What was the experience you felt when you guys bought ACNL or ACNH

[Introspective Onlooker]

I "discovered" (for lack of a better term) Animal Crossing through New Leaf, but it would be quite a while before I bought the game and the system that plays it. The game was under my radar when it was still new, and I was interested because it was one of the few games that I knew of which allowed players to not get regulated to limited customization of their characters because of the "you're a boy/girl, so you'll be restricted to this specific style" trash that so many games continue to spew out instead of allowing people to branch out of conventional gender stereotypes. Unisex clothing and (eventually unlocking) hairstyles (from the opposite sex) is something I've always wanted out of games. That's something I always admired about NL.

During last summer, I made it my mission to get myself well-acquainted with the older AC games before playing NL so I could appreciate how much it revolutionized the franchise; even I knew how big of a deal it was, and hadn't even played the mainline games yet. I started this with City Folk in June, then finished it with Wild World on July 22nd — a week before my copy of New Leaf was shipped to my house. I'd want to add that I played Population Growing! on an emulator, and before I played WW, I was thinking of whether I should buy that, or get NL. I made a compromise and decided to play WW on an emulator, as well (I regret buying a counterfeit cartridge), and bought NL; I figured the latter's emulation wouldn't be as serviceable. Hope this didn't seemed like a digression to anyone; I tend to extrapolate on details people probably won't care about.

I think the experience of being able to play the game for the first time after knowing about it for years is more poignant than just simply buying it, and I'll always cherished that memory I had on July 29th, the day Resdyern was created:

I think it's clear that my purchase of New Horizons is not as grand, or even interesting. I just bought it on January one day, and I hardly play it much. The first time playing it got me elated, but that novelty wore off quickly. I dunno; maybe it's because I played it in Japanese. Or maybe it's its two-week long tutorial. Or the questionable gameplay design choices that conflict with the atmosphere the game wants to convey. The biggest reason might be the fact that I've just been focused on Animal Forest e+ because I finally got it working on my GameCube a few days after getting NH. It felt more of an obligation to have my physical library of the mainline AC games completed, rather than something I really wanted to play in retrospect. It's a strange feeling, to be sure. I was actually excited about the game even before upon release, so it makes me question what caused that light to die out.

Either way, I've been playing NL for nearly a year, and been playing it just about every day since. Feels as though I missed out on so much when it was the newest game at the time. I can only hope I don't take any of this for granted.

 

[peachsaucekitty]

i wasnt expecting much when i got new leaf, i only tried it bc my friends kept tallking about it, but i ended up liking it a lot. :"D

 

[-Raven-]

Oh yeah- I think one of the things that set NL and NH apart was that NH has more sense of competition. Back during the NL days sharing your towns and social media stuff were less common, it took time for them to take hold on NL. In other words, NL at the time was more fun for its own sake, rather than having people try to impress others. Of course you can always ignore that part of NH, but when I think of this game, I remember this competitive feeling and sharing towns and social media stuff. It was there during NL and I don’t even think it’s a bad thing, but NL was definitely different since there was so much more on the life sim end of the game and just everything surrounding it.

 

[Moritz]

Oh yeah- I think one of the things that set NL and NH apart was that NH has more sense of competition. Back during the NL days sharing your towns and social media stuff were less common, it took time for them to take hold on NL. In other words, NL at the time was more fun for its own sake, rather than having people try to impress others. Of course you can always ignore that part of NH, but when I think of this game, I remember this competitive feeling and sharing towns and social media stuff. It was there during NL and I don’t even think it’s a bad thing, but NL was definitely different since there was so much more on the life sim end of the game and just everything surrounding it.

This is far too true.

In new horizons we have seen so many people burn out trying to make a picture perfect island. But in new leaf you would have the most ugly roads because a rock was in your way.
Every town was hideous but unique and the players own home.

We see people following fads and trends to the point where everyone has a cottagecore, spring core, fairycore, normcore island.
People don't make what they like any more.
Just what the Internet says is cool.

Heck there are videos on YouTube with hundreds of thousands of views saying "if you're doing x core, these are the villagers you have to have".
Media is stopping people having their favourite villagers.

I love how popular this game got.
I hate how it took away from people just doing their own thing.