# Complaints about City Folk?



## Kapriznyy (Dec 27, 2015)

Every so often I've seen people say very vague things (not necessarily on this board!) about disliking City Folk, but I never see anyone outright discussing what they didn't like about it. I don't remember playing it for more than a day or two before ultimately losing interest, but I can't say that was because of any one factor in particular, I just wasn't in the mood for an Animal Crossing type of game at the time, and by the time I was yearning for one, New Leaf had come out - so I never went back and really gave it a shot.

Was there something wrong with City Folk, as compared to the other entries in the series? Is there something I'm perhaps missing? It looked fine enough to me but again, I didn't spend much time with it so there could have been glaring flaws I'm unaware of.

I just remember thinking the city square area was a cute addition, after coming from GC/WW.


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## radioloves (Dec 27, 2015)

Ohh, hmm. City folk was fun I played it very often along time ago and can't remember much of it now except the fun in the city plaza. The game itself was nice, but I didn't really do much since I was young and didn't really know what I was doing. But yeah most of my animal crossing game experiences with the previous games and such, I all had a good good time with it


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## Belle of Pripyat (Dec 27, 2015)

I never played it, but I _*hate*_ the Wii. I love Wild World and I'm sure I would have loved City Folk if it hadn't been a Wii game.


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## MayorJudyOfZootopia (Dec 27, 2015)

only thing that i remember that stank was the bus ride with Kapp'n UGH what a chatterbox!


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## cornimer (Dec 27, 2015)

I thought that the villager dialogue was boring and repetitive. I've also heard a lot of people complain about bad grass deterioration but I hardly played so I didn't really experience that. And frankly, I just don't like AC on the wii, I never felt connected to my town. It feels much more personal when you're holding it in your hand and you can take it anywhere you go.


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## PrincessAurora (Dec 27, 2015)

City Folk was okay I guess, but it's probably my least favorite of the AC games. Since they called the game CITY Folk you'd think it'd have more to do with an actual city. All you did was take a bus to a small little square with some stuff to do in it. I think if they'd focused more on the city area it would have been a better game.


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## Silversea (Dec 27, 2015)

City Folk did not feel particularly inspired. It was basically a HD Wild World with a small panel of new features, not like the progression of Gamecube to Wild World.


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## mayortash (Dec 28, 2015)

The grass deterioration was a big turn off to most people. 

I personally didn't like it on the wii - I think AC works best as a handheld game.


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## Nayab (Dec 28, 2015)

The "city" was kind of annoying, since you had to go through the bus cutscene every time. Replacing it with Main Street in ACNL was a great choice. Other than that, though, it was an enjoyable game.

Things I wish they kept in New Leaf are the gyroid storage once you befriend Brewster, and Celeste's observatory. I enjoyed making constellations...


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## shuba (Dec 28, 2015)

Yeah, the handheld thing is a big factor. I could write a long parahraph about why handheld works better for Animal Crossing, but I guess we all know.

I think there was nothing wrong with the game itself, but it's a lot of this:


Silversea said:


> City Folk did not feel particularly inspired. It was basically a HD Wild World with a small panel of new features, not like the progression of Gamecube to Wild World.



So, not being on handheld and not even releasing any extremely interesting features, I haven't played it much.


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## Kapriznyy (Dec 28, 2015)

Belle of Pripyat said:


> I never played it, but I _*hate*_ the Wii. I love Wild World and I'm sure I would have loved City Folk if it hadn't been a Wii game.



I'm not a big fan of the Wii, either, so I feel your pain on this.


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## scotch (Dec 28, 2015)

I had it, it broke after 3 days. I don't remember A SINGLE thing.


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## thecheese103 (Dec 29, 2015)

Personally, it's the only installment I haven't played, and from an outsider's perspective I don't see myself playing it for quite some time. A lot of the features, such as Wii Speak and WiFi, are no longer applicable (outside of the homebrew for WiFi, provided that still works?). That and from what I hear from many, even some of the opinions in this thread, it may be the weakest installment in the series. Again that's not my opinion, just what I hear. Doesn't seem like there's too much in particular that let it branch out and have its own identity, at least not when compared to other installments in the series. 

