the museum or post office will eventually show trails. However, if you run, or if you log on multiple times a day, say to play different characters (which the game is designed to do- you have 4 houses and 4 potential characters and when families are playing they have to take turns logging on, yet the grass only regenerates a certain amount each day at 6 am, but each time you log on you counts as a day that you are putting wear and tear on your grass- therefore, your grass regrowth will be 3-5 times slower than its regeneration) and once it has been worn down you will see small dots where it is growing back but unfortunately one step on that 'square' and you will see that tiny bit of regrowth literally disappear under your feet. Nintendo's answer to this is to plant trees and flowers in those areas as that is supposed to make the grass grow faster. The problem is, to plant them, and then in order to water the flowers and pick the weeds and harvest the fruit, you still have to step on the area and there goes your regrowth and you are back to square one. It is unfortunate that the game has this built in and that they made the grass growth so much slower than its degeneration, especially when playing multiple players or when playing via wifi and having people come to your town. The wifi option also causes the grass to degenerate more quickly. I don't know why they would have it that way when the game was advertised as being pretty much for the wifi experience. I think possibly it might not be so much of an issue if you know about this from the start and are very careful with your grass. Unfortunately I had the game for 2 months, have been playing 2 characters and running around my town like hooligans before I realized that my grass was disappearing. There have been buttloads of complaints to Nintendo but they do not have any plans to try to fix the problem at this time. I have heard there are other ways to fix it, such as 'hacking' into your wii which can ruin your wii and void your warranty so I don't recommend it, or time traveling, in which you log in, log out and travel forward to the next day (using your Wii clock and calendar, not the game clock and calendar) and logging in and out, and rinse and repeat. However you will find that you have significant weed growth, turnip prices will plummet, and your neighbors will move. So far I am not willing to do this as I have a few neighbors I have grown quite fond of, one in particular (my town grump).

Anyway, aside from this issue it is really a fantastic game- when fishing you can actually feel the fish nibble and bite your line in the remote- its unreal! Hopefully Nintendo will eventually respond to this complaint with a patch or a release of a newer version of the game, but I am not holding my breath, as so far they seem to feel that the people who are complaining have already bought the game so they have no real motivation to fix it- at least that is what I feel from the responses they have given to people. They seem to insinuate it is your own fault by logging in more than once a day or playing via wifi and having people visit your town, even though that is how the game is designed to be played. That does not seem very cool to me. Again, its not just that it is an aesthetic issue but it does affect game play. And its kind of depressing having to feel paranoid about saving your grass- when animals ask you to play hide and go seek you don't want to run for fear of causing further damage, and it kinda sucks the fun out of it.

Anyway, I wanted to just make sure I put that out there so that other people who have yet to buy the game know in advance and can take measures to avoid losing too much grass by keeping to paths (some people even put down pathways although I have not figured out how they do this yet).

You can always rent the game and play it for a few weeks to see what you think- just be sure to take screen shots at the beginning and then when you are ready to return the game to see how much difference there is. The problem is that its hard to really notice until there has been significant loss. It wasn't until I went into the bug section of the museum and was marveling at how lush the grass was in there that I noticed how NOT lush it was in my town anymore!

Aside from this issue, its an extremely fun game. It would be more fun if you could make more than one town, or could play more than one character at a time without each person having to have their own Wii station (such as with the Sims, where you can plug in up to 4 remotes and play 4 characters at once). But I could live with that if they would fix the grass issue. Heck, I would even gladly buy a new game if it came out with that issue resolved without complaint.

Oh, one other thing when you are starting out-- you have 4 houses and be SURE to check each one out before you make your decision and tell Nook you will take it. You CAN say no and check out the other houses and do not pay any attention to what the interior looks like as you will be changing all of that anyway. The location is the most important thing. And I would say you probably want to be near the beach or a bridge and nearby the major places such as Nook's store, the museum, and post office to minimize the traveling your character has to do to get where he/she needs to go. Once you have picked a house you cannot change it- its permanent unless you restart the game.

