For those that don't know what I'm talking about, New Leaf was the first game in the series to introduce major proportion changes to most of the villagers, such as larger limbs and bodies, that marked what future characters would look like from then on out. Some smaller-sized species went mostly unaffected, such as the ducks and squirrels. When the then-new designs of these villagers were first revealed, I could remember a few gamers being bothered that many of said villagers didn't look "cute" anymore, and that player villagers in particular looked dramatically different and somewhat unoriginal compared to older games. For me, I was never bothered by these changes, and I actually think they were much needed as the series slowly went toward an HD direction and the player could wear pants, skirts, shoes, socks and so on.
Take Rosie for example. On the left is her City Folk design, while the right is her New Leaf one:
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Not much of a difference otherwise, is there?
So, what about you? Did these proportion changes bother you at first? If they still do, how so?
The only thing that bothered me was how they changed Mac's outfit. He should still be wearing the red aloha tee he always had been up until New Horizons. That outfit really suited him.
The proportions were much needed, in my opinion. I especially feel this way with the human players. They look a lot more realistic now. They had to change the villagers because of this. If they hadn't, everything would look off.
I like to imagine it as the characters growing up. I was really young when I played Wild World and City Folk, so having my character be a lot taller in New Leaf didn’t feel weird to me. I honestly didn’t notice the villagers had changed, but I guess it looks like they grew up too.
I did get bothered by it a lot when I first saw New Leaf back in 2010, I never understood why they had to grow up and didn't keep their chibi size.
Overtime, mostly in 2012 I grew out of that salty phase and accepted it.
Jumping into 2024, I now prefer the taller character designs to the smaller/chubbier designs. Smash Bros is the only game in modern day still keeping true to the original size formula.
The longer bodies/changed perspective did bother me a bit when I first got new leaf
But the dislike went away pretty quickly
I had the same thing happen with new horizons lol
I noticed it pretty quickly with the player character, but didn't with the animal villagers, even though it only makes sense. Seeing them side by side, I think the previous proportions were cuter for the villagers, but I don't miss it for our characters.
i honestly never took too much notice of it so i guess you could say it didn't bother me, but now that I'm looking at rosie side by side she does look much cuter chibi style! i wonder why they decided to change it up.
New Leaf was my first AC game so I never realized there was a change in proportions -- Rosie looks so much cuter there with the smaller proportions!! It's almost like a chibi-version of her
Idk if I would want it to return though. Maybe in the next AC game it could be cool to use proportions like that if they have an in-world AC game of their own, as like a minigame we could play.. that'd be pretty meta
i noticed it and it didn't really bother me necessarily so i moved on from it pretty quickly. i like both for different reasons. the sheep in acnl wear scarves which i think looks better than the super stretched out outfits of new horizons. that's the only change i would roll back.
New look new vibe... I understand that the art direction and technology changes. I'm hoping the next AC is super cute and has more of a forest / natural landscape than the rumors of a big city, but we'll see...
Even though my first game in the series was the GameCube game, the change to the character proportions for the villagers isn't something that ever bothered me or that I ever really gave much thought, frankly. As for the player characters, though, I like the change. Considering that I don't really have strong feelings about the change to the villagers' proportions, if they had to change to coincide with the change to our player characters, it's a net positive for me.
i didn't even realize how much they were elongated lmao it's adorable, honestly
it doesn't bother me, but that's probably because my first game was new leaf.
I prefer the new character designs for the human player. Being able to select skin tone is a necessity, and I think the face and build look more natural.
While I don't always create an "avatar for the self" when playing video games, I prefer to do so with the AC franchise. I am female but tend to be pretty androgynous/masculine in my presentation, so I never liked having to choose between a male character (who looked and dressed like me) or a female character (who did not). Having all clothes work for all players is a huge upgrade.
As far as the animal villagers are concerned, I do miss the old proportions. I think the "less cute" criticism is interesting, because I actually feel like a lot of my favorite species, like hippos, rhinos, gorillas, mice, and cows/bulls, got re-proportioned in order to slide a little closer to players' preferred cutesy vibe. I liked the hugely disproportionate hippo heads and the chonky gorillas, but I feel like I saw a lot of negativity about how ugly and out of balance they looked. And for a more popular opinion, I miss the spherical sheep. Bring back the scarves!
I liked the bigger villager designs in New Leaf.I do remember some people complaining about how the larger species "towered" above their player characters and thought that was kinda silly because even the big bears and hippos weren't all that much taller than our mayors.I'm glad they kept the smaller species roughly the same size.
New Leaf was my first game that introduced me to the Animal Crossing series, so never did it ever bother me of how they looked. I've definitely seen the older designs, so I can see why some people would be resistant to change.
i didn't notice since new leaf is the first animal crossing game that i spent a major amount of time in. looking at the old characters now, i think either look fine. i do think the shorter animals are quite cute tho but i don't mind them being taller as well.
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it's adorable, honestly
