Is Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer Worth It to You?

[baconhwang]

Hi there, super serious question: as a diehard Animal Crossing fan (I purchased five copies of AC:NL... please don't ask why), I want to know if AC:HHD is worth it. I'm on the fence about getting it as I know that if I get this game I'll be so tempted to start collecting the cards. I'm really curious as to see if the game is actually like a usual Animal Crossing experience; I know it's different in many respects because you're designing the animals' houses, but I don't know... is it fun like an Animal Crossing game? Does it compare? I'm really curious as what you guys think, thank you in advance to everyone who shares their opinion!

 

[KitchenWhisk]

I like it as much as the regular series, but it's more like Legos or a dollhouse than Animal Crossing. Do you like Legos? (well, the ones they used to have when I was a kid, and you bought giant bins of assorted ones. All the Legos I see recently are in kits designed to make specific things, which... is different)

 

[baconhwang]

Hmm, have you played Minecraft? My friend said Legos are like Minecraft, and I remember I LOVED Legos as a child. So I would say yes, AC:HHD would appeal to me in that aspect. But do you get to do anything with the villagers you build houses for after the construction of the house? I feel like that's really the only interaction you have with the animals after, and a huge part of why I loved AC:NL is because of the personalities of the animals and the interactions I had with them. I don't want a game by the way that requires me to play everyday either, I'm way too busy these days for that style of game anymore (so if that's the case I'm not so sure if I'll get this game). I'm asking because Target is having that nifty buy 2 get 1 game free deal and I wanna get back into Wii U and 3DS gaming

 

[Viena]

It's a smaller spectrum compared to ACNL, but is still lots of fun and I enjoy it just as much ^^
In my opinion it's definitely worth the buy, especially if you're an AC fan already, you'll get something out of it

The cards can be addicting, but if you really don't want to spend money, you don't /need/ them to complete the villagers requests.
That being said, I still find them super cool to collect xD

 

[baconhwang]

Ahh, great info! Thank you! By the way, does AC:HHD support wifi multiplayer? Like visiting other people's towns as you were able to in AC:NL? I'd love to play with my college friends who are on the other side of the country.

And I think I might actually purchase all the cards once they all come out in like complete sets on Ebay or something haha I heard it's really hard to collect a full US set without trading with others :/

 

[lars708]

Well Happy Home Designer is quite fun but it isn't worth the price tag in my opinion. If it was 20 euros or something it would be fine but 40 euros is too much for a game like this.

 

[Viena]

You can visit the villagers after you've designed their houses, just to check up on them and have a chat. It's not exactly like ACNL, (where they send you on errands, give you items etc.) Apart from talking to them and dressing them up that's about it.

As far as the every day play, you don't have to in HHD. It's not in real time like ACNL, so time doesn't tick by while you're not playing. It plays at your own pace
You can't visit each other in this one unfortunately, but you can visit other houses your friends have designed by connecting to the wifi network ^-^

- - - Post Merge - - -

And I think I might actually purchase all the cards once they all come out in like complete sets on Ebay or something haha I heard it's really hard to collect a full US set without trading with others :/

You can buy the sets by the box, 42 packs. But the packs are completely random, so there's no full guarantee you'll get the entire set u_u

 

[KitchenWhisk]

-It's not in real time so you don't have to play everyday (thank god)

-The only multiplayer is visiting other people's designs, similar to dream addresses in acnl. You can't actually play with other people

-I was kinda disappointed with villager interaction in acnl, friendships felt shallow, the personalities felt watered down, and the NPCs like Isabelle or Blathers felt similarly bland, whereas in previous games they at least talked to you, or had little storylines. I'm probably in the minority here, but I think the villagers in achhd have a lot more personality and interaction. Granted, most of it is completely fabricated in my head, but having villager request things like photography studios or farms makes them feel more real to me, and differentiates the different personality types (whereas before I was like, all these normal villagers act exactly the same, so I might as well just pick the cutest one or whatever). Also even with the limited dialogue, the cranky/snooty villagers are more cranky/snooty. And it's just really fun to make them sing/play instruments/pose for pictures/dress them up however you want.