I truly do live by reviews that people are kind enough to take the time to write. I have an 9 year old son and getting it right the first time is the name of the game. I have been saved many times by simply taking the time to sit down and read a review.

I have come across a game that I just had to review. I can not tell you how wonderful this game is. I also have to say that simply renting this game provided my son an I something to bond over. I saw how much fun he was having and I decided to make my own character. This is a blast! We ended up sending mail and presents back and forth to each other and it has been so great.

I woke up in the middle of the night not to long ago and just happen to go down and turn the game ion and ended up fishing in the moonlight. It was so peaceful.

This is just a happy game. My son is normally drawn to war or fighting games. This is a nice break from that. There is nothing you as a parent will object to. I even bet you will want to play as much as your child. Enjoy and happy holidays!

Anyone who knows Animal Crossing knows it's hard to really rate the game until you have played for a year or so, but I thought some people might like to hear some first impressions from a huge AC fan of the latest game!

My BIG first impression---very little seems to have changed. This game seems like a real cross between the Gamecube version and the DS version, both of which used up many hours of my time! The setup of the city is a LOT like the Gamecube version. The town have the same feel,with lots of slopes and rivers and the same somewhat tiring to get around town plan. Tom Nook, the Able sisters, Pelly, all are there in stores that look about the same. Blathers is even MORE long winded, and it's just as long a routine to get a fossil identified. It sounds like I'm complaining, but I'm not really, it's the AC I know and love. You have to go through the same internship with Tom Nook,and do even the exact same tasks you always have,and the first payment on the house is even just the same amount!

You DO get to pick your house, though,from four around town. You don't share a house, and they aren't all in a square. I picked a house on the beach, for easy fishing.

I bought a shovel and a fishing rod. Shoveling up things is the same,fishing seems initially a little easier---and yes,my first fish was indeed a Sea Bass!

The animals I visited all had furniture I recognized---modern black and white, cabin themes,etc. The animals were also about half ones I've had before, including Ruby, who I think has been in every town I've virtually lived in!

A few things I did notice---the sound was noticably better. One resident, Reuben, had a scary sort of voice, and it was really echoey and cool. The tops for sale at Able's and the designs on display were impressive---they looked a lot more detailed than previously.

I know at some point I will be able to take a bus to the city---I haven't yet---and I know as I go along I will find a lot more changes (I hope) but for now, I feel like I'm returning to a town I know well. I love Animal Crossing, and I will be happy even if there doesn't turn out to be much new. If you love AC too, buy this. If you have never tried AC, you are in for a treat---BUY IT! If you didn't like the first 2 versions but thought this one might be different---well....maybe wait and see!

I've invested a lot of time into playing Animal Crossing Wild World on the DS so was excited to hear we could transfer our Wild World characters to City Folk on the Wii. Somewhere deep down I was hoping I might be able to sneak in a few items from my old DS life. I suppose I should have known better. No way the developers would make it that easy - which is understandable. In a game such as this, there's no point if it's as easy as transporting 10 million bells from your old town right at the beginning. The whole point is to work your way up from nothing and enjoy the ride in doing so. I enjoy playing Animal Crossing as it is. However if you do plan on transferring your old characters from Wild World to City Folk, know this: the only thing that transfers with your old character is the catalog inventory info and your haircut. Of your catalog inventory, not everything transfers either. I had a complete catalog of all items purchasable from Nook. When I looked at my catalog with my character transferred to the City Folk town, some items were not included - though they are still in the game. E.g. I had the tuxedo in my catalog from Wild World. When I transferred to City Folk, the tuxedo was no longer listed in my catalog and I had to buy it again in City Folk from the "GracieGrace" boutique store where it is sold as a special item for 7600 bells.

The clothes on your back, saved letters, saved patterns, money in the bank, items in storage and items you are holding all disappear.

If you do transfer your character to the Wii from the DS, your character info on the DS is not deleted. You are able to continue playing your file on the DS - information is simply copied.

