My Thoughts on the Toy Day Event (SPOLIER WARNING)

[Red Cat]

Just me... I never liked New Leaf's toy day to begin with - as well as that game's Harvest Festival. The reason: If you make a mistake in either one, you'd lose the ability to get certain items for that day, and you'd have to reset in order to 'redo' the events to get them. This was really, really annoying, especially for younger players and people who don't want to wiki-search events all the time.

I'm glad that, even though Toy Day became a bit oversimplified, it did not follow this "get it right or lose" part of these holidays in New Leaf. It was a fairly relaxing and low key for me as a result, as I was less worrisome about making a mistake. Turkey Day was way better, though.

I'm not a fan of the "everyone gets a trophy" approach with Toy Day in NH. In NL, getting Jingle's photo was a reward for putting in the effort to find out what your villagers want and figuring out which present to give each of them. If you don't get Jingle's photo in NL, it's not the end of the world. You can try again with another character, TT back to Toy Day, or just wait until next year. It's not like Jingle's photo was a popular house decoration that people had to have. For me, Toy Day was one of the few events in NL that was fun without being repetitive. In NH, it's just talk to all of your villagers which is something you have to do 50 times for a Nook Miles achievement.

 

[Lanstar]

I'm not a fan of the "everyone gets a trophy" approach with Toy Day in NH. In NL, getting Jingle's photo was a reward for putting in the effort to find out what your villagers want and figuring out which present to give each of them. If you don't get Jingle's photo in NL, it's not the end of the world. You can try again with another character, TT back to Toy Day, or just wait until next year. It's not like Jingle's photo was a popular house decoration that people had to have. For me, Toy Day was one of the few events in NL that was fun without being repetitive. In NH, it's just talk to all of your villagers which is something you have to do 50 times for a Nook Miles achievement.

The thing also about Toy Day in New Leaf was it was also luck-based, as you had to tediously try to talk to villager to find what they wanted. One of the devious areas was when 2 villagers asked for 'Flooring,' but never described what color they wanted. This exact thing happened to me 3 years in a row in that game, and I had to reset on 2 of those years to get them right. Fair? Anything but.

Same with Harvest Festival: The worst part of that event was the ingredients were not conveyed as collectible that could be displayed as furniture. And once you 'completed' the event, villagers would never be able to give those ingredients to you afterwards. In fact, you had to trade fish for them before even talking to Franklin in the event in order to have the best chance to get extras of them to decorate your kitchen! Fair? LULZ.

Let me say this again: I should not have to reset, exploit the game, nor look up a wiki in advance to complete an event "properly". It should be straightforward enough that I can do it in one setting without the worry of losing out on something. In this way, New Leaf's Festivale and Bunny Day were miles better than those dysfunctional events in that game.

 

[Boidoh]

I don't think I've played a single event in this game that was good this year. I missed the Halloween one - but, New Horizons keeps disappointing in this aspect.

 

[RollingAntony]

Happy Toy Day everyone!

I liked the event; it was short but sweet. I enjoyed all the villager dialogue, both from delivering the presents from Santa and when you did the gift exchange they were talking about since 10+ days ago. The music and decorations are also nice.

If i'm reading correctly, the only difference from NL is that you had to give the villagers the exact gift they asked for in previous days? Is that all? You can still give them gifts, it's part of it; and you can give them anything you like without the fear of having missed a mini clue.

 

[MayorofMapleton]

It was very nice, being able to give gifts and hearing how happy they were was enough. At least they weren't asking for random furniture that didn't match their house.

 

[Airysuit]

I am working today and tomorrow, whilst still needing to skype/zoom/call with friends and family in the evening for some Christmas celebrations.

I think this event was great! It was very cute and fun, not to hard and not to lengthy great to celebrate an event in half an hour before going to bed! I also spend half an hour on harvs island decorating a Christmas dinner with my villagers

I know a lot of people complain about lack of content, but as a fulltime worker (also during holidays) i think this entry of AC is just amazing. It is interesting enough to play a regularly, but not to packed that I will miss a lot or have to time travel constantly if I don't have enough time to play.

 

[John Wick]

It's Christmas day here for me, and the villagers were so sweet, thanking my wife and I for helping Jingle.

