Completing the museum-- a rant

[Flicky]

I always enjoy completing the museum. It gives me a reason to actively seek out all the different bugs/fish/fossils/art etc. in the game. I would say the art exhibit is the only one I find genuinely difficult, though, since it's a lot more RNG focused compared to the other wings. By the time I had the other exhibits complete, I barely even had a quarter of the art wing finished.

 

[Hsn97]

I’ve given up with the museum to be honest. I have waste far too many hours, packets of bait and buckets of my sanity on trying to catch the golden trout

 

[Moritz]

I completed my museum on my original island.
It was good fun.

I reset my island just before 2.0 came out and now I have done all the fossils and art, and need 4 fish, 5 bugs, and 1 deep sea until I'm done.

Due to things changing each month, I need to wait until September to get the last few (minus 2 bugs that don't spawn until 11 tonight which I'm waiting for)

Completing the museum is a lot of fun and a great goal to work towards.

 

[kemdi]

I love completing the museum. Finishing it is one of my favorite parts of every game. At first I was trying to do it solo, but weirdly I had the most trouble finishing off the fossil section, since I could never find a tricera tail. I ended up trading for it in the end. The art section was done by trading, though I did get the last piece of art I needed from Cyd in the mail. All the fish and bugs including the diving wasn't too bad. I remember having trouble looking for a mahi-mahi, but ended up getting it unexpectedly on a Nook island.

 

[Venn]

I tried to take my time with the art section but I think after a year or so, I really just wanted it completed, so I actively looked out for them in trades and such. It is complete now and its my favorite section of the museum.

 

[Chilupa]

I have completed the bug and fossil exhibits...but the art, fish, and deep-sea creatures are challenging. I've gotten most of the fish and sea critters, aside from the ones that only show up at 2 a.m. on a blood moon or whatever. But I also know a lot of people who finished ALL of the main (bug, fish, fossil) exhibits already. The art is another story, thanks to Redd, but still....
Anyone else find this a fun (but frustrating) challenge?

I only have my fossil exhibit completed.
I don’t fast travel or get help I’m trying to do it the actual way (for now). So far my art exhibit is LMAO I do have a plethora of fake art before I got smart and start looking for the real pieces before attempting myself.
My bugs isn’t far off from complete.
My fish now that’s another story and I need about four deep sea creatures.
I feel your pain and the joy of it all.

 

[Virga]

I'd say it was more of a pain before the update that put Redd on Harv's island. I remember my friends and I wouldn't see Redd for months at a time... Maybe that's how it is in New Leaf but it's always somehow felt more frequent. Even though Redd sometimes brings all fake art to Harv's island, at least you can buy the fake art off him to "reroll" when he'll replace it with something new the following day.

 

[Tiffany]

As far as the art section goes I got most of it from here. I got tired of dealing with Redd so I started buying what I was missing. The bugs,fish and critters were a different matter. I have played ac since the gamecube version so I long ago came up with a system to finish my museum in a year(since I don't tt much). I donate the first of each thing I catch. I go online and find guides for each one. I write down(or type on my pc) all the things available for whatever month I'm in. I write down times, locations and shadow size(for critters). I make sure to catch and donate everything before the month is out(usually I can manage it in a week or so if I have the time to play). By using this method I can make sure I get everything in a year(the spider crab held me up a couple extra months cause the critters weren't available at start of game though).

 

[-Blue-]

I never really bothered. I did eventually get around to completing the bug section, but the others are still incomplete. It's just something extra to do. I remember how much people worried themselves sick and burned themselves out over the museum goals when the game first launched.

I have one or two fish left to get. I think they're both pier fish. I spent a lot of hours crafting a ton of bait one time. The whole bait process is so flawed and unnecessarily complicated. Ended up burning through it all and didn't get anything but seabass. There were a few times the fish actually didn't register for 10 seconds or more so I thought the game glitched and I used another bait only for the fish to finally spawn and then despawn due to the additional bait I just threw. That also sucked and swore me off ever crafting my own bait again.

I'll get around to it eventually. Or maybe not.

 

[RollingAntony]

I think that completing the museum perfectly encapsulates the soul and gameplay of Animal Crossing.