You can "carry" your character via DS if you want to physically go to a friend's house and upload your character to visit your friend's Wii town. You cannot have your character from your Wii game visit your DS town.

This is a great game. It is fun and you will find yourself immerse in a little world where there is always something going on. I and my wife found ourselves constantly playing just to see which neighbor would be out; which fish / fossils were available that day, etc.

My warning is this: I and several thousands of people are experiencing a problem where all of the grass (well snow currently) in our towns are disappearing. The problem is that a "feature" was added to City Folk so that natural paths would appear over time in the areas where you walk. Per Nintendo over the course of a few months, you would have the beginnings of a trail running through your town. This would make each town even more unique and would help your Wi-Fi visitors find things when they visited your city.

Sounds great?! The problem is that grass wear is updated each time you save the game (which happens if you wish to leave for a while or to switch players). If four players play within a day, then 4 days of grass wear will occur within 1 day. In addition, running (hold B) will increase the grass wear dramatically.

Within two months, our City Folk town had only 4 small areas of grass / snow (which is necessary to collect items) as our snow was replaced with ugly brown dirt / sand. We originally thought our snow was just melting until we did some research on the many fan websites.

So before you buy, please be aware that there are consequences for running around your town when playing hide-and-go-seek, etc. and with playing with multiple people on multiple occurances during the day. This is not mentioned in the book; in fact multiple play and running are almost encouraged.

There are several boards (and petitions) on the internet that better explain the creation of this issue (and some solutions for those who have started playing). I just feel that I should let future players know about this "feature" before they end up living in the Sahara desert.

***** UPDATE ********
From Nintendo of America: "While we don't have any current plans for updating the game, we do have some tips for both helping the grass to grow back, and preventing further loss."

Before you buy this game, again please be aware that constant play (especially using the Wi-Fi feature) will result in large patches of no snow / grass. The more you play; the more family members that play; if you use the Wi-Fi travel: the larger your loss will be, all the way to losing all grass / snow.

Nintendo is fully aware of this situation but has decided not to fix or patch this programming bug (and yes this is a weakly tested programming bug - what is happening is not what the game designers envisioned). It should be pointed out that the tips referred to in their e-mail all came from the numerous users who basically "beta-tested" this grass problem. So Nintendo has invested little time, money, and effort in addressing this problem.

Is this still fun game to play? Yes. But it is very frustrating to watch your town slowly die and turn brown in front of your eyes. (I can't even imagine having to tell children not to play-and-seek on this game so that they do not kill the grass).

I would love to remove 1 star due to Nintendo's response but you cannot change your original scoring. I really hope this is not a foreshadowing of what fans can now expect from Nintendo now that they are back on top

Positive:
+ very bright, fun atmosphere
+ towns are big
+ graphics and frame rate are incredibly smooth
+ superb Wii controls that don't overdo themselves
+ unique, quirky sense of humor
+ relaxing, fun music

Negative:
- the game is hardly even an update to Wild World
- Nook's store takes way too long to expand
- the city is small and lacking anything that's actually worth your time

Animal Crossing: Wild World on the DS was a huge hit because it managed to be so and big and fun on such a small console. Three years down the road, we now have a third entry in the series that's a great game by all means... there are just so few differences between it and its predecessors that it feels like a quick cash-in by Nintendo.

City Folk starts the same as the other games, but this time you're coming in by bus rather than train or cab. You name your town, answer a few questions, are introduced to a bit of the game's shining, brilliant sense of personality and humor, and then you're off. You start by working for Tom Nook, the raccoon owner of Nook's Cranny, to pay off a bit of your mortgage on your new house, but once you finish a few jobs you're on your own to do whatever you want.

Animal Crossing's towns have always been big, but this game somehow feels bigger than before. As far as activities you have fruit growing that you can sell to Nook for money, go fishing or catch bugs, participate in the fun little activities that go on around town, and more. The gameplay mechanics involved are incredibly simple but it still manage to be pretty enjoyable.

