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600 of 629 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Animal Crossing returns with a vengance!, December 6, 2005
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
Animal Crossing was always a sleeper hit on the gamecube. I hope you at least know about it, but the premise is simple: you're moving into a new town inhabited by animals. You have no money, and get a new place with a hefty mortgage. Now that you have shelter, you have to live life by exploring your town.
How you do that is up to you. You can run errands for your animal friends, communicate with them by way of post, fish, catch bugs, shop for furniture, spend hours creating your own outfits or wallpapers, find/buy them, meet the random guests who show up in your town, work on landscaping, collect fossils and other pieces for a museum, it just never seems to end.
Does this sound boring to you? Well, then, maybe this game isn't for you. It's slower than most games, and meant to be played maybe half an hour a day once you get in the groove of things. There's no action, just a lot of talking and exploring the ins and outs of this complex little game from nintendo. So consider yourself forewarned, but also know that this is a fan-favorite for a reason. If you approach with an open mind, you could easily be just as hooked as the massive fan base.
Wild World, the DS update of the Gamecube original, takes this premise and expands upon it to create a similar but richer experience. The town is basically the same, but the animals have been revamped to be smarter, more complex, and new types are available in your town. The items are changed to include a larger number, with some similar ones and some completely new ones. Storage in your house has increased, and you can make your house much bigger than the original.
In addition, you can now have hats and accessories to alter your character beyond the simple clothing. There's even a barber shop at Nooks (the town store) that you can eventually unlock.
In terms of multiplayer, now if more than one person lives in the town, they will share the same house with separate beds, and each will split the mortgage on the house. The increased storage space per character (up to 96 items of storage) helps keep this from causing too much clutter, and it increases the cooperation aspect. Cooperation and communication have always been the main point of Animal Crossing, and now with Wild World, it becomes even more important.
With the stylus, typing messages is much easier and faster than selecting letters by moving the cursor with the analog stick in the gamecube version. Designing fabrics is now just a matter of drawing them, easier and more intuitive than in the original. In fact, the whole game can be controlled easily with the stylus, making for a more fluid and intuitive experience.
One of the biggest additions is the online aspect. Yes, Wild World is online via NIntendo's WiFi connection, just like Mario Kart. Animal Crossing is a bit more limited in that you need to have friend codes to go online, but it isn't hard to find these on any video game board (nintendo runs their own forums that do this, though I'd suggest GameFAQs.com or one of the many specialty Animal Crossing sites). This allows you to go to their town, and you go to theirs, and even interact together on the same screen. It's much bigger and more ambitious, especially if you know plenty of people with the game. While the idea of friend codes might be limiting, it keeps you from having random malicious gamers run in and ruin your town, helping you control the flow of visitors into your town in a respectful way.
The complaints that the previous reviews seem to have are about the holidays being changed. I don't see why this is an issue? This has become a worldwide game, and it would be impossible to include all the major world holidays, and so instead of making the game based on Japanese holidays (which might be expected) or American ones (which would have no point) Nintendo decided to give the world a universal set of unique holidays that would make sense to people in Australia or Korea or Russia or Germany just as much as it would the people here. It's a pretty narrow view to think that the whole world would enjoy a Christmas or Thanksgiving themed day and items when they might not even fully grasp the concept of the holiday. This is a more mature, wider-reaching game, and requires those changes to make it accessable to the world-wide audience.
Simply-put, Animal Crossing Wild World is a vast improvement on the first game, if only because of the stylus control. But with all the new features, it's the kind of game that will encourage you to play it every day for a year or more, growing more and more involved with it. It's worth a look at, to see if it's for you. If it is, you won't be disappointed.
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203 of 214 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Immersive Gameplay for All Ages, January 22, 2006
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
I'm a huge fan of the original Animal Crossing game. It's like a Sims game, but with more of an anime / fun style to it. Animal Crossing Wild World takes the same fun on your handheld.
You're playing on a relatively small town map, so it's really easy to get to know where all of the residents' houses are located. You start with just 3 residents, and new ones join in slowly. Each resident is a different kind of animal, with a name, personality, likes, dislikes and more.
