Although I'm still new to Animal Crossing starting with NH, looking at people comparing this game to the older ones has made me really interested them. I looked it up and these two seem to be the ones I can afford, so which one would people recommend?
very biased point of view but hear me out:
graphics and contentwise, you're gonna aim for NL. the community is somewhat active and you'll definitely find people on here willing to trade stuff with you, if you really want it. sometimes even for free. and there is still people you can play together with. it's not a "dead" experience and it has a lot of enjoyable content too.
personally, i prefer WW over it, but that's because it's the game i grew up with. it just doesn't have as much content and you're unable to do online trading (unless you look into the bypasses), plus, it's really punishing to the player if you don't play constantly. i wouldn't recommend it, if you don't want to play it daily alongside NH for an hour or two, but it's overall a much nicer (albeit also an eyestrain) experience than NL to me. at least you had the ability to lock some villagers in unlike NL, where they'll just get up and leave at some point tbh.
If you want an Animal Crossing that’s vastly different than NH, I’d go with WW. NL is a lot more similar, but honestly if I were to go back to one of the two it would be WW for it’s different feeling.
Wild World has nostalgic value for a lot of us, but by today's standards, there's not really that much to do in it. Since you started with NH, I think you'd be really bored with Wild World. New Leaf would be the way to go if you want another gameplay experience with a lot to do.
I think it depends on what you’re looking for. WW definitely has some limitations, such as a maximum of only 8 villagers and the fact that your characters can only live in one house. But I also think it has some of the best dialogue in the series. It’s why Maple and Kid Cat are two of my favorite villagers to this day.
I’d advise newcomers to go for New Leaf, as my opinion is heavily swayed by my nostalgia for Wild World. WW may feel bland or empty for people who started with New Horizons.
new leaf
wild world has...this odd vibe to it that always put me off.
something about it feels closed in and uncomfortable so I've never gotten into it much
New leaf is a lot of better in everyway except the old AC vibe, feel and conversations which is a unique experience to have, but the framerate is the thing that puts me off from picking it up again... its like 15 fps from what it feels like, the graphics are fine for me but the framerate is terrible and it will take forever to pull out all the weeds if you don't play consistently... The gamecube is probably better than WW imo if you were to play the old AC the graphics are better imo and the framerate is at least 30fps with A LOT of content. But Imo pick new leaf the community is not yet dead and has a lot to experience, just don't get too attached to some villagers and try not to keep resetting!
New Leaf is just much more viable to play fully today than WW.
Wild World's Nook's Cranny can't be upgraded without another player coming to your town and buying something there. Nintendo cut the cord on the Nintendo DS's internet a long time ago. While there's still a way to connect your game to the internet, it's just too troublesome, you may need to buy an old router for that to work (good luck finding that) and you'll need to find other people who still play the game online to help you with this.
NL still works fine online, you just need your 3ds and your copy of the game. Also, New Leaf is leaps and bounds more refined and complete than wild world. The control scheme alone is a game changer.
If you can, I would definitely recommend you to get the GameCube version. If you have a Wii or a WiiU, you'll be able to play it easily (older models of the Wii can do it natively; to do that on the WiiU you'll need to do other things...). ACGC is a very different game than what Animal Crossing is today, and it's a very quirky, charming game, with more personality than all other games combined.
I would say WW, but that is only because I never really got into NL. The villagers were just so alive, and I spent many, many hours just talking to them and listening to the in-game music (it is the best - no one can persuade me otherwise). However, my love for WW is clouded by nostalgia, since it was the first game I played a lot (+ my first Animal Crossing game). It was the game where the villagers were so memorable I can still remember them (Whitney, Peanut, Agent S, Static, Drake) clearly 15 years later, while I cannot for the life of me tell you who lived in my NL town. Though there is much less to do in general, the graphics do not withstand the test of time (I think)... in that regard, NL wins, I suppose.
It just depends on what you want in a game. I would not be surprised I would not be able to play WW anymore due to its graphics, etc. nowadays. I am not going to try it because I want to keep my nostalgia intact )
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