Does anyone else feel this way?

[ScaryGhosts]

I agree in the sense that the randomness and lack of control is what makes AC so appealing to me. I will continue to control everything I can as long as I?m given the option to, but I wish more randomness was enforced haha.

 

[UglyMonsterFace]

I don't agree. I like to have a lot of control over the way my town looks. I don't think I see it as a competition though. But if that's how someone else wants to play, then let them. It's their play style. It's not like the game forces you to do anything. I know a lot of let's plays where they don't even bother with their town landscaping or decorating their houses too much. They just do the daily things. So if that's your play style, then just play that way. I really don't like it when people say to limit the game and remove features just because they don't like the way other people play it. Everyone's different and I'd rather that more people enjoy this game and play the way they like, than have fewer people play just because I want them to conform to my own play style.

 

[buny]

No, as it doesn't stress me out and I neither feel it's a competition.
I don't care what other peoples' opinion of my town is unless I ask for it, as I made it for myself and not anyone else.

this

 

[Bizhiins]

I enjoy the extra responsibilities in the new games because it allows me to mold the game more into what I want it to be.
The older versions were easier when I was younger, but I could only see my friends towns and they are very similar.
Being able to travel online and see dreams of other amazing towns really inspires me to work hard and turn it into what I want it to be!

 

[Stalfos]

Hmm. Maybe a little bit. I do appreciate how the first game did things. I couldn't control how things played out as much so it didn't bother me. In New Leaf on the other hand, you have so much control over things that it becomes harder to let go of said control and just let things happen. If one of my villagers plants a flower, you can bet I'll be there turning it into a cloud of petals in a matter of seconds.

Someone from Gamexplain speculated that the new game could use some kind of rating system for towns (or islands in his case), making the game basically a competition. I think that would be the wrong way to go and not at all what Animal Crossing is about imo.

 

[LadyDestani]

I don't feel any sense of competition in the game. Just because I can use the Dream Suite to view other people's towns doesn't mean I'm constantly comparing mine to theirs. I create my town in a way that makes me happy, but I also like to see what other people do with their towns. It's a form of expression and creativity, and sometimes I draw inspiration from another town while sometimes I just enjoy the visit and move on. I don't sit there thinking, "Is my town as good as theirs?" There is no comparison because they created a town that made them happy and I created a town that makes me happy.

With that said, I do sometimes miss the more stress-free play-style of the original Animal Crossing game and I've thought of trying it out again on an emulator if I ever have time. I don't necessarily find New Leaf to be stressful. In fact, I look to it for stress relief, so if it stressed me out I probably wouldn't still be playing it. But my nostalgia makes me remember how much fun it was to have a town where I didn't have to worry about grass deterioration or villagers plotting right on my doorstep. Those are the only two things that I find slightly stressful in the game, but I found ways of managing those things so they don't bother me anymore.

 

[Blue Cup]

Yes, because of the light toxicity within the fandom that these features have helped breed. People get way too weird and obsessive over the way their town looks, who lives in their town, where you get to walk, etc. Villager obsession is terribly awkward as people held them up like trophies if they had a "dreamy" and were telling others not to talk to them as part of their town rules. Then the amiibo cards dropped and people loss their minds because the villager trade was suffering as a result.

I loved the idea of the Dream Suite, but hated actually visiting towns because everything felt the same. The same set of pathways. The same villagers all lined up thanks to the obsessive tendency players developed to reset over and over until they got them in "the right spot". Everything was symmetrical, or at least as much as it could be.

Meanwhile, the more organic "minimal control, allow things to happen as they do" towns were shunned or didn't receive the same kind of attention. I hated the New Leaf online community so much that after about six months, I gave up on it all and just to play with my family and closest friends.

And you can bet that I'll be doing the same for Switch.

And before anyone gets their panties in a twist, I'm not saying people shouldn't play like this as that's the beauty of Animal Crossing in that it adapts to play style of the individual, but you can bet that I won't give your town a second thought if it features Merengue and a list of rules 15+ items in length.

 

[ScaryGhosts]

Yes, because of the light toxicity within the fandom that these features have helped breed. People get way too weird and obsessive over the way their town looks, who lives in their town, where you get to walk, etc. Villager obsession is terribly awkward as people held them up like trophies if they had a "dreamy" and were telling others not to talk to them as part of their town rules. Then the amiibo cards dropped and people loss their minds because the villager trade was suffering as a result.

