- The glitch can still be performed in the Japanese version even if Animal Crossing: New Leaf has received any update data because the update data can be removed if preferred. The glitch also requires update compatibility between the host and a visitor of the session as follows (this is only a rough translation).
- Until recently I was still playing New Leaf. Glad I bought New Horizons when I did. But more or less critical for actual people with actual things they have to do in their actual lives.
- Open New Leaf and go to the Happy Home Showcase. Digby will register the game with StreetPass when spoken to by the player. Have the 3DS in stand-by mode or switched on when outside in busy areas. Not everyone will have New Leaf or their console activated, but if they do.
Animal Crossing: New Leaf received a big update that added amiibo support and overhauled a few of the game’s systems. There’s a bunch of different compatible amiibo that all do different things so it can all be a bit confusing, so the aim of this guide is to serve as a sort of primer to this new feature. Animal Crossing is a series that encourages long-term play, causing many players to form deep, emotional bonds with in-game villagers. The result is that many are booting up the 3DS game, New Leaf.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the undisputed video-game champion of 2020.
Do People Still Play New Leaf
Released on March 20, the charming life simulator was a relaxing escape for those stuck at home due to the Covid-19 pandemic, giving friends a way to stay connected during extraordinarily difficult times. To date, New Horizonshas sold more than 26 million units worldwide, making it the second best-selling Switch title ever, behind Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. It’s likely to surpass even that record by the end of the year.
New Horizons has been critical to Nintendo's 2020 success. While first-party titles have been in short supply throughout the year, the company sold a staggering 735,000 Switch units in October 2020, just weeks ahead of the global launches of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. A once-niche series, Animal Crossing has become an S-tier behemoth alongside Mario and Zelda.
How can the company keep that momentum going in 2021 and beyond? Inverse spoke with an Animal Crossing content creator and Nintendo expert to find out.
Planting the seed
New Horizons’ massive popularity in 2020 caught many observers by surprise, but Nintendo fans have watched the franchise slowly expand its audience over nearly two decades. Stealth40k, a widely recognized Nintendo authority with a 36,000-strong Twitter following, sees the franchise’s 2005 debut on the DS handheld as a pivotal moment. (Stealth declined to share his full name with Inverse owing to privacy concerns.)
“I viewed the franchise as one of Nintendo’s B-tier series going into the game’s first sequel, Animal Crossing: Wild World,” Stealth tells Inverse. “Then Wild World sold over 10 million units. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen with the series between the first game and its sequel, but once one game hits 10 million, you see the potential.”
That momentum built over the next decade, with 2013’s Animal Crossing: New Leaf for the Nintendo 3DS eventually selling nearly 13 million units. Still, those numbers pale in comparison to what New Horizons accomplished in less than a year. The game has already doubled that number and gained global phenomenon status in nine months. President-elect Joe Biden and New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez both used New Horizons as an outreach tool in 2020, a further testament to the Switch game’s mainstream popularity.
Capitalizing on that success presents a unique challenge for Nintendo. Unlike its other franchises, the answer isn’t as simple as creating a new installment every other year or so. Animal Crossing is the closest thing Nintendo has to a live-service game like Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto Online, the multiplayer spinoff of 2013's Grand Theft Auto 5. It's a model worth emulating, as GTAV and Online are poised to make the leap to a third generation of consoles, having sold 135 million copies. Nintendo shows no signs of slowing down support for New Horizons anytime soon, and fans don’t seem eager to move on to the next game either.
Ben from YouTube's Crossing Channel, which bosts more than 150,000 subscribers, says New Horizons has managed to retain a sizable audience for significantly longer than previous installments in the franchise.
“By this point in New Leaf’s life-cycle, I recall the community being much quieter,” Ben explains. “That being said, even New Leaf’s community lasted for a very very long time, way up until New Horizons came out — and people still actively play it. I can’t imagine interest in New Horizons drying up any time soon, with the game's frequent updates being rolled out by Nintendo.”
“New Horizons is going to be supported for at least two to three more years with updates,” adds Stealth. “I don’t think we’re going to see a new mainline Animal Crossing until Nintendo’s new system, after the Switch.”
