What is your opinion of New Horizons 3 years on?

[Pate and Ketchup]

I haven't played much compared to some here. I received the game the day it was released, in duplicate because it wasn't in my mailbox and I didn't want to wait. I played a few days intensively, I didn't know what to expect despite the news and videos about the game. I admit I was disappointed. There wasn't much to do. To have the complete game, we had to wait two years. Two years during which the developers could have given us real new features, and not the kit game. Stuff we didn't expect, no other rooms at the museum (in the base game of New Leaf). So yes, I admit that I haven't played much. I don't like waiting for what should have been in the base game. I don't have the patience. And what to do in the months between new releases? Two years is not possible, it is not normal. Today, the game is complete and will not change anymore, that's why I'm giving it another chance even if not many people play anymore. I will finally be able to enjoy the game as it should have been when it was released. That said, the game isn't bad. Being able to place items, stuff outside houses and decorate your island is incredible! We were able to enjoy it with an old Nintendo game, but now it's reality. Terraforming is cool and allows us to fully personalize our island. Being able to find villagers you like, materials, fossils on mystery islands is really good. I'm not aware of the new releases released two years ago, or so I think, but I'll discover them while playing. Crafting is a nice addition to the game. There are some things that aren't as good, but overall it's nice. The villagers don't have very interesting discussions so it's quite a shame, they've lost their personality a bit, I'm disappointed but that's how it is. They will do better next time! The new villagers are cute. They are few unfortunately, but all unique (or almost)! Special mention to Shino and Sasha. I don't like Raymond though. I don't really understand the hype around him haha. I like the DLC. It looks a lot like the Happy Home Designer game that I loved. It was an amazing game! So finding it on Switch makes me very happy, and all the added objects are great even if again, they should have been in the base game.

I think I said everything. See you soon for a new Animal Crossing game!

 

[Snek]

I am not sure now.
I first got into the AC franchise because of NL. So...when NH came put I was initially excited. However, I began to see that this game was not like how I envisioned it being. The villagers felt like decorations rather than actual characters. The dialogue is awful and repetitive (thought they would improve with that). Yes, I could shape my island to my liking but the soul of Animal Crossing, the animals, felt soulless. It doesn't seem like that there will be any more updates so what get is what we get. I'm going to play a new game next year and rethink my position. I don't think it'll change but who knows...

 

[Sharksheep]

I enjoy it more now compared to launch with the initial hype. Before I played it everyday for hours but it felt like a chore when I was villager hunting until I got amiibos. Now I just play it for a few days every couple of months.

I do dislike how there isn't a way to keep your catalog like in New Leaf because trading takes forever. If you got HHP it makes it less bad.

 

[liliyoa]

The game is just okay, which is heartbreaking because the previous 4 main entries are some of my favorite games of all time. ACNL is like my top 5 ever. Too many series staples are completely absent from this game for me to have a positive opinion on it, and I ran out of things to do way too fast. I've been playing New Leaf consistently for like 10 years now, and play Population Growing and City Folk on occasion, and there's things to do and goals to accomplish there. In New Horizons you just decorate, decorate, decorate, and you're done. You can finally give villagers items directly, but for what? They don't do anything. In every game they do less and less. It does say a lot about me though that a game I generally regard as one I dislike, I've still played like 600+ hours of it. I love Animal Crossing too much!

 

[Kristen]

I wish I could've liked it more than I currently do. I want a mainstream Animal Crossing game that I'm obsessed with the way I was with New Leaf.

There's no good multiplayer option like Tortimer's Island, the villagers' dialogue is really watered down and boring in comparison to how it used to be, there's so much empty land in comparison to the number of buildings you can put down, there's only one shop upgrade you can do, villagers' requests/interactions are really limited until higher friendship levels (like they rarely ask for stuff now), etc. I went through my list of complaints the other day, and these are the ones I remember most, but the game feels so empty and soulless. It feels more like it focuses on the land/home design aspect than the animals and our interactions with them. I'd love more of a mix of both, as well as fun minigames to do with friends.

