This game's a bit of a mixed bag. I do love it to pieces, and I played it SO much when I first got it at launch. I've never played an AC game before this (except a smidgen of Pocket Camp).

This game is super chill with so much charm, and building up my island from nothing (especially without having already been accustomed to the AC vibes, so it was very fresh to me) was some of the most fun I've had. I can't describe the peace and joy I felt originally going to islands, earning Bells, and building up my island and lil community.

A huge part of that, though, was the direction I was getting from Tom Nook, which stops once you reach 3 stars and get K.K. Slider to visit. I wasn't JUST focusing on his tasks, I was doing a lot of sandbox stuff throughout, but having that overall direction really helped, knowing that there was always a next step. After 3 stars, though, you're left to your own devices. Which is cool and all (I mean, it's a sandbox game), but I struggled to stay motivated to play as much. I still played a good amount for a while after (working on 5 stars, getting a bunch of Bells through Nookazon and Daisy Mae), but my interest declined, and eventually I kinda stopped hopping on.

I still love this game, and hope to get back into it sometime, but this drop off in interest seemed to happen to a lot of players. There are a few things about it that kinda just fails to keep you invested. The villagers are commonly complained about, I've heard that they were much more interesting in past games, so that's pretty disappointing. They're more like decoration than characters. Also a lot of things in the game are just...slow. Which I think is intentional as part of it being a life sim, it probably wants the work to feel more personal/earned, but when that's the majority of the game, and gets even worse when you want to do ANYTHING on a large scale, it's kinda just a chore.

There are also a lot of limits on how you can even get the items to decorate your island in the first place (you can only order 5 items a day from the catalog???). I think you're mostly supposed to go online and get a bunch of stuff from other players, or you're supposed to work slowly over multiple days, but either way, that just feels like a slap in the face. People also have complaints about the real-time mechanic in general, but I don't mind it; I just think the problem is the way the game uses it, not the mechanic itself.

So yeah, the game's got a lot going for it, but it's kinda bound to lose your interest and can feel like a chore. The DLC is amazing, but I'll consider that separate from this.