Tending the garden
With 2012’s Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Nintendo gave players their first glimpse at a long-tailed version of the series could look like. Three years after its initial release, Nintendo released a free update for all players, adding amiibo support, minigames, and a separate campground area to the game. The content drop freshened up the 3DS game, giving fans a good reason to log back in and reckon with their weed-infested villages.
New Horizons’ content roll-out is more consistent by comparison. In its first year, the game has received a new museum wing, a diving update, and a slew of seasonal events. Looking back at previous games, there’s still plenty of room for Nintendo to expand the world even more over the next few years. Rotating vendors like Kicks could get their own dedicated shops in the vein of New Leaf, while series staples like Brewster’s coffee shop have yet to be added.
Blueprint of the new concept larry hoover pdf to jpg. Stealth sees the potential for more radical gameplay shifts. “They can do the 'more of everything' route with more items and customization, or they could kind of change the core of the series,” he explains. “They could introduce more of a Harvest Moon feel to it by adding a farming element. That would be a really cool next step.”
Even if nothing quite so game-changing makes it into New Horizons, there’s still plenty of updates fans can expect throughout 2021. New seasonal items, furniture, and events will continue to come to the game regularly as it continues to keep players hooked.
That’s certainly healthy sign for New Horizons’ Error this form requires adobe acrobat reader dc for mac or windows. future, but it’s less clear if that will keep the franchise top of mind for players beyond 2020. Mainline Mario and Zelda games come out every few years, but Nintendo has found plenty of opportunities to bridge those gaps with side-games and spinoffs. Since The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild released in 2017, Nintendo pushed the series’ momentum with a Link’s Awakening remake, indie rhythm game Cadence of Hyrule, and this year’s Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, which acts as a prequel to the Switch hit.
Apples to oranges
It would be difficult to replicate this approach with Animal Crossing, which has a chill, open-ended gameplay loop that doesn't easily translate across genres.
“Nintendo has shown that they’ll make spin-offs with anything, but it’s hard to wrap my head around that with Animal Crossing,” Stealth explains. “With Splatoon, the series is a shooter, but I can definitely see a strategy or platformer spin-off, even though there haven’t been yet. Could I think of Animal Crossing as a platformer, or an RPG, or a shooter? Not really.”
New Horizons’ success won’t inherently rub off on anything carrying its name. In 2015, Nintendo tried to capitalize on New Leaf with two spin-offs. Happy Home Designer turned house decorating into a full game with mixed success, while digital board game Amiibo Festival was a bonafide financial flop, moving fewer than one million units. Given the potential upside, however, Nintendo’s likely to try that route again post-New Horizons. While a Happy Home Designer sequel could fare better today than it did on the 3DS, New Horizons already offers players extensive decorating and customization options.
A more likely roadmap to success may come from Nintendo’s mobile game, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. In the week after New Horizons released, Pocket Camp saw a 229 percent increase in downloads. Nintendo’s commitment to the mobile game has only grown in the months since. The game’s most recent update adds a Pokemon Go-like AR camera, giving users more reasons to keep the app installed. There’s still room to create an even stronger ecosystem between New Horizons and Pocket Camp, like allowing players to check the Nooklings’ daily inventory or learning about the day's visiting vendors could turn Pocket Camp into a must-have companion app.
With a longstanding reputation for poor support of online games, Nintendo must now navigate an aspect of the modern gaming landscape it has long preferred to ignore. The gaming giant must continue to treat New Horizons as an ongoing game to sustain Animal Crossing’s massive popularity. Perhaps the best mentor the company can look to is Tom Nook, that business-minded raccoon who’s always got that next sales pitch ready to go.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a tough game to assess. I’ve played around 60 hours since Nintendo sent over the download code in late February. But even if I had played 300 hours, I would still struggle to review Nintendo’s social-life simulator. That’s because the point of Animal Crossing is to play it consistently over the course of months and even years. And I can’t time travel. But even with that caveat in mind, I’m still confident in making this claim: this is the best Animal Crossing game yet.
Like past games in the series, New Horizons is about moving into a village with other animals. You get a house, you pay off the loan to a raccoon named Tom Nook, you get a bigger house to add more decor, and so on. The idea is to live a life inside a pleasant virtual town. That structure is back, but with New Horizons, Nintendo has added to and refined the Animal Crossing formula. And the result is more gripping than ever.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons launches March 20 for $60 on Nintendo Switch. It’s a series that I’ve appreciated from the beginning and then loved with New Leaf on 3DS in 2013.