Are there any more specific, technical complaints that anyone has about it though? As someone who might be picking it up whenever I get the next chance (i.e. whenever I see it at a local game shop), I'd like to know anything important before I buy it. Conversely I'd like to hear some of the good about it as well, no matter what complaints it brings to the table I'm sure that everyone has great memories of it too, ones that they could only get from a particular installment  Let me know!


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## Mothership (Dec 29, 2015)

The grass wear in City Folk is absolutely terrible and was the main reason I stopped playing it. Having the grass be damaged every single time you loaded up a character meant that those of us who loved to play off and on all day every day very quickly wound up with towns that looked like deserts. ( Still don't know why Nintendo thought that it was a good idea to "punish" people for playing their game by turning their towns into mudpits. Makes no sense to me )

Restoring the grass was time-consuming and boring because you had to TT day by day for months without ever walking anywhere until the grass regrew.

The villagers were very boring in City Folk because they never really did anything other than wander aimlessly around, or stand in one spot for long periods at a time staring at nothing. 

Somehow, I still managed to enjoy playing this game, tho.


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## ACNLover10 (Jan 1, 2016)

I don't really like City folk only because it's on the wii. One: I don't like consoles because they're not portable. Two: I don't have a gamecube controller and the wii remote sucks. Three: The grass wear is annoying like Mothership said and yeah you gotta time travel a lot to get your grass wear, plus running ruins the grass very quickly, it's like fragile. lol That's just my 2 cents.


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## JCnator (Jan 2, 2016)

I've got two significant complaints that made the game much more difficult to recommend than any of the other mainline Animal Crossing game.

The Wii console is a poor fit for any mainline Animal Crossing title, not just for not being an handheld console to begin with. As the system is only marginally better than GameCube, there's nothing much new the staff could do with the console. The dated visuals of the original Animal Crossing are resulted by porting the original Japanese N64 game, which of course the Wii version easily improved the graphics by essentially adding more polygons and having higher texture resolutions.
There are a few areas where the Wii Remoter's IR pointer becomes useful. However, there's a lot of instances we prefer using another method (or even another controller) rather than the pointer. For some reason, making a pattern will always involve IR pointer for precision drawing, and it tends to be finicky.
Also, if you don't like using WiiSpeak and a USB keyboard, you're pretty much left with awkwardly typing with the Wii Remote with the in-game keyboard. It's fine when you're playing with 4:3 resolution, but going with 16:9 reveals a design flaw: the keys are stretched to fill the TV screen and made typing even slower and more cumbersome. That doesn't matter anymore, since online has been axed since May 2014.
You would be right to assume that the game could still expand a lot upon what Animal Crossing: Wild World did to the original GameCube installment, considering the technical limitations of the Wii system. Too bad City Folk still didn't do much for that matter.

The game didn't necessarily had to reinvent the wheels in order to be a good game. However, it didn't added and improved much to what Wild World did. Sure, there was a number of things that were actually added and improved, but those are pretty much insignificant to the game's overall appeal. For example, the city was lackluster, considering how long it takes to get in and then out and how little there is new content. Some of the stores were already available in form of special visitors or features from the past Animal Crossing titles, only more accessible this time around. Disappointing to see that this only much-touted feature is ultimately insignificant to what Wild World brought to the tables.


So yeah, Animal Crossing: City Folk is the least liked mainline installment for good reasons. While there's still enjoyment to be found there, one can't help but feel it being a lackluster effort that did nothing much to expand the franchise as a whole. You'd have to be hard-pressed to recommend this one over the GameCube installment and New Leaf!


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## MapleLeafKangaroos (Jan 2, 2016)

Oh jeez. I am not a fan. Definitely not a fan. Like many people have said, grass in this game does not like to stick around for long, the villagers are boring, and Kapp'n talks too much. Seriously. I just want to go to the city without wasting 5 minutes of waiting for the bus, then chatting with Kapp'n. Other than that, I love the shops and everything else. I like how you just have the shops there, without having to spend millions of bells in stores to unlock better shops. So personally, I don't think it's necessarily a bad game, I just feel like there's not really much to do.


