This is the first in a new occasional series, and one that I’m super excited to see how it turns out. I love Animal Crossing: New Horizons, it’s most likely going to be my game of the year for 2020, unless Cyberpunk 2077 has anything to say about it. But there’s a small, but vocal minority who insists that New Horizons is but a shallow entry in the venerable series and the older games were better, and had more personality (even though I feel New Horizons has plenty). Are they right, or just blinded by nostalgia? We’ll see. Let’s go back and play the old handheld Animal Crossing games, and see what’s changed!

Animal Crossing Wild World released on December 5th 2005 in North America, garnering critical acclaim for the personality and the amount of customization on offer. However, some reviewers criticized the game for only making incremental changes in comparison to the original on the Gamecube. It is this entry which I’m not familiar with, outside of references in other Nintendo games, like Super Smash Bros. I had no expectations save for the absence of features I had grown used to in New Horizons. All I could do was boot it up, and wait.

The game starts with Kapp’n, driving you, the player, to a town that you can name yourself. I was originally going to go with Pooksland, as I did with New Horizons, but it didn’t fit, and I struggled to come up with a name. And then it hit me…Since I was doing this for the site and for you all, I figured I would name it Gamespace but it didn’t fit either. So, ladies and gentlemen…Welcome to Gamespac!

In Gamespac, we had 3 villagers already, Hopper, Pierce and Joey were there day 1. I think Pierce was my favorite, because, since he is a jock, he is intensely supportive of you in all of your endeavors.

And herein lies the problems with Wild World. One, there’s not a whole lot of things to do, and the economy is such that it’s almost impossible to make money. Either that, or I’m not very motivated to go and play a 15 year old game every day! Probably both, so call me lazy if you feel like it. And two, the villagers are…strange. Strangely temperamental, to be more precise. I mean look at some of these:

And those are the ones directed at you, the verbal eviscerations they lay on each other are just brutal. Some people would call this charming, and it is, to an extent. Like this exchange, between Hopper, the Cranky penguin, and I, who mistook me for the nefarious supervillain the Coconutter. When it was cleared up, and Hopper was unable to make the arrest, he delivers this golden line:

I don’t even know what a petty fashion infraction constitutes, but it sounds scary. Other times, these villagers seem angry for very insubstantial reasons, like the Victoria screenshot above. This isn’t charming in my opinion, it’s very strange and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I don’t know, I think people who hold the opinion that the older games have personality, they have merit, but a lot of it, again, doesn’t make sense. I don’t want my game with cute animal companions turn ugly against me. If I can get drama between villagers though, I’m all for that:

This was after Joey, a lazy, invited Savannah over for dinner. He proposed that Savannah do all the cooking, all the cleaning and all of that stuff. So yeah, there’s an undercurrent of hostility to every villager, and not just Snooty or Cranky ones, and I don’t know if I like that or not. Ultimately, I couldn’t play this for more than a few hours, it just wasn’t very fun, and it felt like a ton of the soul of the later games went missing in this one, I’m very sorry if there are any diehard Wild World fans out there, and you can yell at me in the comments if you wish. But, this was merely a step in the development of the series. The next big step was taken in New Leaf, released in 2013. I remember that release was a major and marquee event and it was released to critical and fan acclaim, and I have to say, the acclaim is deserved! It’s definitely a step in the better direction, and gives the player more freedom, but a goal to advance towards, whether stated by the game or otherwise. That’s something that I didn’t find particularly enjoyable about Wild World. It was almost too open ended and not very clear in terms of objectives. New Leaf fixes those problems and adds tons more to the whole Animal Crossing experience. But is it better than New Horizons? Let’s find out!

Shortly after you get dropped off in whatever you name your town, you get informed that you have been appointed mayor. This surprise is echoed in the dialogue options, but secretary Isabelle is confident that you will make a good mayor. What happened to the old mayor? My explanation is that there was a Watergate-esque scandal, and I’m the Gerald Ford to his Richard Nixon. In an effort to regain trust in the public, the main goal is to get a good approval rating, by helping the citizens. What constitutes a good approval rating? Try 100 percent, which no politician in history has ever achieved through legitimate means. Thankfully, this is a video game, and getting approval is easily attained by helping the various citizens.

Speaking of the various citizens, the personalities have softened, becoming much less hostile and much more like New Horizons. Here is my villager lineup as of November 9th, 2020:

I think my favorite villager so far is Erik, because he has a unique design among villagers. Technically, he’s a deer, but his distinct antlers mean he’s actually a moose!

Other than Erik, we also have Iggly, the jock penguin, who you may remember from our second foray in New Horizons:

Aside from those, my other favorite villager was Groucho, mostly because he has a sweet house:

I think these are my favorite little details about these games. What the villagers have in their houses are indicative of more personality than the dialogue, it really feels like an actual home! Anyways, once you get that 100 percent approval rating, you can then sit in the mayor’s chair. Once in the chair, you have 2 ways of changing the town. Ordinances, which are more expensive, and Public Works Projects. Unfortunately, Isabelle was swift to deny my unstated desire to raise taxes on Tom Nook and Tom Nook only:

This dude has done nothing but create work and trouble for me across 3 games, making me foot the bills while doing nothing but sitting behind a desk and barking orders! I just wanted to tax him because I felt it would be appropriate retribution! But no! This has to be a democracy! And…I suppose I agree, I wouldn’t have the majority of the citizens in agreement to tax Tom Nook and no one else. Actually, the legislative setup in this game is similar to the Jeffersonian Democratic framework, small community, mostly agrarian, with a center of power mostly vested in the people. Government derives its power from the consent of the governed after all!

Alright, that’s enough of the civics lesson for today. I would continue playing this game, even after this review. It feels like more unique events happen, compared to
New Horizons. Like yesterday, Groucho tasked me with taking Wendy to his house, because he needed to give something to her.

So we go, and we arrive at Groucho’s house, and a conversation between the two ensues:

And in the end, Groucho gives me a gift for helping them out. I also feel like the villagers ask you to do more things, as they will sometimes ask for furniture recommendations and other things, which they don’t do in New Horizons. Does this mean New Horizons is automatically a bad game? No, I still feel it’s better than both New Leaf and Wild World. New Leaf is just a stepping stone to what New Horizons would be, and as a result, I can enjoy both without feeling the experience lacks anything. But I did not enjoy Wild World as much as I thought, and I chalk that up to the experience being a major step down from even New Leaf. But I look at it like this: you can’t appreciate where you are, without first examining how you got there!