 

[B e t h a n y]

-It's not in real time so you don't have to play everyday (thank god)

-The only multiplayer is visiting other people's designs, similar to dream addresses in acnl. You can't actually play with other people

-I was kinda disappointed with villager interaction in acnl, friendships felt shallow, the personalities felt watered down, and the NPCs like Isabelle or Blathers felt similarly bland, whereas in previous games they at least talked to you, or had little storylines. I'm probably in the minority here, but I think the villagers in achhd have a lot more personality and interaction. Granted, most of it is completely fabricated in my head, but having villager request things like photography studios or farms makes them feel more real to me, and differentiates the different personality types (whereas before I was like, all these normal villagers act exactly the same, so I might as well just pick the cutest one or whatever). Also even with the limited dialogue, the cranky/snooty villagers are more cranky/snooty. And it's just really fun to make them sing/play instruments/pose for pictures/dress them up however you want.

I actually totally agree with you.

 

[Maeka]

Yeah I think it's cute and fun but it does get repetitive in my opinion. It seems I enjoy collecting the cards more than the game and I just play the game whenever I get a new card so I can make them a house haha. ACNL just has so much more to it. Either way I'm glad I got it.

 

[mags]

I have 3 games of new leaf and had Wild World before that so I was super excited to get Happy home. I was really disappointed when I got it as I thought you would walk around the village like on new leaf but it isn't anything like that but the more I played the more I got into it. I have done all the villagers now ( but no specials as I don't want to buy cards) and I am enjoying going back to re do them now I have more items. I love decorating the outside and hope, eventually, they will bring out a new animal crossing that you can decorate outside the house too. If you can afford it, I would give it a go, if money is tight, I really don't know if it's worth it. Good luck anyway.

 

[DJStarstryker]

All you do is design houses. You get items by designing houses. Once you have a certain item unlocked, you can use it as much as you want. There is no buying or selling, no bug or fish catching, no holidays, no birthdays, no doing errands for animals, no walking around a town, no visiting other towns directly (you can visit houses/buildings with a dream code-like system and that's it), etc. All you do is design houses.

I will say there's many new features that make designing houses more fun in HHD. You can put stuff on the ceiling, there's more items available, a lot more design slots, you can put items outside, you can place items with the touch screen instead of having your character pull/push things around, refurbishing takes seconds instead of 30 minutes per item and it's free, etc. You can also decorate for ALL of the animals. You're not limited to only 10 villagers like NL.

I think the game is fun and worth it, but if you think you'll get bored just decorating houses, then you shouldn't buy it.

 

[Blythetastic]

All you do is design houses. You get items by designing houses. Once you have a certain item unlocked, you can use it as much as you want. There is no buying or selling, no bug or fish catching, no holidays, no birthdays, no doing errands for animals, no walking around a town, no visiting other towns directly (you can visit houses/buildings with a dream code-like system and that's it), etc. All you do is design houses.

I will say there's many new features that make designing houses more fun in HHD. You can put stuff on the ceiling, there's more items available, a lot more design slots, you can put items outside, you can place items with the touch screen instead of having your character pull/push things around, refurbishing takes seconds instead of 30 minutes per item and it's free, etc. You can also decorate for ALL of the animals. You're not limited to only 10 villagers like NL.

I think the game is fun and worth it, but if you think you'll get bored just decorating houses, then you shouldn't buy it.

I completely agree. I've seen some complain about HHD but I think as long as you know what you're buying, it's fun. If you expect it to be like ACNL, you'll be disappointed, I think. It's clearly a spin off but still quite a bit of fun. I find that I design a house or two then take a break. I spend a LOT of time on each house so I end up needing a break from it. It's nice because then I can go back and work on ACNL again.

 

[glow]

I think it's worth it, partly because I love designing. the thing is, I'm glad it's not a full animal crossing game in the way that it doesn't matter how often you play. although I'm not glad that it's pretty one dimensional, I feel like with just a few more features (I.E. getting a score from your design, being able to fail) it could have been so much more.

that said, I still think Happy Home is worth buying! designing is so fun to me, and it helps me be more creative with my house in NL too. I also ended up really liking a lot of characters I wouldn't have normally, Rasher for example. and there are features I absolutely fell in love with: decent room for qr codes, rugs. also stuff on the ceiling !!! but yeah if designing isn't your thing, you probably won't like it

 

[lars708]

The only thing i am doing right now that involves this game is amiibo card trading. I only actually used just one card since release. (The Isabelle amiibo card of course <3)

 

[KaydeeKrunk]

I really love this game, but I am one of those people that has like 50 families started on the Sims because I LOVE building and decorating the houses, and I also literally drew out full on blue prints for each room in all four house of each town I made (I also had multiple copies) on ACNL. I am so addicted to HHD that I have neglected ACNL for a good while now (sorry towns!) and can't stop playing it!