One of the things that gives Animal Crossing such a huge appeal is its unique, charming personality and sense of humor. Talking to neighbors, which could be an extremely boring pastime, is spiced up with bits of quirky humor. Blathers (the museum owner) always makes a reference to how he's the only worker there and how there's nothing in the museum's collection. Lyle, while annoying to talk to as he takes up a lot of your time, is actually pretty witty and funny. Every turn of a corner in City Folk will reveal yet another aspect of its fun personality and sense of humor.

City Folk also has some nice music tracks. Whether you're just walking around town or cruising through the city, the tunes are nice, relaxing, and very fitting to the environment. The sound effects are also pretty decent, retaining the game's feel and not getting in the way. The only problem with the area of sound is that everything, including the music, is recycled from Wild World (except the music that plays in the city of course). This is kind of disappointing but I don't know how much I wanted it to be all new in the first place.

If you've ever played an Animal Crossing game before, you'll probably have noticed by now that all this great stuff is exactly the same as it was back on the DS. Well, if you had that thought you are unfortunately quite correct. Despite being a great, solid game, City Folk features hardly anything new to the franchise. It's still fun, it's still packed with charm, but it's all exactly the same as we've seen before. So now I'll move on to the few things that are different about this game.

Being a game on the Wii, new controls were a must. Thankfully Nintendo fully delivered here with some excellent, smooth, and convenient control schemes. You can use either the remote alone or with a nunchuk, but both control modes work very well. The nunchuk is basically for those who want to move with a control stick rather than by pointing your way on the screen, but even that feels surprisingly smooth and works very naturally. Pointing at an icon on the bottom of the screen, which is quick and convenient, can access any section of the game's menu. The best part about the new controls, though, is using the remote's control pad to equip items, which saves those precious few seconds every so often that previous games in the series wasted. There is also the option to swing the remote for fishing and catching bugs, which is pretty neat.

The main difference in the game overall is probably the option to go to the city. Once you're finished working for Nook you can hitch a ride on the bus any time to head off to the city. When you arrive, the first thing you will probably notice is just how small it is. There is simply one main courtyard with about five buildings to go into, none of which feature anything incredibly interesting. Almost all the shops and attractions feature characters from Wild World that only came around occasionally, but now you can see them any time you want. There is also an auction house, which is really the only worthwhile diversion in the city. Unfortunately bidding is only open here every once in a while.

City Folk also features some decent, simple, and smooth graphics. The character models, while revealing little detail, are very smooth and lively. The colors used on the environments are pretty vibrant and make it look nice. The great graphics are complemented by an ever-consistent frame rate that never falters and almost makes the DS game feel choppy in comparison.

Those three differences aside, you basically have a Wii version of Wild World. But despite the fact that there is so little change, it's still a great game in itself. If you've already played an Animal Crossing game you're better off leaving this one alone, but if you've never played a game in the series before then this is the perfect place to start because it's truly the best Animal Crossing yet; the lack of change just earns it a lower score than its predecessors.

Gamplay: 8.0
Graphics: 8.5
Sound: 9.0
Value: 9.0

FINAL SCORE: 8.0/10

I have seen reviews of this game saying that it's too much like the DS version. I had Wild World & played it for over a year, and I agree that it's very similar to City Folk. I want to write this review as more of a comparison between the two because I don't see any reason NOT to buy this game unless you've played Wild World & you're worried about it being the same thing.

I enjoy the new Wii version for several reasons:

-Everything's easier to see. Collecting furniture, clothing, bugs, and other items is so much more fun when you can see it on a big t.v. screen.

-New clothing: outfits. I don't think you could buy "outfits" in Wild World. In City Folk, they have outfits that include a hat and a shirt. For example, there is a strawberry outfit, kiwi outfit, doctor, etc.

-New furniture themes. I am pretty sure the Mario Theme is a new one. You can only get the Mario items as gifts from the balloons in the sky. A lot of the furniture is the same as in Wild World, but there are some new ones too.