It was so nice to hear! ^_^

 

[princess.looking.for.frog]

This event was short but sweet. If it was too long, some people might not of completed it! The only thing I wish was different, was that the gifts given were exclusive or new furniture. Also, I wish there was a Toy Day furniture set because ACNH is missing soo many sets I wish they at least brought some back!

 

[Uffe]

I think it's fine. Some people are busy with school or work, so these types of events are made to be accessible for everyone. I understand you can just time travel backwards if you missed out the day before, but there are plenty of people who are against doing this. To top it off, if you have family members who also play this game, they won't have to wait too long to get their turn to get their prizes from Jingle, or anybody else on events like Toy Day. I was surprised to see the villagers give you the toys you already have, but the ones I got were in different colors, which is great, because I haven't gotten around asking for other color variations from people online. So I can see this being a good thing for people who don't know other people who play this game.

 

[sigh]

As far as I am aware they have removed that feature too so we won't be keeping the magic bag, make sure to make tons of pics while you have it

honestly them removing the ability to keep the magic bag bothered me the most out of this whole event, because i was specifically looking forward to keeping it like we got to in new leaf. like. i'm probably way more bummed about it than i should be.... but... i want that bag!!! i didn't wander around my island with it slung over my back for nothing lmao

it was seriously such a let down for me

 

[Junalt]

Turkey and Toy Day were the first events that had time traveling patched and even had an official statement from Nintendo as to why they did it.

Nintendo patching time traveling on Toy Day to (quote) "prevent spoilers", insinuated that they had anything that was even spoiler-worthy to begin with. To wait weeks for an event that takes 9 minutes to complete and doesn't have anything surprising (like they had implied) was disappointing in my opinion. As for the biggest event of the year, I would say Toy Day was the event that most players looked forward to the most, so you would think Nintendo would have done more for it.

Easter and Wedding season were also unlocked on the day itself only, it wasn’t just Turkey Day and Toy Day. Well I get that Toy Day is a huge thing for people because it’s the Christmas season but saying that it was the first events to be time locked is just simply not factual and thats spreading misinformation.

 

[Corndoggy]

So now not only do I not have a Christmas tree for Christmas, I also don’t have a pile of gifts. Compare this to NL where I had an entire room decked out in Christmas furniture and a Christmas tree in every room of my fully upgraded house. In my entire house in NH I have just 3 Christmas decorations.

This! This right here is why the event was lack luster to me. I want a christmas tree, or something i can immediately use to decorate my island. The gift pile is useless to me now because by the time i get the wrapping paper its already the new year.

 

[Baroque]

I share the feeling, honestly. In New Leaf, you had to speak to your villagers often leading up to Toy Day, getting hints of their favourite colors, favourite objects and so on just so you could pick the perfect gift for them. And when you did get the right presents, it felt special: it felt like you actually knew that villager well, like they were really your friend.

Here? Uhh, yeah, here's a gift. It's free stuff so it's probably a treat to receive but I have no clue whether it's really your thing or not, I guess that wasn't worth coding into the game. Oh, you want to trade gifts? Okay, that can be cool. Oh, you got me a color variant of the same toy that's been sold at Nook's Cranny all month long, that's... that's cool, I guess...

It's kind of bittersweet, I guess. Like, I guess it's fine, just disappointing considering how great it was in New Leaf.

 

[John Wick]

This! This right here is why the event was lack luster to me. I want a christmas tree, or something i can immediately use to decorate my island. The gift pile is useless to me now because by the time i get the wrapping paper its already the new year.

I had that problem, but just ordered the cardboard required, and TT'd a day and was lucky enough to find red wrapping paper for sale.

It would have been better to have it in stock on the day, and have cardboard boxes for sale.

 

[maria110]

I just did the event and I agree it was underwhelming. My main complaint though is again like the Thanksgiving event, I really don't like getting holiday decorations on the same day as the holiday!! I did the Thanksgiving event around 4pm or something and could only enjoy the Thanksgiving set for an hour or so before I put the game down for the day and Thanksgiving was over. I really wish they hadn't time locked the event so I could have enjoyed the Thanksgiving and now Toy Day decorations for at least several days beforehand.

