No Regrets: Letting Villagers go in New Horizons vs. New Leaf

[Bluebellie]

I let my villagers go willy-nilly.
I haven’t found any to be too hard to obtain back again if I change my mind. I have the amiibos for most of my villagers, and the ones I don’t, I easily buy them off the forums here or on nookazon. It doesn’t really bother me too much.

I would say the hardest ones to get were Avery and Raymond since I don’t have amiibos for, and I think it only took 1-2 days.

I won’t be getting the Sanrios though. I don’t have the amiibos and I don’t really want them ( their character stylings isn’t really my sort of style ).

 

[DrewAC]

I disagree. I didn't feel attached to the villagers in New Leaf at all because, at any moment, with or without informing me, they'd pick up and leave. Even if I was considered their "best friend" in the game. It used to give me so much anxiety to come back from a break in New Leaf, or even open my mailbox and read a letter from a favorite villager, assuming it was them telling me they moved.

The one thing I can't stand about New Horizons villagers is the repetitive initial small-talk. Other than that, the dialogue is better and more varied than New Leaf's, IMO. I feel way closer to villagers in this game because they inform me if they'll leave, and won't leave without telling me. There is a clear, distinct difference in the progression of the relationship building from when they first move in compared to attaining the highest level of friendship with them. Their little activities they do as they stroll around the island make them feel even more real, too.

I let Marshal go to make room for Reneigh so I could collect all of the sisterly-given emotions. I've been missing him so much since!

 

[Rika092]

The only popular villagers I'd feel bad letting go would be Raymond, Judy, and Sherb. Because these guys don't have amiibo cards and they are harder to come by. Otherwise, not really, because the prevalence of amiibos it's not difficult to obtain any of the villagers now especially since people sell/give them away on the forum all the time. For NL i think it's different because of the 16 villager cycles which means once you let go of them, you have to wait until you move in & out of 16 villagers before you can get them back again. This will make people having second thoughts. Also, for the longest time we didn't have the amiibo cards and there's no mystery islands so it's actually really difficult to hunt for a specific villager back then (i remember when people use to sell villagers for 100+ TBTs or millions of bells for the really popular ones back then)

 

[Valeris]

The only popular villagers I'd feel bad letting go would be Raymond, Judy, and Sherb. Because these guys don't have amiibo cards and they are harder to come by. Otherwise, not really, because the prevalence of amiibos it's not difficult to obtain any of the villagers now especially since people sell/give them away on the forum all the time. For NL i think it's different because of the 16 villager cycles which means once you let go of them, you have to wait until you move in & out of 16 villagers before you can get them back again. This will make people having second thoughts. Also, for the longest time we didn't have the amiibo cards and there's no mystery islands so it's actually really difficult to hunt for a specific villager back then (i remember when people use to sell villagers for 100+ TBTs or millions of bells for the really popular ones back then)

It's like I've said before, for all the complaints about Horizons the quality of life changes already surpass New Leaf. Mystery Islands and being able to get a villager you've had move out is so good. It's far better than the void you had to cycle through just to have a *chance* of the villager you want show up again, then have to go through the campsite which was an ordeal in itself. If it weren't for sites like this and a great community, New Leaf would have ended up a very limited game.

 

[Wolfie]

I guess it depends on the villager really. I know they are easier to find in this game and a lot of them have the same dialogue, but there are some I am still so attached to that it's hard to let go. It depends on the villager though. I let go of Raymond yesterday and I don't miss him at all really. Meanwhile I will likely get rid of Tia for one of the Sanrio villagers and I know that will be hard to do because I am attached to her.

 

[Hsn97]

I’m not sad about letting go any of my villagers. I don’t feel like I’ve made a connection with any of them, not even my favourite Willow. In NL, I still have 4 of my original villagers and I very rarely moved anyone out. In NH I say yes to pretty much everyone who wants to go, other than Willow and that’s just because I traded for her and don’t have her Amiibo.

 

[Dog]

NL villagers moving is a whole different thing from NH. The stakes are so much higher if you don't have an amiibo to replace them, so I'd say that alone makes the attachments a bit stronger.

Amiibos make it way easier to see villager move-outs as temporary, but even the less-impactful NH dialogue still gets to me a little because I'm easily emotionally influenced by cute animals telling me they will miss me. I too just made the difficult decision to let Rosie go, and if the game let you change your mind on moving day I probably would have.

 

[Kirbyz]

i can most definitely agree. there were villagers i liked in NL but didn’t necessarily love, yet it was still really hard and really sad to see them go. however, this doesn’t apply to my dreamies. i love every single one of them and even if NH’s villager dialogue is stale, really stale, i could never let them go. i just couldn’t. same in NL. once i get all my dreamies, they stay there forever, and id never be able to let them move out. with villagers i do like but are not one of my dreamies in NH, i don’t really have a real connection with them, i can let them go pretty easily. it is really different than NL, in an odd way. i just feel like NL was more realistic when it came to this stuff, the sentimentality and friendship, the trust that we build; whereas in NH they’re trying to make it so that we get fresh new villagers every time, which i guess is a good thing for some people, but still doesn’t lessen the fact that the villager dialogue is really really bad. either way, my dreamies stay forever, so it doesn’t bother me really. however i can definitely agree that NL and NH are much different when it comes to this.

 

[Licorice]

I’m way more attached to my villagers in new horizons that I ever was in acnl. For about an hour I was excited about Rilla but honestly I don’t know if I can let anyone go. The thought of moving them out makes me so sad. I know they’re not real but dang I’m attached lmao