-New method of getting Golden Axe. Getting the Golden Axe in Wild World was a pain!!!! Okay, it's not that much easier to get it in this game, but at least you have a different process. You have to donate enough bells to get a fountain in your town & then you have to throw your axe in the fountain and hope for the golden axe to come back to you!

-Visiting the city. I kind of like that you can take a bus to the city to visit Redd's furniture store, Dr. Shrunk, the hair dresser. You can even get your shoes polished & made to match your outfit.

-Turnips. Well, you can no longer leave turnips on a table in your house to keep them from spoiling. They spoil at the end of the week. I used to have to clear off my tables to make room for all the turnips I'd buy, but now I just throw them all over the floor in my house, so that's kinda nice. :D

One thing I do not like is Nook's store hours!! When you upgrade your store, you get worse hours. The last upgrade changes his hours so that his store is only open from 9am-9pm. I had to change my clock on the game so it would be open from 7am-7pm. That way I can play before work and when I get home. The reason I want to get on the game twice per day is because you get two different turnip prices every day.

All in all, this game is just fun. If you have never played Animal Crossing, GET IT! If you've played the DS version (Wild World) & liked it, you might want to consider upgrading to this Wii version. It's fun.

I got this game as a new to videogames player. I loved it.

I thought it was cool that the snow seemed to be 'melting'. Then it snowed for two days straight, but I didn't get any more snow cover. I wondered why. So I found an online animal crossing community and learned the awful truth: playing the game destroys the look of your town! What???

Yep...all that wandering aimlessly lost I did in the beginning, racing around in hide-n-seek games, running to catch a present, and all the saves required by multiplayer gaming combined to turn my town into a virtual desert. I have probably made my last snowman. No snow also = no grass when summer comes as well.

I am very sad. The grass/snow will regrow eventually, but it will take months if not years, and you can't walk on it AT ALL during the process. My other choice is to tear down my town and start over, reminding myself to walk around as little as possible and NEVER run. Not as much fun anymore. Or I can just resign myself to life in the desert. Animal Crosssing: Desert Dwellers. Yippee.

Whatever, a lot of the lightheearted fun of it is gone for me now that I hesitate to walk in spots where there still IS some snow. I don't wander around looking for fossils or shaking trees, and hide-n-seek is out of the question. What is the purpose of planting and watering flowers and trees and pulling weeds if my town is still going to look like a dustbowl town when I'm done?

Boo to Nintendo for not testing this "feature" fully before release and not fixing it when when it became a problem. I would not recommend buying this game until a patch becomes available.

I absolutely adored the first Animal Crossing game for the GameCube. I'd play it every single day for about 2 years, filling up my catalog, hunting for bugs, fishing, getting all the fossils, trading items with friends, etc. I even went the extra mile and got the E-Reader accessory just so I could get surprises from the Animal Crossing cards that were made. For me, Animal Crossing was easily one of the top 3 GameCube games, and I put it in my top 25 favorite games list not that long ago on here. Then...the DS game Wild World came out, and I just couldn't get into it. The 'rolling world' effect was annoying, there wasn't much new content that was fun, and I didn't care to get another copy when it got stolen. When City Folk here came out a few years ago, it didn't look much different from Wild World, and I noticed that Nintendo was very disappointed with sales for the game, even after they hyped the whole voice chat accessory for it. Well, I've recently given this game a chance, and it hurts me to say that I can have more fun with the original than this newer version, which I almost just called an upgrade, but it's anything bur that. But before I get started, if you're new to the Animal Crossing games, you can change my ratings to 4 stars for both fun and the overall rating, as it'll be fresh to you.