Now, let me explain why it’s so wonderful.
What you’ll like
Animal Crossing: New Horizons has the best new-game experience yet
On the first day in Animal Crossing: New Leaf for the 3DS, you could hit a pretty hard wall. The game withholds several basic tools and mechanics until later days. After the first hour, you could find yourself wandering around with nothing to do. This wasn’t a long-term problem, but it reveals a major contrast with how Nintendo approached this sequel.
New Horizons is much better about getting you into the flow of Animal Crossing. The first day when you start a new island is untimed and unrelated to the real-world calendar. This tutorial section gives you a chance to get familiar with some of the core mechanics. It guides you to features like crafting, catching fish and bugs, buy and selling goods with bells, and earning Nook Miles.
By the end of the introduction, it throws you back into the real-time game. And you can keep playing without running out of things to do. I think this is going to lead to New Horizons “grabbing” more people that bounced off of previous versions.
Above: Night fishing in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
It gives you big and small goals to work toward
New Horizons also has a great system of putting goals in front of the player.
If you ever feel lost or confused about what to do next, you can go ask Tom Nook. He’ll point you toward some goal that you can work toward that will unlock more aspects of the game.
Early on, these goals are very simple and manageable. These include crafting your first tools, picking home locations for villagers, and getting enough Nook Miles to pay your moving fees.
They then get progressively more complex and larger scale. You’ll have to collect specific materials to craft certain pieces of furniture for some of the new villagers you invite to the island. Or you’ll have to get a huge set of materials to help Tom Nook’s capitalist nephews build their first shop.
In a later quest, you’ll have to improve the overall look and feel of your town by adding infrastructure and decor. On my island, I’ve added some bridges and a ramp up to the higher elevations. I also built a playground on the beach with a jungle gym, slides, and rocking horses. Eventually, I’ll improve the appeal of my town enough to attract a very special guest.
Doing everything gets you a reward
But New Horizons doesn’t just rely on a strong start and then guided goals to keep people playing. It also has a wonderful moment-to-moment reward system with the new Nook Miles program.
Do People Still Play Animal Crossing New Leaf
This is a secondary currency that is separate from bells. You still earn bells by foraging and selling things in the store. Nook Miles, however, are a reward for doing everything else.
Everything you do in New Horizons will contribute to filling up meters in your Nook Miles app on your Nook Phone. Water 10 flowers, and you’ll earn some Nook Miles. You’ll also get some for chopping down trees, fishing, and talking to your neighbors.
These are things that people do in Animal Crossing anyhow. But New Horizons incentivizes players with tangible rewards. because of this, I’ve found myself doing things like managing a flower garden. That’s something I would have skipped in previous games, but now I get something out of it. But I also get Nook Miles for fishing, which is something I always love in Animal Crossing.
Eventually, you’ll unlock daily Nook Miles challenges that come with bonus multipliers. So even as you move past the first two tiers of catching fish and have to wait to get a bonus until you catch 500 or more, you’ll get a smaller challenge that will reward you for catching five fish before the end of the day.
Nook Miles makes it so you are always working toward something, and that makes everything in the game more enjoyable.
The progression system feels great
Even though New Horizons gives players more to do on the first day and beyond, it still holds so much back. In previous games, you had less to do from the start and fewer major goals to work toward. New Horizons is the opposite in both respects.
Instead of waiting to get a fishing rod or other tools, New Horizons makes you wait to unlock other parts of the island. This gives you more space to build, and it even unlocks mechanics like digging for fossils.
Above: Moody beach shot.
But New Horizons even has a progression system that makes the game more playable. For example, you start out with the option of only donate one critter at a time to the museum. But if you help entice Blathers, the owl who runs the museum, and help him build the actual museum building, you can donate multiple specimen at a time.
Players can also redeem Nook Miles to unlock user-experience features. There’s a quick-select wheel and a skill to increase the size of your pockets in the Mileage store.
This progression combined with the Nook Miles program, the short- and long-term goals, and the quick start make every session with New Horizons feel eventful and rewarding. The game gets easier over time, but as you get more capable you can take on bigger tasks. It’s exquisite design that sets this game above its predecessors.