I agree with this 100%. Decorations should be available before the holiday in question so they can be enjoyed. I can understand waiting for one holiday to be over before allowing decorations for the next holiday but waiting until the day of the holiday is weird.

 

[coldpotato]

So overall the event was pretty cute to me but I don't think they did enough with it, and to me it's the most disappointing event so far.
I definitely understand them wanting to keep it short because most people are busy today, but could they not add in maybe a few more tasks and rewards from Jingle?
Idk it's kind of lame to me too that they did something really annoying (color lock the toys) and then just have your villagers gift you other colors? I mean yes, it's nice that they did that in the end but it's like.. they shouldn't have been color locked anyway.. they really expected us to kiss their feet with gratitude for getting toys in different colors we should have been able to get to begin with? A large majority of us already cataloged them all from others anyway. I think it would have been cool if villagers gave us say, a piece of art we didn't have, a new DIY, or just anything that we would actually really want. Maybe they could have had the villagers ask us beforehand what we want for toy day. That would have been super cute.

The whole hanging toy day stockings up and interacting with them the next day to get something is SO cute, but I think the fact that all you get is Jingle's photo is just... weird and disappointing. Since when are stockings normally filled with random framed portraits? Jingle was on our island for one day, we hardly had to talk with him and definitely didn't bond with him at all and we're just supposed to display his photo on our island and be happy with that? I mean who thought of this stuff? There are a million better ideas for things to stuff stockings with.

If I had to give this event a rating it would be a pretty low 3/10. This is just for the event itself, not the whole update. I am still satisfied with a lot of things they included in the update but this event just wasn't it.

 

[Wolfie]

I have to agree with this. The Turkey Day Event was probably the best holiday event so far since I started playing, and the Halloween event a close second. They were simple, but fun with some great items. This event was just not worth it. It would be better if the gifts we got from villagers were different items than the ones we could easily buy and collect all month, and if we got more than just Jingle's photo in our stocking. It also would be nice if we got to do more, maybe craft more items for Jingle or maybe he made a mistake and gave villagers the wrong gifts, so you have to get the gifts to the right villager? I also would like to see what the villagers actually got from "Santa." Idk this whole event was just underwhelming.

 

[AssassinVicz]

I actually enjoyed the event, even if it was bare bones. I had some friends that I was playing with/doing the event with. So we kinda all helped each other do it.

The event was around 30 minutes, it all depends on where the villager were and how hard the game of hide and seek was to find them. So it was short. But there was also the added feature of trading gifts with villagers, to gather the rest of the toy day variants with your villagers. Which would have bumped the time up, if you didn’t catalog all the items beforehand.

I honestly didn’t want the event to be really long like bunny but there could have been a little more to it. But honestly it was enjoyable and with a younger audience in mind, it would be easy to do.

 

[cornimer]

I was kinda disappointed :/ I bought all the toys from the shop throughout the month thinking we'd give those to the villagers and we'd have to know which one everyone wants? But not having a choice in what villagers are given during the main part of the event, and getting the same toys back in return when you give them your own presents after, made it pretty boring for me. Buying gifts all month long felt pointless. I wish they'd either done the same thing as New Leaf or done something totally different, not a watered-down version of NL.

 

[daringred_]

as expected, i didn't care for it. i completed the entire thing in maybe 20 minutes, and that included a break to take photos with the magic bag. the only decent thing, really, was the music, but i was already fed-up by the time i handed out my own gifts to villagers that i watched a video while i was playing instead. giving us the DIY for the gift pile literally the day before christmas instead of much earlier made no sense, but that same issue is present with most event/seasonal DIYs and items. the dialogue was sweet until it inevitably got repeated (i have three smugs and four lazies), and they seemed to care more about "santa's" gift than mine anyway. personally, i preferred it when they mistook us for santa (it made sense since humans don't seem to be a common species in AC) instead of recognizing us and not questioning why we were dressed as him. i'm still super annoyed that we can't keep the magic bag like we could in NL. definitely don't see the point in removing that "secret" feature.

overall, it just felt very... surface level? in NL, there was always some sense of accomplishment when i gave out the right gifts on toy day, and collecting the hints was always fairly fun. definitely not the case here.