New Leaf had such an amazing vibe to it that New Horizons failed to capture for me. I wasn't able to stay hooked on it for nearly as long as the other games in the series.

 

[k e r f u f f l e]

I got rather bored after about a year and a half. Even when the big updates rolled around, I just didn't feel the deep connection to the game like I did the previous ones. This is coming from someone who only began playing New Leaf in 2019!

I've since gone back to playing New Leaf. It's so comforting, simplistic, and straightforward. Though I think New Horizons is a good game, I would not classify it as a great game like the other AC titles were. Just my own personal feelings!

NL's been a blast to return to. Minimal control but enforced calmness- whereas NH left me rather dissatisfied and never fully happy with my never-ending island customizations and quirky but butt-kissing NPCs. lol

 

[faerie]

I like it, but it could have been so much more. I don't understand why they stopped adding things to it. It was a complete game, but it could have added more things for multiplayer which I think would have helped the games replay ability.

 

[micat]

Personally, I don’t find the game as interesting as other AC games I’ve played (which is just NL and WW but whatever :,D).

I think the new features like terraforming and crafting were interesting and fun at first, but I don’t really care about either now. With crafting, I find it pointless late into the game. It feels like extra steps to get a DIY recipe instead of the furniture itself. I don’t like grinding for materials either (I always run out of wood). Terraforming feels tedious since you can’t choose whether you want a corner piece, or a slanted piece (or whatever the other options were). You have to cycle through them, and sometimes the way you shape things still doesn’t look right.

As for placing furniture outside... I don’t see much value in this feature anymore. like, what need do you have to place beds or toilets outside? I understand there’s outdoor furniture you can place or furniture that matches the theme of your island, but for me, it doesn’t add much to my island and just makes it feel more cluttered.

I’m also sad about the missing special NPCs, like most other fans. I also miss the shop upgrades and the small mini-games you could play.

Maybe this is overly negative. I see why people value the new features so much, and likely since I haven’t played the game in a while, I forgot why I even cared about the addition of these features. Though, just going back to the old games, I don’t see a huge loss in not having them.

 

[MrBox]

For me, New Horizons is the weakest out of all the main games. Which is funny since it has so many features compared to the rest.
I'm not sure how to word this but it just feels like it accommodates too much? And It's trying to appeal to a certain younger audience? It just feels like it has too much going on at times.

The features I appreciate in New Horizons is:
- Able to send mail to your friends!
- Dodo Codes!
- Ability to place down houses anywhere you want!
- The graphics are nice (I do not like the character's proportions though) and the foley sound is amazing.
- The way you change your clothes!
- How you can decorate your house in an "editor" mode is cool
- Ability to make actual paths!
- How the shop NPCs don't need to greet you every time you walk in and out :^P
- How running will not ruin your grass!

The features I very much dislike are:
- The flowers. The flowers not withering and dying... and how much the flowers feel like weeds and a chore in ACNH.
- This is mixed for me but the fact that villagers can't move out until you say it's time to go. And the villager not sending you a goodbye note. I hated this in NL and would check my game constantly so no one moved out but ... I'm not sure. I wish that Nintendo gave a choice for that in NH.
- Terraforming
- Making tools over... and over... and over again.
- Able to change your face and hair in the mirror
- I dislike how the rooms in your house are a fixed size.
- The grass patches that initially comes with the land.

 

[Lullaboid]

I love it. I love the amount of control and options you have compared to previous games. The game is adorable, and I've played for almost 2,000 hours. Definitely well worth it!

That said, it does lack a certain specific charm that previous titles had. It's just more mainstream and palatable compared to previous games. In some ways that's good, but I really miss when AC titles were quirky. I also feel like they really dropped the ball with the hourly music in this one. The hourly tracks in this game mostly range from mediocre to downright obnoxious (looking at you 3 am, although I do find the squawking to be a funny reminder that I should be sleeping and not playing a video game).

Also golden tools should not break, villagers feel a bit stiff, and the autosave function is such a pain with terraforming. Just let me experiment and reset if I don't like what I made! But overall, I just adore this game and appreciate it so, so much. It's gotten me through some incredibly tough times and allowed me to interact with some very kind people.

