I went back to playing my two unfinished NL towns when I read that the servers are going down this spring. I enjoyed it, except for the usual frustration of tiny pocket space and storage. Missed catching a lot of bugs and fish, too, and thought I had lost my touch but it came back fairly quickly. Just finished my town called Wagtales (5 cats and 5 dogs) and set the DA, which is below in my signature. My fifth town, Bell Tree, is finished, too, but I won't be making a dream town of it.
The graphics of any decent game are not much of an issue for me. My NL towns still look pretty, imo. However, I did do the grass regrowth trick in both towns!
I actually found my ds and went back on today after longer than I can even think about.
Honestly it was fun but felt a little lost. My town is finished I guess. It looks better than I remember. When I don’t go on nh there are so many weeds and a lot of upkeep. NL my town actually looks good. I spent a lot of time and effort over the years.
Patterns in nh I struggled with. In nl I have decking over my whole island with paths and steps. NH is so much about terraforming. I forgot how good NL was. I am definitely going to play more. I don’t know about visiting as I am nervous and can cope kind of in nh but never done in nl.
Checked my bank and I have 15 million+ honestly no idea what to do with it
For me, going back to New Leaf after playing NH felt a bit odd at first. It wasn’t the graphics, but the lack of certain QOL features made NL harder to enjoy. I had to get used to not seeing clothing or furniture before using them, and the smaller inventory again.
I actually made a new town in 2021 and I remember the experience being enjoyable. But after a while, I felt a bit frustrated (I was TT-ing a lot and trying to get a bunch of stuff done), so I abandoned the town… I also got super busy around this time, so it just felt like Animal Crossing didn’t work for me anymore.
However, I recently came back to this town more excited than ever. I still have some things left to finish and some PWPs to add :> I do like how there’s so much to unlock in this game. I don’t even mind the inventory or storage anymore.
New Leaf is a childhood game that I adore, but going back was a mixed experience.
Going from HD graphics with fancy lighting in New Horizons to 240p that’s stretched out on a New 3DS XL with New Leaf was rough. I never noticed how pixelated and blurry it was, especially when the 3D effect was on.
Using the 3DS XL on the bottom screen for menus felt much nicer than using the Switch’s finicky touch screen with a finger.
A lot of my old villagers were gone. In New Horizons they stay even after long breaks unless you go out of your way to get rid of them. In New Leaf they just go off on their own. Not a fan.
The tropical island was so nice and the mini games were a blast.