You need to engage with tons of mechanics to achieve this task, and it's the bread and butter of a life-sim game that moves on its own. Fossils will spawn on their own but you need to keep digging them to find the ones you need. The player must go through almost a year of gameplay to be able to find all the creatures, and with the way those spawn, you must play at different times, breed flowers, etc. And art-wise, patience is a virtue with a good-dose of luck.

All in all, it was one of my most anticipated goals to achieve before I played NH. It surpassed my expectations and NH even went further by giving me a beautiful museum that grew alongside my effort.

 

[Corrie]

I enjoyed completing the museum but only for the bugs and fish and sea critters part. Those are the exhibits I like looking at most. I've completed the fossils and am really close with the fish and bugs. Sea critters I'm about halfway. Art I've given up cause I don't care to collect them lol.

That said, overall I never go into the museum anyway so if it never gets completed, that's fine with me.

 

[-Raven-]

I have everything except for the king salmon and some art pieces on NH. I’m just going to take my time with the art for now. There’s no need for me to rush them since I’m going to keep playing for a while now. I’ll try to trade for them once my town as a whole is more “finished”. The reason I hadn’t finished the art section is because I stopped playing multiple times and before 2.0 Redd already appeared sort of rarely.

I finished it completely on Wild World. I still remember that the dorado and popeye goldfish were some of the last fish I caught back then. I don’t really have the motivation to finish the museum in other games now because NH made it look so much prettier. LOL. Although I don’t know how I never finished the GC museum… there’s kinda less to do in that game so I might passively try to do it some day.

 

[Moonlight.]

i had completed my museum before but that was several resets ago lol.

now I just time travel and do the art "trick" where you buy art from redd on your island, time travel ahead one day so the art is delivered and then go back so it spawns new art pieces available to buy. once i'm down to like 5 pieces or so i need then i just buy from the shops here lol... i think my least favorite section to work on are the sea creatures, i just find swimming/diving to be extremely boring

this is the only animal crossing game i've put effort into collecting the museum items for because I think the museum is really gorgeous to wander around in

 

[Speeny]

I definitely found it to be rewarding in the beginning. But, my progress eventually hit a wall and even though I do still care about completing the museum someday, there's a chance that I'll never get around to it either. I've seemingly reached a point where I've donated most of everything already and needing to resort to guides online just isn't fun when it comes to AC imo. Truthfully, only my fossil exhibit is complete tbh. What's lacking the most is probably the art that I've yet to purchase and donate.

 

[June]

i'm trying to do this in my active playthrough (and it'd be the first time i even really bother filling out my museum properly) but my handle of controls is somehow much worse compared to when i was last playing actively, so now i'm afraid i won't be able to catch the more difficult ones LOL i'm trying to figure out how i can tell someone who has better control to maybe catch them for me at this point u__u

 

[amemome]

This game was the first in which I completed the fossil, fish, bug, and sea creature encyclopedias! I think it's hard but doable if you play every day, or at least once a week during multiple times a day.

Art is "easy" if you have Nintendo Online and TBT -- so many generous forum members sell genuine art so if you don't care for checking Redd's wares every week, you can just buy the art you need from TBT!

Fossils are the same as art -- many forum members have stores or giveaways for their extra fossils, so it's relatively easy to complete these sections.

 

[TheRevienne]

This is actually the first AC game I've played where I have completed the museum. On the others I've not had the patience or the time to bother catching everything. It took time, but since I started on release, and was off work for a good chunk of 2020 cause of Covid, I found myself just gathering things even when I was 'done' for the day. It helped having a companion app and using that to check things off. The last area I needed to do was my art, so I bought what I needed from on here for that. It does feel good knowing that I've caught everything, but at the same time I want more. I've only ever caught all the diving critters on ACNL, so it's been quite an achievement. Some of the bugs and fish were a pain to catch, but it made getting them more worthwile. The AC games are meant to be slow burners, not ones that you complete quickly, and I think that's why a lot of people got burnt out with it, since a lot of us had more time on our hands because of the pandemic. I think it's all personal preference at the end of the day, I know people who've kept their museum as a tent because they like the aesthetic, also it's sort of what fits your island, and your own goals for your island