Review of Animal Crossing: City Folk
I have gushed many times about the game, Animal Crossing: Wild World. You can see my entries here:
Almost two years ago, I first heard about Animal Crossing for the Wii:
It has finally arrived and I’m just head over heels happy with it. My favorite part of Animal Crossing were the daily conversations with my little animal friends, but after three years of playing the DS version, I had pretty much memorized the game. The writing for Wild World was spectacular and you can see the quotes I gleaned from that wonderful game here:
My biggest fear for City Folk was that they would recycle the writing. As spectacular as it was, I was a little sick of hearing Elvis tell me the SAME things every day. Fortunately, they have rewritten the entire game. Right down to what Nook says when you are buying a house. Almost all of the writing is new. There is a little bit of recycling here and there, but unless you’re an insane woman who memorizes everything she hears, you probably won’t even notice. They even went to the trouble of inventing new catchphrases every time you catch a fish. And Blathers will tell you about the zoological quirks of fish rather than go on and on about how tasty they are.
I was also worried about how the transfer for the DS would go. I had heard that I could transfer my character from my DS game to City Folk. I worried that it would work like a move. For example, in Wild World, you can move from one city to another, but you lose everything in your bureau, bank account and you arrive with only what you can carry in your pockets. THAT is how I thought the move to City Folk would go. Instead, the only thing that transfers is hair color, eye color, sex, name and my catalog. My character in Wild World is still there and I didn’t lose her when I transferred to the Wii game. It was a huge relief.
I had completed my museum collection in Wild World, so I thought that starting a town with an empty museum would be depressing, but surprisingly, it’s not. It gives me all the reason to fish, dig and hunt for bugs again. By the way, fishing and hunting for bugs can be done just like on the DS and Gamecube versions, but they have added features to let me fish a little more realistically with the Wiimote. Now, I can cast my fishing rod, just like a real rod with the Wii controller. To catch the fish, I pull up, just like I would if I were really fishing. Swinging a net is exactly the same.
There have been lots of talk about visiting the city. Here is a video talking about those features ad infinitum:
For me, I’m just happy to talk to my new little animal friends. The writing for City Folk is looking to be just as enjoyable and witty as the writing was for Wild World, so I’m looking forward to laughing with my imaginary friends for many days this year!