Oh, I am glad I found this thread. I love this game a TON, but I do have several complaints:
Crafting is so annoying. It's fine to an extent. But without spoiling anything, the game pretty much forces you to craft to progress. I think the game could've done without it. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like they REALLY downplayed crafting in the Directs. I got the impression of "hey crafting's in the game, but you don't have to use it if you want to...you can just buy stuff from the store." But no...you are FORCED to use the extremely annoying and stupid feature that is crafting to even make any progression in the game.
When you are visiting another person's island, you have NO way to access your storage. In New Leaf, you had the lockers at the train station, but in this game, your inventory is all you get. That's not the only thing that was downgraded from New Leaf, though. There are so many things that they DOWNGRADED from New Leaf, and it's extremely disappointing, because I was given the impression that this game was going to be a huge upgrade from New Leaf.
Going along with my first point: Even after you upgrade your storage, crafting materials take up way too much room. You can store them in your home storage, but then it gets really annoying to take them out to craft. You could also just put them on the ground, I personally don't like having stuff littering the ground.
The island tours are a HUGE downgrade from NL's Island. Half the islands you come across are super generic and have nothing but your native fruit and flowers. Also in NL, you were given tools to use on the island for FREE. Here, you have pay Nook Miles when your stupid tool breaks. Also, as with online multiplayer, the only storage you get is your inventory. In NL you had the bin where you could put everything you got on the island!
That brings me to my next point: Literally all the tools break. Apparently even the gold tools break! It's so annoying how the game forces you to use flimsy tools in the beginning...which break every ten minutes, and then they trick you by giving you recipes for "normal tools" which also break! So frustrating. I remember back in the good ol' days when the "normal tools" they gave you in the beginning were unbreakable (except for the ax). And even then, it doesn't help that Nook's Cranny ONLY sells flimsy tools! The game literally forces you to craft just to make a slightly better tool that's going to break anyways. Then when it breaks, you are forced to craft again...
I find pole vaulting kinda annoying. I wish the bridges were there from the start. I thought it looked so cool when they revealed it in the direct, but now, I find it annoying having to switch from whatever tool I was using to the pole vault just to access the other side of the river.
Something that really worries me is the recent data mining which has revealed that the vast majority of the special NPCs were cut. Literally several characters who are staples in the Animal Crossing franchise have been flat out CUT. That being said, I just watched a recent video about some datamining that was done after the launch day update, and it does look promising. Not going to spoil anything, but right now, it looks like a certain cut character and a certain cut feature might possibly be coming back soon in a future update!
Also, I find it EXTREMELY annoying when I am trying to grab flowers and I accidentally grab the petals instead of dig up the entire flower and then I have to wait for the flower to grow back.
And this final point is probably going to make a lot of people mad, BUT...I feel like Isabell was a cheap throw in to appease the fans and that there are far more worthy characters who have been cut (as of right now) that should've made it in instead. Just my opinion tho, don't come at me.
So, while yes, this game does have several features that are new/upgraded from previous games, there are just way too many things that were flat out cut/downgraded from New Leaf that it makes it hard for me to see the overall game as an upgrade. If anything, it feels like a slight downgrade from New Leaf. Still REALLY love the game, it's just really frustrating how it feels like this game has a regressed a lot of the progress and innovation the series made with New Leaf.
