Developer: Nintendo EPD
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: March 20, 2020
Completed: May 17, 2020*
Rated: E for Everyone
*This is the date I rolled credits, but this game is technically never-ending.
If ever there were a game that was perfect for its time, it's this one. Released right at the start of the coronavirus pandemic that is still, more than a year later, raging on, the latest entry in Nintendo's cutesy life simulator provided everyone stuck indoors with some much-needed cheer.
I've played nearly every Animal Crossing game released in America, save the terrible Amiibo cash grab title, and I've always had the same reaction: "This is fun for an hour or so." After that, I never go back. It turns out I don't like doing chores in video games either, and that's what a lot of these games felt like to me. Each and every time I told myself I wasn't going to fall for it again and I'd played all the Animal Crossing I needed, and each and every time I was proven a liar when fear of missing out - what the kids call FOMO - got to me.
But this time was different. I'm a natural homebody, so I felt like I was built to survive a pandemic of this nature. I had all the video games I could ever need (not necessarily want); why did I need to go outside? Then I realized lockdown meant no concerts. No hours spent scouring bins at a record store, or taking an entire afternoon to visit a bunch of game stores and hunt for finds. It meant no movies in the cinema, no restaurants, and even my 41st birthday, which occurred just weeks after lockdown started in the US, was spent alone, unable to see my family.
In lieu of all the things I loved to do, Animal Crossing finally clicked and became the escape I needed.
There came a deeper appreciation for the creativity and freedom of expression the game allowed. Just like in real life, I began decorating my little house with all kinds of things that made it uniquely me. I used the simple but effective editing tools to make a Prince symbol poster, and a Sierra logo t-shirt I wore around town. As my house expanded, I turned one of the rooms into a game room, much like my real home, and another into a music studio. I built a cute little park for me and my island residents to enjoy, visited my friends' islands for design tips, and spent hours hunting for new insects or fishing. I finally understood why these games were so appealing. With so much negativity in life, even pre-pandemic, Animal Crossing was a little bite-sized slice of joy.
You can turn it on, play for fifteen minutes, and still feel like you accomplished something - even if it was simply weeding your island. Or you could spend hours earning bells to payoff that dastardly raccoon loanshark Tom Nook to improve your home or the land itself. Every visit to Blathers, the adorable owl who runs the city's museum, was exciting. Had I dug up a new fossil? If not, at least I got to hear him say "jolly good" in his little gibberish language.
It wasn't always sunshine and roses, of course. The game stuck me with a villager I just did not like right out of the gate, but I made the best of it by sending them threatening letters for my own amusement. It doesn't actually do anything in the game, and in fact it was even funnier when the recipient would express happiness that I had sent them a letter that read "I don't like you. Get off my island." Later in the game, you'll also receive visitors, and finding ones I wanted to invite to live on the paradise I had created was tough. First world private island problems.
The cheerful aesthetic and upbeat music add to the overall joy. Day after day I'd login, visit my shopping district to see if there was anything interesting, dig up fossils, water the flowers, and weed the landscape. Some days I'd have a goal in mind, and others it was just a way to pass the time in a beautiful, happy place. I'd watch dazzling sunsets over the water, or look for shooting stars at night.
This is to say nothing of all the content that has been added to the game since launch. After about four solid months of playing every day, I haven't returned to my island in a while, but I keep meaning to so I can experience things like swimming and the change of seasons. Nintendo has truly made an evergreen game that can last a real lifetime. Most importantly, it got so many of us through those rough early months while we adjusted to our new lives as shut-ins, so much so a common joke was Nintendo created the virus to sell more copies of the game.
The game kept me connected with friends. I couldn't see them physically, but we would text about our islands, share funny screenshots, and even visit each other virtually. Sure, we texted regardless, but there was always an aura of happiness to the Animal Crossing conversations. We weren't espousing our daily real world problems; we were sharing fun updates and forgetting about the state of the world for a little while.
As I write this in March 2021 (and backdating the post), I look back fondly at my time on Mallardca, a duck-related play on Mallorca (or Majorca, depending). New Horizons was a ray of sunshine in an otherwise dark time. It became part of the daily routine that maintained my sanity, and the more I reminisce about it, the more I want to return. I'll bet there's a lot of weeds to pull, for starters. I'll leave you with a picture of my character stalking a friendly koala with an axe because I am the best at Animal Crossing.
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