As the game progresses, they give you presents, you write them letters, you trade compliments and they really do begin to seem like friends. But this is only the beginning. You set up a whole trade system with the local shop. You can buy and sell turnips on the "stalk market", learning to time your trades to make the most money. You can harvest the local tree fruit and sell that. You can go fishing and either donate the fish to the local aquarium or sell the extras.
You can design a town song that plays in the background, design your own clothing, even breed new types of flowers. You can learn songs from the local guitar player, look at the constellations in the sky, and much more. The game is incredibly immersive, and is just as much fun if you only have say 1/2 hr a day to play while you're riding the bus. That's plenty of time to catch up with your virtual friends and keep the town tidy.
The wi-fi capabilities are neat if you have online friends - as long as you give your secret code, you can visit each other. That of course is critical - the last thing you'd want is some unwelcome visitor able to leap into your town and chop down your trees!
I do have some complaints with the game. First, I do think the day-night cycle is neat, that it's timed with your actual clock. However, I am a night owl. I work very hard in the day and the only time I have to play is in the early morning hours, say 2am - 5am. The stores and everything are closed in the game!! I finally had to actually change my DS clock to be able to sell some stuff but I *hate* having to do that. Why couldn't the store have a "night shift" so that those of us who are night owls could still enjoy the game?
Also, some of the conversation gets redundant. You have to sit through certain greetings - say at the store - every single time. Surely they could either think of something new to say or just let me get about my business. Also, when I am dropping off full loads at the store, it'd be REALLY nice to have a "select all" button instead of having to drag every single little thing one by one.
Still, those are relatively minor complaints with the game. It is really quite relaxing and fun, and since you customize your little world by planting flowers, decorating your home, thinking up nicknames and quotes and even designing your own clothes, it is just so "comfy" to be there. There are tons of little touches that add great delight to the game. If you drop a rose on yourself, you carry it around in your teeth :)
Highly recommended!
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69 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Animal Crossing: Wild World, June 27, 2006
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
First of all, if you haven't heard of this game, you have been missing out on one of the most interesting and fun gaming experiences of all time!
Animal Crossing is a game with a unique plot. That is to say, no plot. But, surprisingly, that is a good thing. A VERY good thing! It gives you a lot of free reign. Basically, it's a 'Slice of Life'. Okay, enough with my ramblings (I'm boring you, aren't I?)
When you first start the game, you are in a taxi. It's a rainy day, and the taxi driver, (a turtle/kappa named Kapp'n) is asking you questions. First, he asks your name, and where you're going. (You don't have a preset name or anything, you make it up!)
Then, when the annoy turtle stops talking, the sky clears up, and you begin your new life in town! But before long, you discover that your new house comes with a price. 19,000 bells! (bells are the currency) In order to help pay off your huge debt, you must work for the racoon Tom Nook.
As you have (hopefully) noticed, you aret he only human. The rest of the townsfolk are animals!And so, your new life officially begins! You can chat the day away with your animal neighbors, buy hats and other attire at the local clothing shop, buy furniture for your home at Tom Nook's store, go fishing, bug catching, UFO-hunting (No, seriously. There are UFO's in the game. Their driven by a seagull named Gulliver)
There are so many things in this game, it's IMPOSSIBLE to get bored! Not to mention Holidays, Wishing Stars to...er...wish upon, Fishing Tournies, Bug Hunting Competitions too!
The best part of this game are the townsfolk, in my opinion. There's an ENOURMOUS variety of animals that come and go. Some you'll really get attached too, and other you'll be begging tha they leave! For example, Two of my favorite neighbors, Alice the Koala, and Marina the Octopus moved away. I miss them. I also have two annoyign neighbors, an annoyign squirrel who's name I dare not remember, and a moody oenguin name Hopper!
You can write letters to villagers, and even become best friends. Once, I had a very funny coversation with Marina the Octopus
Marina: You know, latwly I've really been getting into seafood. That's a bit odd, considering I AM seafood...
Animal Crossing: Wild World will never fail to surprise you! The graohics are a HUGE step up from the Gamecube version. But the music, I wish was the same as the Gamecube's.
Well, there's so much about Animal Crossing: Wild World, I can't posible list it all. So, buy this game and expirience the most charming expetience you've ever seen! Thank you.
PS: In Japan, an Animal Crossing Anime Movie is being made! Hooray!
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