City Folk plays exactly like the previous games, where you start your life in a new city full of talking animals, digging up fossils, catching fish and bugs to fill the town museum, helping people deliver items to one another, and take part in town events like fishing tournaments and even holidays. When you enter the city, you don't have any money, and run a few errands for Tom Nook, the local shop owner. He actually lets you live in one of the little houses nearby, but you'll be in debt, and need to pay it off in order to get a bigger house, and for him to get a bigger store. And that's the main part of the game, more or less, though the game really doesn't have any objectives that need to be met, and it never really 'ends'. You can see the credits on saturdays when K.K. Slider shows up to play music, and the credits play while he sings.

On paper, the game sounds really boring, but it's fun and engaging, if you're new at least. There are many different kinds of fish and bugs to collect, with many only being available at certain times of the day and during certain months. Some bugs are incredibly fast, and can take some players years to catch if they're not quick enough. Fossils are dug up, identified at the museum, and if they don't have what you brought in yet, they'll take it and display the bones in the appropriate section. Of course, you don't have do donate fish, bugs, paintings or fossils- you can sell them to Tom Nook, trade them with other villagers if they ask for one, or just display them in your own home. Decorating your house is one of the more fun elements in the game, as Tom Nook only has a couple of items for sale each day that you can put in your home, with new stuff coming in all the time. You'll want to pay off that debt fast, and make your house bigger and bigger so you can make room for the cooler stuff, as you home barely qualifies for a shack when you start out. Wallpaper, carpet, beds, couches, dressers, ninja swords, ponds, bonsai trees, there are hundreds of things you can decorate your house with. Some items are themed, like the Lovely series which has a heart design with everything, or the Kiddie series which resembles an indoor play area for toddlers, complete with elephant slide. You can have up to 4 different people in the same town, and can send letters to one another along with items to help them out. It's pretty fun competing to see who can get the most things in the museum. There's also the online mode which is like the Wild World feature, but a bit smoother of course.

I just made it sound like fun, but the thing is- I just basically repeated what I'd say for anyone playing the GameCube game, aside from the online play. There are barely any new features here that I can say anything good about, and then there's another problem- there just isn't that much to do. I remember talking to villagers in the original, and they'd almost always have something for me to deliver to another villager, or want me to buy something of theirs. In City Folk, I'd actually be surprised when a villager would have me run an errand, since most of the time they'd just spew some cute lines or ask me to change their catchphrase. Unless you have a lot of friends with the game that you can visit online, there's not going to be much to do aside from the usual fishing/bug hunting. But what about the City, the key feature here that's even mentioned in the game's name? Very disappointing. Gracie, the stylin' uppity giraffe, now has her own store full of overpriced furniture and clothing. There's a theater where you can watch someone give odd performances, and walk out with a new expression for your character to do while walking around. The black market businessman Redd is back, but he requires both an invitation AND a bit of money to enter his shop now. And there's also a barber, shoe shiner, and Katrina the fortune teller has a building as well. It sounds like a lot, but it's usually a waste of time coming here unless you REALLY want to fill your catalog and spend a lot of Bells on Gracie's stuff. It's not much of a city, especially when everything's on one side of the street.

My other problems have to do with minor things and the controls. The main complaint I have as far as minor things go (aside from the rolling world) is that when you run around on the grass, which is what covers the majority of your town, it deteriorates quickly, resulting in your town turning into a desert wasteland. You'll need to plant flowers over any dead areas in order to restore the grass, but it a lot of time. I guess this was made so that characters could create paths to areas they frequent the most, but when you're chasing after super fast dragonflies, you're going to be killing off a lot of grass quick. So...unless you don't care about how your town looks, you're going to be walking most of the time. But the controls are something that I couldn't get used to. The game uses the nunchuck for movement with the analog stick, and the Wii remote for selecting things from the item screen. Why? Why can't we just use the analog stick for everything?

In the end, the whole game feels rushed, and I can't recommend this to longtime fans. If you've never played an AC game before though, you're in for a treat, as I have fond memories from getting into this series years ago and having everything feel so new to me. This is truly a unique franchise, but I hate seeing a lack of progress on Nintendo's part with this version. I hate that the best new feature to me was that you can take pictures in-game and save them to the SD card, but even then, you can only have one picture saved on the menu at a time.