I loved the idea of the Dream Suite, but hated actually visiting towns because everything felt the same. The same set of pathways. The same villagers all lined up thanks to the obsessive tendency players developed to reset over and over until they got them in "the right spot". Everything was symmetrical, or at least as much as it could be.

Meanwhile, the more organic "minimal control, allow things to happen as they do" towns were shunned or didn't receive the same kind of attention. I hated the New Leaf online community so much that after about six months, I gave up on it all and just to play with my family and closest friends.

And you can bet that I'll be doing the same for Switch.

And before anyone gets their panties in a twist, I'm not saying people shouldn't play like this as that's the beauty of Animal Crossing in that it adapts to play style of the individual, but you can bet that I won't give your town a second thought if it features Merengue and a list of rules 15+ items in length.

Ugh. I know that having a town perfectly in order is challenging and satisfying and I see why people want to do that, and I KNOW the stress over worrying about a random move in dropping their stupid house on my non-qr path or in front of a bridge like they always do, so I see that, and I don’t really want ac to give us more control over house placement but I also can’t help myself from plot resetting whenever I know someone is going to move in, so I’m really torn about this. It seems like someone is going to hate any type of town, but I think both heavily structured and natural towns can be done well.

 

[Speeny]

I have always played the games the way I want to play them. Stress-free all the way imo.

 

[Chouchou]

It's pretty much therapy for me and I like to have not as much control over my town as some of the others. I love how a town develops over time and, altough I plan somethings, I like it to live free.

 

[Liability]

i guess in some way i kinda saw it as competitive and the need to be the best? but i never pieced it together in my head. i've even been trying to make my town the way someone else would make it (lots of patterns, pwps, flowers, trees), but i have to remind myself that if it looks good for me, then it doesn't matter. not many people come and visit my town anyway, and i don't even have a dream address. so if it looks good for me and the way i want it, i shouldn't try to make it look like someone else's town

 

[GuyWithThePie]

Very much so. I dislike how much recent games have prioritized customization over an interactive world. Animal Crossing's main appeal used to be that it was like a living, breathing world running in real-time, but as of late people have started treating it as some sort of virtual dollhouse. The fact that some people constantly reset their save data or even own multiple copies because they're "unsatisfied" or "bored" further supports this. They care more about how their towns look than the town itself.

Back to my earlier point, this is reflected on the games themselves. Everyone knows about how watered-down character dialogue has become over the years, but rarely do I ever hear anyone talk about how plain and boring the town itself has become. Take a look at this image:

Isn't that pathetic? How an N64 game has a bigger town than its Wii and 3DS sequels? And that's not even getting into the complete lack of geographical variety of towns post-Wild World. You will never find anything like this in a modern AC game.
https://youtu.be/RrD9ptfF0iQ
https://youtu.be/AoRWzSCCsGA
I understand why Wild World removed all of this, but there was no excuse for them to not bring it back in City Folk. And no, the cliffs hardly count. They're pathetic compared to the first game's.

And that's just the town's geography alone. I haven't even gotten into the removal of events like the sports fair, New Leaf's complete removal of character lore such as Blathers's rants, Sable's story, character episodes, etc... Modern Animal Crossing has done wonders in the QoL and customization departments but has been lacking just about everywhere else. I can only hope that the Switch game will relieve these woes, but all the spin-offs post-NL have only been pushing further in this direction.

Also, I dislike the mayor aspect because I personally feel like it completely flies in the face of Katsuya Eguchi's original vision for the series, being inspired by his experience of living on his own for the first time and trying to make friends in an unfamiliar environment while being miles away from friends and family. It's certainly more relatable to the average person than becoming the mayor of a town you've just arrived in. But that's just me. I certainly don't speak for him, nor do I know how he feels about it.

 

[Onyx]

Personally I like the newer games because of the options I get. Being the mayor is so fun! As long as you don't use cheats (the crown cheat broke my last town I lost all interest) it just takes time to do the things you wanna do! Like complete the museum, get all the badges (literally never done this yet lol) and with the dreamies, I think it's become easier with the RV addition. Lots of people on here are willing to give you a dreamie way easier and it's less of a competition to get them! I didn't like that part before. I feel good about my town, it's corny of me to be a grown lady loving a game where I'm living a fake life but I always have something to look forward to IRL. When I play the GC version I feel like it's missing so much