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## Hoontr (Jan 3, 2016)

The control scheme drove me absolutely bonkers. I hated not being able to just move without pointing my Wiimote somewhere.


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## windwake-me-up-inside (Jan 3, 2016)

I only started playing with New Leaf, so I never got to experience any of the other animal crossings. Sadly, City Folk and the Original Animal Crossing do not run well as emulators on my computer, and I can't seem to find copies of either that aren't priced outrageously. 

Kind of feel bad for missing out, but all I had as a kid was an n64 and by the time I got a wii copies of City Folk weren't readily available at local outlets.


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## Spongebob (Jan 3, 2016)

I dont think CF is that bad, it's basically an improved WW. The only big complaints I have about CF is that the villager dialogue kinda sucks and the grass goes away if you run a lot.


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## Mars Adept (Jan 3, 2016)

Its my favorite AC game, and I don't find many problems with it. Its not perfect though. Here are some complaints.

1. Using the wiimote to make designs was annoying.
2. Not enough villager quotes, and when you talk to them, you can't say "Whats up?", "Give me news!" , etc. so they don't say the same thing over and over again like in GCN, WW, and NL. I'm not sure if I'm the only one who has noticed this.
3. You couldn't go to the city online with friends.

I recently got it back in July, as a very late birthday present. Its pretty fun, I think it might get boring after a while though. I used to play it everyday, but now I play it once or more a week to avoid being stressed out and to make it last longer.


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## Kapriznyy (Jan 3, 2016)

BiggestFanofACCF said:


> Its my favorite AC game, and I don't find many problems with it. Its not perfect though. Here are some complaints.
> 
> 1. Using the wiimote to make designs was annoying.
> 2. Not enough villager quotes, and when you talk to them, you can't say "Whats up?", "Give me news!" , etc. so they don't say the same thing over and over again like in GCN, WW, and NL. I'm not sure if I'm the only one who has noticed this.
> ...



I can see this! Using the Wii-mote for anything but bowling annoyed the hell out of me, really. I'm just not a Wii person. The more I think about it, and the more I read through this thread, the more sense it makes to me that City Folk wasn't as successful as the other games in the series have been.


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## pika62221 (Jan 3, 2016)

Silversea said:


> City Folk did not feel particularly inspired. It was basically a HD Wild World with a small panel of new features, not like the progression of Gamecube to Wild World.



One, it wasn't HD, two, it also took features from GameCube's version and added them back in after taking them out of Wild World- real world holidays (Wild World doesn't have Halloween, Bunny Day- Easter, Toy Day- Christmas, etc), also, the layout of the town totally replicates the original- cliffs and a second layer of the town don't exist in Wild World, only the original, and City Folk. Plus, Kapp'n stopped appearing in Wild World after the 4th and final person moved into the same house. Also, just as in the original, all 4 players lived in separate houses, in Wild World they all shared a house- made it easier to pay off using 4 players than just one, but still.

I'm able to answer this question having played all 4 NA versions- still to this day, and can tell you why City Folk is my least favorite of the group. One, you need to have this with you if you ever plan to live in the real world and not miss time-sensitive events. Sure, you can change the clock to make up for it, but I'm truly devoted to the game and it's real life time setting. I never changed my GameCube clock originally, and never will for any system today. When Daylight Saving Time hits, I change the game's clock since an hour isn't going to matter to 99.9% of GC's games. If you want to time travel to make up for a missed event, and convince yourself it's not "time traveling" despite the game's clock not matching what the time on your phone has, be my guest, but for me, my game time will always match my phone's time, it's one of the reasons I fell in love with this game in 2002. 

So, when a shop closes, and I'm not home in time to make it, too bad, just like real life, I miss it- that's what I love about e+ though, I can bang on Tanukichi's (Nook's) door, and get him up to do some shopping and selling! Now, you'll say that e+ is a console, yeah, it is, but I can't always be home to play it, so sometimes I do miss out on timed events, but oh well, just like life. I've never missed an event in either Wild World nor New Leaf- gee, could it be the handheld is always with me? Why, yes, it IS always with me! I'm not saying I hate the consoles because of the clock, but the clock certainly gives the handhelds a bigger advantage.