I really enjoy that you don't NEED the cards to play the game unless you want all the SP people, and I started out not having the cards and not planning on getting them, but now I am hooked and bought an amiibo reader and a few packs of cards, and I plan on buying more... and more... and getting them all... and the more expensive folio for them... and, yeah, it was inevitable. BUT with that said I loved that you don't NEED to have them to play, all of the regular villagers still show up and everything. I also love that you get to build the PWP's and make them how you want so you can theme them all to match or make weird ones and creepy ones or super girly frilly everything, you're not forced to do something one way or another. it's the same way with all of the houses, you have to include a few things but besides that it's up to you, you can even throw caution to the wind and make it totally opposite of what they wanted and when you go back and want to do it again you don't even have to include their things and they actually tell you to do whatever you want!

I also really love that you don't have to do it every day... like I loved my villagers and I loved my towns, but having to go each day and water my flowers, and pick my weeds, buy the items so I wont miss them all for my catalog, make sure I mail my letters, and catch the bugs for the seasons and talk to all of my villagers each and every day, it got very tiring and when the villagers would move it would break my tiny heart and everything was awful and I would want to throw in my hat and give up... in this game nobody can ever leave you! Once you plant them they're stuck FOREVER!

Like mentioned by KitchenWhisk it's nice that's it's not 24hr and you can play as long or as little as you like in one day! Since it's on work day-by-day and you end whenever you want, and if you're working on some super awesome house you can save and come back to it when you're ready!

I just really enjoy this game and I think it is TOTALLY worth it to get it if you're a fan of the animal crossing games, even though you can't just go around and do chores, but I think it's a perk in this instance, that's someone else's job! But I am the house designer and I am not really sure what the other people I work with even do... cause it's just me doing it all by myself for the most part...

 

[DesignerThomas]

Happy Home Designer is one of those games that's targeting a niche market within a niche market. I love designing houses and am actually having more fun with this game than I had with New Leaf and other recent Animal Crossings, but in a totally different way. It's very understandable that this game won't appeal to everybody and some Animal Crossing fans might even regret buying the game impulsively based on the fact it's related to Animal Crossing.

 

[contententity]

it's great if you are really into designing houses, because that's pretty much all you do. ive always enjoyed the designing aspect of the other AC games, so it's nice to have the freedom to design without worrying about bells or anything. it's also fun unlocking more furniture and designing homes for characters that you really like. i got the bundle with the new3ds so it was worth it for me just to get the new console. i dont know if i would be as happy about it if i just got the game :u

 

[Blueskyy]

I haven't bought it because I think I'd get bored of it. Maybe I'll have to borrow it and give it a try.

 

[baconhwang]

A lot of things you and many other people have mentioned are getting me really enticed to try the game out. For example, having the option to play as much or as little as I want is VERY relieving to hear... I remember growing tired of taking care of my village every day to make sure that it was in tip top shape with the older entries in the series.

On top of that, what you said about the cards is really awesome to hear. I wasn't really planning on collecting the cards (because let's face it, Smash 4 Amiibo can leave a disgustingly hollow dent in your wallet), but I might get a couple to see if I can get a few of my favorites like Isabelle and Timmy. Really encouraging to hear you don't need the cards to have everyone come to your town.

I think the biggest selling point for me though is the fact that I thought of concepts to rooms and houses before this game even came out. With AC:NL, I was constantly thinking of new theme rooms I can construct (i.e. bathroom, classroom, arcade, dining hall, kitchen, etc) for my house when I got all the necessary accessories and furniture. With this new game though, it seems like that can all be done super quickly now! I think I'm won over to at least get the game and give it a try. Thank you to everyone who commented here