Crafting is a great way to fill out your schedule
One of the big new additions Nintendo made to Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the crafting system. This enables you to collect materials like wood, stone, clay, iron, weeds, and more to build furniture and tools.
I was worried that this system would replace some of Animal Crossing’s classic loops. But that’s not how it actually works. Instead, crafting is complementary. It fills in a part of the game that was empty instead of replacing something else.
So now you’ll still spend a lot of your day fishing, catching bugs, talking to villagers, and more. But you will also want to find out what the “hot item” at the store is that you can craft and sell for twice its normal price.
But now, when the store closes and all the villagers go to sleep, crafting gives you something to do late at night. You can go around the island collecting materials for the next day. Or spend those hours crafting furniture to decorate your home and island.
Crafting is additive and feels like something that was always a part of the series.
The fruit stacks automatically
The fruit stacks by itself! Not much else to say here. In previous games, you had to drag the fruit on top of one another by yourself. Here, the fruit auto-stacks. Welcome to the future.
![Still Still](https://www.bsiarchivalhistory.org/BSI_Archival_History/Woodys_pt_1_files/droppedImage_12.jpg)
Animal Crossing: New Horizons looks and sounds fantastic
New Horizons still looks like Animal Crossing. It has the same simple style as the previous games, and characters like Isabelle still look the way you remember from New Leaf. But the game is now in HD, and everything looks crisper than ever.
Still, I think that New Horizons does a great job with establishing an atmosphere. Its ambient sounds and music are like if you turned a Chill Vibes YouTube playlist into a video game. This sort of thing is really noticeable when the breeze starts picking up or the weather turns hazy or rainy.
One of the reasons I can play this game for hours at a time is because it’s just so pleasant. I love running among the trees and listening to them rustle in the breeze while they sway with a satisfying animation. It’s a nice place to visit, and I always want to go back.
What you won’t like
Animal Crossing: New Horizons still has some user-experience annoyances
![Do people still play new leaf farm Do people still play new leaf farm](https://www.bsiarchivalhistory.org/BSI_Archival_History/Woodys_pt_1_files/droppedImage_13.png)
New Horizons is a friendlier game than previous Animal Crossings when it comes to the user experience. Note the aforementioned auto-stacking fruit. And a lot more of the shopping happens in a menu. You can also edit the layout of your house using an awesome drag-and-drop system.
It still has some clunkiness, though. I’ve accidentally almost purchased an item when I was trying to talk to Timmy Nook in the shop. Crafting (and this could change if I get a better crafting table) is only one item at a time. And you have to go through the menus and confirm everything each time. As far as I know, you can’t put items into a queue and walk away.
Nothing is so detrimental that it ruins the fun, but it’s occasionally frustrating.
Cabaret voltaire voice of america blogspot. Above: Time to celebrate in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
The save system really is a mess
I’m stuck on my Switch Lite. I know Nintendo says it will let us later transfer Animal Crossing: New Horizon to new systems. But that’s still not going to fix my problem. I want to play primarily on Switch Lite, and then I want to take my character onto my original Switch and visit my wife’s island. But I can’t.
If I use my account on that Switch, I have to start a new character that lives on that island and has nothing to do with my Switch Lite character.
This is just my specific problem, but I think other people will encounter a number of other hurdles because of the way Nintendo built New Horizon.
The problem for me is that islands are tied to the device and not to accounts. So even if you can transfer your save to a new system, you’re going to have to move the entire island. That’s not going to help people who started playing on a shared system but then each want to continue playing on their own individual Switch consoles.
This also doesn’t really ruin the game, but it is going to cause headaches for a lot of people.
Conclusion
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is fantastic. It is the best Animal Crossing game ever made. I’ve played for 60 hours, and I don’t want to stop. And those first 60 hours far surpass the enjoyment I got from the first 60 hours in New Leaf, Wild World, or the original.
Nintendo has found new ways to make Animal Crossing rewarding. It’s also found fun new styles of play that still feel like they belong.
The best thing I can say about New Horizons is that I think it’s going to win over some players who previously bounced off the franchise. And it will do so without losing any longtime fans in the process. Those players will find more to love than ever before.
Score: 95/100
Animal Crossing: New Horizons launches March 20. Nintendo provided GamesBeat with a downloadable review code for the purpose of this review.
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