But you know what? The Wii IS backwards compatible with GameCube games...and the old Animal Crossing is cheaper than this. So...

This is not really a game in the technical sense. Your character does lots of silly, mindless little activities. Strangely, it's incredibly addictive. Part of it is due to player choice -- you can do everything from decorating your house in any way you see fit, to changing your clothing, to messing with your animal "neighbors". Another part of it is the huge replay value. There is something different going on at all hours of the day, all days of the year. Events occur in the game when you're not even there. But the best part of it is that this game is sweet, pleasant, and laid-back. After a hard day's work, this game is like a healing salve.

Think "The Sims," except without any structure or story (which says something, I'm sure). You buy a house, all the while building the house as large as you can (and meeting the challenge of paying your mortgage. Don't worry, there isn't a time limit). You collect fish, fossils, paintings, and bugs, opting either to sell them or put them in a museum (one of my favorite features!). You also collect furnishings, wallpapers, and carpets, and decorate your house to your heart's content. The seasons change, and there are fishing tourneys, bug hunts, and special holidays. Characters appear at certain times of the year, certain times of day, and on certain days, which means there's almost always something new and fresh to see. The appearances of fish and bugs change with the seasons and time of day. Thus, the replay value is monumental!

There are plenty of things to decorate yourself with. Clothes, umbrellas, hats, even your Mii's face -- the possibilities are endless!

You can finally look up in the sky and see all sorts of aerial and astral phenomenon, from meteor showers to floating presents (which you can shoot down).

Your animal neighbors are extremely fun. They're extremely eclectic, ranging from sweet and bubbly to shallow and narcisstic to crotchety and rude. These character types are quite simplistic, but it affects how they interact with you, what kinds of gifts they prefer, and how they speak to each other (nothing is funnier than seeing two opposites get in an argument).

You can eventually make "relationships" with these animals. Options are varied; you can send them letters, run errands for them, or give them advice. (You can also be a complete jerk, if you'd like.) Each character has its own little personality, reacting to your choices and the gifts you give them in different ways.

My favorite part about City Folk is that it has addressed some small annoyances I had with Wild World -- the fact that Redd, for example, comes only once a week, and Gracie Grace comes once in a blue moon. This improvement is the City. You can go to the city, buy contraband from Redd, get a haircut, learn emotions, and put your items up on auction. My favorite element is that I can finally visit Gracie Grace's shop whenever I want.

Unfortunately, there is one major con. The more you walk and run on your grass, the more that grass disappears. Soon, you'll end up with a parched wasteland. How unfortunate... and how hideous! I pray Nintendo fixes this with a patch.

There were some things I wish that had been ported over from the Gamecube version. Anyone remember the gold spots? Blanca, the faceless cat on the train, whose face you drew horrible things on (one giant eye, the Superman logo, an upside-down face) so that later players would see her walking through town and break into laughter? The fact that there were 10 "soft spots" in the ground for digging up fossils (rather than a measly four), and all kinds of old NES games to collect? These things haven't come along. In fact, this game reminds me much more of Wild World than of the first Animal Crossing, from the "rolling barrel" worldview to shooting presents out of the sky. I suppose that's fine; those were all small features. It's still a lot of fun and the gameplay remains unchanged.

Now, to look at the hardware. Although you can play this with a Wiimote, I suggest using a Nunchuk. It makes your movements more accurate. For catching fish and bugs, this is a necessity.

I haven't gotten to use the WiiSpeak with Animal Crossing yet, but when I do, I'll be sure to update this review appropriately.

All in all, this is a must-buy. If you're not sure you'd like this, rent it and try it out. It's definitely something you'll either adore or hate, depending on your nature -- if you hate something with no structure, no plot, no real "game" to it, then this probably isn't the game for you. That said, even those who dislike the idea of such "games" might be pleasantly surprised at how much they like City Folk.