 

[nocctea]

i think it's just good i suppose. pretty cute, kinda fun, but not my favorite unfortunately, tho i wish it was

 

[Neb]

I'm really conflicted on the game and think it's good overall, but it has a lot of issues.

Replaying the early game again, I like how the game starts out with a small portion of the island and as you unlock tools the island opens up and you can do more with it over time. It made me want to keep coming back to the game so I could finally see the whole island for myself.

I'm also so glad they finally added the option to put furniture outside. There were a lot of items in New Leaf that I felt didn't make any sense indoors and that they would be better suited around the town.

The graphics in the game are gorgeous. The lighting, colors, and character models are all so well done and I still think it's among the best looking games on Switch. I also loved how they added farming, a mechanic I think can really be expanded on in future games with more crops and more ways to make it profitable. Terraforming was a great addition and I loved being able to customize the topography of my island to things that the generated islands couldn't give. The game was also a great comfort during the peak of quarantine and gave me something to do with my first cup of coffee every morning.

Like everyone else said, New Horizons lacks content compared to past games. There's a lot of shops missing, there's not much to do in multiplayer, and jobs that can be done with villagers are mostly gone. Dialogue is mostly lifeless with some exceptions and unlike past games I noticed a good amount of repeated lines from villagers. The stalk market is completely broken in this game. It's so easy to make a ridiculous amount of bells and I rarely ever dealt with a loss. Going back to New Leaf, I had much harder time making a profit from them.

Most of the museum was a downgrade outside of the visuals. Until art was added there were zero text descriptions for anything donated, which was half the reason I donated in the first place. Going through the museum isn't nearly as fun without getting context for what was being seen.

The soundtrack was pretty forgettable. Outside of the main theme not much was super memorable. The hourly themes ranged from annoying to bland. There's only two or three I'd say were really good.

The DLC should've been in the base game to begin with and most of the content in each update could be done in one or two sessions. I like the idea of content after release for a series where each game is meant to be played over many years like Animal Crossing is, but I'd prefer one or two big updates over the game's life cycle like New Leaf did rather than a bunch of tiny ones like New Horizons.

 

[Sharebear]

I played New Leaf a decent amount but remember almost nothing of it. That's not because it wasn't good, but because my memory is terrible. So! In a way, New Horizons is the only animal crossing game I remember playing, and it's hard to compare to the little I know about earlier titles in the series.

On its own merits? I think it's alright. I don't find it as addicting as some games, but that's not necessarily a bad thing? It's kind of a lazy, pop in and slowly chip away at some stuff type of game for me. I have long-term goals with no real time limit. I think missing the initial rush of popularity and restarting my island after the main updates were out may have changed how I approach the game? The biggest hype around sharing islands and trying to like, idk, have a popular one (?) is way over, so I know I'm mostly approaching it as like..... an art project for myself, possibly shared with a few friends if they still want to check it out when it's done, and maybe this forum.

I can't speak for whether the dialogue was better in the older games, but I think something about the dialogue RNG or whatever is not well balanced in New Horizons. Occasionally I still see less common dialogue from a villager but there's a lot of repetition.

In a broader sense, I wish villagers had more life and spontaneity to them. As it is, with their needing player approval for almost everything, they feel kind of... boring? I guess it's just a different approach to the game, with the villagers being more like particularly interactive island furniture rather than actual fellow residents.
But idk if that's really a fault of the game or a fault of my initial expectations. I've come to accept the villagers as they are in the game, and I have a list of villagers picked out that fit my island theme (in my eyes, at least...) to decorate it with. Like I said, my island is just kind of an art piece to me. It's a way to feel creative when I'm not doing well enough to engage in other outlets. In that sense, it's... doing its job, I guess?

OH YEAH. Growing friendships between you and the villagers feels really flat. It might just be me, but it feels like the villagers are... too nice? Too friendly? Right away. And the lack of things to do with villagers other than gift them presents makes it feel like there's no real progression. Why can't I get an ingredient for a villager who's cooking, or have a picnic with a villager, or do laps/race around the island with a jock villager, or, or, or...