Before purchasing or playing any game in theAnimal Crossingfranchise, it is important to sit down and recognize what these games are. They are slow, slice of life, social simulators with an emphasis on taking your time, being patient, and doing things methodically. This style of game design is not for everyone, but it is by no means bad. There’s quite a lot of value in playing a game that makes its audience sit down and take their time.
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At the same time, this shouldn’t be taken to mean thatAnimal Crossingis exempt from criticism when it comes to how it paces its gameplay. While Nintendo, for the most part, have fallen upon a system that works quite well,New Horizonsis in need of some surprising fixes despite how much it contributes to the franchise– both in regards to its pacing, and actual gameplay content.
10A Faster First Day
Look, patience is basicallyAnimal Crossing’s mantra. If you can’t handle taking your time, this is not the series for you. ButNew Horizonsreally could have benefitted from pacing its opening differently. Opening new establishments day by day? Smart. Slowly opening up the island? Smarter! So what’s the problem? It’s business as usual.
New Horizonsis the biggest game in the series with the most contributions by far. The gameplay loop here is basically perpetual, but the first day and the opening week give villagers nothing new to really work with other than crafting. All the while, the opening obscures other mechanics that could have been front & center: island tours & the logistics of island traversal, for instance.
9A More Reliable Way To Get Nuggets
Do not break rocks. Seriously, whatever you do, do not break any rocks on the island. When it comes time to upgrade the store for the first time, villagers will end up needing 30 Iron Nuggets which, unfortunately, are only reliably found by hitting stones. Worse yet, the Stone Axe needs to specifically be used to spawn as many Iron Nuggets as possible (and even then it’s not a guarantee.)
Island tours come with rocks tucked away with Nuggets, but that means spending 2000 Nook MIles that players will more than likely be attached to at the beginning of the game. On the chance that a rock yields Nuggets, players can only get a maximum of 3 at a time. It’s the worst grind inNH.
8Revised Durability System
But it probably wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the durability system. Taking a page out ofBreath of the Wild’s playbook,New Horizonsdecides it wants to cash in on the craze. To its credit, durability does work in giving tools move value while also highlighting the crafting system. But early game tools just break so fast.
Flimsy tools are pure trash and frankly shouldn’t exist. The durability on the regular tools could be better, but they’re reasonable for early game. Flimsy tools just create needless busywork in a way that doesn’t necessarily mesh withAnimal Crossing’s low stress, good vibes MO.
7In-Game Voice Chat For Best Friends
Nintendo is incredibly averse to even humoring the possibility of voice chat on the Switch (that isn’t tied to their terrible by concept mobile app,) so this was always a pipe dream. Still, that doesn’t mean this isn’t a fixAnimal Crossingneeds. In a game all about solidarity and coming together as a community, why can’t people speak to one another?
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Nintendo seriously needs to get with the times.New Horizonsalready only lets you connect with people on your Friends List, so there is no real need to moderate vocal conversations on Nintendo’s end. All the lack of voice chat does is encourage texting which…
6A Profanity Filter
Surprisingly, there is no profanity filter built intoNew Horizons. One could argue that the lack of voice chat was to keep children’s ears pristine, but absolutely no effort has gone into catching bad words. While this isn’t a bad idea in theory, keep in mind thatAnimal Crossingis a franchise that appeals to all ages.
Plus, taking into consideration how cruel people can be online, the lack of a profanity filter just seems like a recipe for disaster– especially for online trading communities. Truly, even the most basic curse words get pastNew Horizons. It’ll be interesting to see if Nintendo even addresses the matter.
5Agency For Other Playable Villagers
Anyone looking to share an island with their friends on a single console should understand what exactly that entails. The island representative– the first player created– will do all the story bits, unlock all the basic tools for progression, and generally doeverythingmeaningful in the game. Any other players will exist in the background.
There is absolutely no reason to make a second villager inNew Horizons. It’s basically playing the world’s most barebones tech demo– you can look and you can touch, but you can’t really engage the way theNew Horizonsencourages the island rep. It’s immensely disappointing.
4Storage From The Start
In spite of how slow the first day is, it really isn’t bad in theory. Honestly, it’ll likely be remembered as one of the most memorable parts ofNew Horizonsfor those who actually stuck through it legitimately with no time travel. That said, one aspect most will surely agree on is the incredibly strict item management early on.
With only 20 spaces in your pockets and so many new goodies to play with,New Horizonsmakes its opening hours quite tedious. Villagers will likely need to either litter their homes or litter their island to hold onto anything & everything they pick up early on for storage. It’s all smooth sailing after the first house upgrade, but it can be a journey getting there.
3Where Are The Gyroids, Nintendo?
Gyroids are indeed present inNew Horizonsdespite how it initially may have seemed, but their inclusion didn’t exactly appease fans. Mainly because Gyroids no longer function as poseable, functionable items, instead serving as NPCs. Considering how mysterious, creepy, and novel the Gyroids were, this is disappointing.
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There’s something truly special about digging up your first Gyroid, not understanding what it is. An entire generation ofAnimal Crossingfans is going to miss out on that. This isn’t like removing Resetti, a presence that was genuinely irritating. Gyroids added toAnimal Crossing, and this degree of separation removes their appeal entirely.
2More Home Expansions
This is arguably the biggest downgradeNew Horizonssees fromNew Leaf. The final house expansion is honestly quite small compared toNew Leaf’s final house. Not just that, rooms are smaller than they were in the 3DS predecessor. Of course, it seems the devs recognized this considering the final payout for the home inNHis around 5,000,000 Bells compared toNL’s 8,000,000~.
This also seems to suggest more of the house will be expanded through DLC, which… would be awful. That’s likely what’ll happen, too. For as well made asNew Horizonsis, quite a bit of important content was stripped out of the game. The house downgrade is all the more jarring considering the game’s other improvements.
1Furniture Sets Should Have Never Been Removed
One of the best parts ofAnimal Crossingis the decorating, and said aspect is only bolstered by furniture sets– pieces of furniture in a series that are designed to pair off of each other. This has been a staple ofAnimal Crossingfor a while, and was an incredibly important part of the core gameplay loop. Furniture sets gave players purpose.
And now they’ve been removed entirely. Sure, furniture still pairs together visually, but there are no furniture series specifically designed around each other. There are no sets to collect anymore. It’s a crying shame, and one that hopefully gets remedied sooner rather than later.
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