So, getting into why City Folk is low. First, as mentioned above, it's a mix of the first 2 games, but not only that, it's literally a mix of the first 2 games with about 10% new content! I mean literally you start off again working for Nook, it's like Nintendo, I did this in Animal Crossing, I did this in Wild World, and I'm doing it AGAIN in City Folk? There are some nice new features like getting the gold axe simply by luck when you throw in a regular one, and the addition of silver tools were also nice since the first two it was either regular or gold. The next reason I didn't care for City Folk is because just like they fell in love with the touch screen on the DS making all the action happen using it, they repeated that same idea with the Wii-mote's pointer. It's like did they know how difficult typing already was with the touching, and not care? Geez, I hated trying to type on it- thankfully it had those pre-registered sentences! 

The City was great, but like others say you have to listen to a rambling Kapp'n. You could have just visited periodically, but you needed to go frequent enough to see online stuff, see Phineas, change your shoes with a "shine" by Kicks, and get all the emotions from Shrunk. Nook's the main store like he was in the prior 2, so you'll need to see him everyday no matter what, so they left him in the town- thankfully, that's a pain listening to Kapp'n rambling! 

The final thing I absolutely hated were the freaking cliffs! I was done with them in Wild World, I could go all the way up, and all the way down, and not have to search for a ramp to get to the next level! It's similar in New Leaf if you don't mind skipping the beach. I love that about New Leaf, no having to make paths for both the river AND a ramp to get to the next level. However, New Leaf doesn't have a clear boundary, just like Wild World, where north and south are, so burying cedars you don't know exactly where the cutoff is that the cliffs gave you. Cliffs aside, the real time, non-time travel, home-only puts all the console games behind the 8 ball as it is, but if they would have added some cooler features (or returned some of e+ features), then it'd probably be higher to me than it was.


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## Brooke_the_Phoenix (Jan 7, 2016)

I really like Let's Go to the City (City Folk), but the grass wear is really annoying.  It never bothered me when I got the game a few years ago because the Wii console was in the living room so I only really played it once a week.  However, I started playing it a lot more this year (before I got New Leaf) and now my town looks kind of like a desert and there are certain areas I'm trying not to walk on.  Kapp'n also talks way too much and he just repeats the same five conversations, which is annoying when you want to go to the city and have to sit through him telling you for the eight billionth time that he never understood buying clothes .  The dialogue with the villagers is also repetitive and boring, which made me lose interest in a lot of the villagers I got that I didn't already have at some point in Wild World.  It's also really hard to make designs with the Wii Remote, because you have to keep you hand as steady as possible and move right in front of the TV.  It also was really similar to Wild World and doesn't really do anything new except give us a city to go to.  I've never played AC on Gamecube, but I've played Wild World, Let's Go to the City and New Leaf, and from my experience AC works a lot better on hand-held devices.


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## Hulaette (Jan 9, 2016)

I really LOVED Animal Crossing: City Folk. Nothing about the game bothered me at all. But sometimes the dialog would get boring and annoying to read. I HATED Wild World because your house was too expensive, I had a hard time trying to pay it off. I ended up having to sell everything I owned just to pay off 1/4 of the last debt I was in. Shampoodles hair style choices was confusing and I didn't understand what I was choosing or what color is what. I was losing more money than I was making. I just have a difficult time keeping up with everything in WW so I ended up giving up. I think City Folk was a successor to Wild World.


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## ACWWGal2012 (Jan 10, 2016)

There's the Grass wear problem that unless you stuck to paths, you'd be in a desert. Animals would have fun packing up w/o warning and you couldn't stop them from moving. No photos to earn. the "city" was Overhyped w/ at least 4 empty buildings. It took to long to get to and from city. Wifi seemed to be pretty unstable for some. Forced to use both buttons and wii pointer which was a PIA. Villagers were constantly saying the same stuff over and over again unless you entered and left an acre every time you talked to them. 

Plus unless you hacked your wii or had access to another wii, you couldn't have more then 1 town. That posed problems to both the people w/ more then 4 AC players in one house AND those who want more then 1 town.


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## watercolorwish (Jan 17, 2016)

It felt like there was very little to do even with the city. Also there is no way that little plaza was a city...


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