Like many others, we burned out HAAAARD on New Horizons, though in our case, it's due to one major reason: this game was by far the largest victim of the "Free Updates At A Later Date!" model that Nintendo was obsessed with in the late 2010s to early 2020s. After this game dropped, they started to relent from doing that in games not called Splatoon, and we can't help but feel like even Nintendo realized they flew too close to the sun with this one.
Because what happened is, on release, this game was narrowly less feature-dense than the GameCube release (only REALLY beating out the Japanese N64 release!!!), and by the end of it... Ehh, it's like, a little more feature-filled than GameCube in some ways? But like, GameCube is still far more playable after you get the credits to roll. There's still stuff to DO in that one. Once you get a 5 star island and the Second Nook Shop Upgrade (yes, Second), the only thing left is a full museum, and then Congratulations, You Win New Horizons.
It's perfect if you want to build your "perfect' island, but we tend to take the 17776 philosophy to Animal Crossing--we'd rather have that little bit of "want". That little delay between trying to do a thing, and having it. Even with a modded 3DS, that little bit of effort to just move a villager's house 3 feet to the right as we juggle our mod tools to do so, rather than just ask a villager who's like "Actually, I was thinking of doing this just fine <3". That little bit of annoyance as we hear a villager is planning on moving out from another villager, but they'll just never spill the beans. That mad dash to and fro Tortimer's Island and Re-Tail as we sell tons of bugs. And the waiting patiently for our hybrid flowers to just grow already, on our own terms, rather than some "right" way. Hell, we'd go as far as to say that while we wish that loading between towns was faster, we don't MIND the thematic cutscenes and dialogue trees conceptually--it's telling that that's basically the only true "wait" shared between New Leaf and New Horizons. We rambled a bit, but you get the gist, right?
To us, Animal Crossing is one of the fabled "zen garden" games. New Horizons is just too damn fast for its own good, except for in the one place it mattered most--the update cycle.
Because what happened is, on release, this game was narrowly less feature-dense than the GameCube release (only REALLY beating out the Japanese N64 release!!!), and by the end of it... Ehh, it's like, a little more feature-filled than GameCube in some ways? But like, GameCube is still far more playable after you get the credits to roll. There's still stuff to DO in that one. Once you get a 5 star island and the Second Nook Shop Upgrade (yes, Second), the only thing left is a full museum, and then Congratulations, You Win New Horizons.
It's perfect if you want to build your "perfect' island, but we tend to take the 17776 philosophy to Animal Crossing--we'd rather have that little bit of "want". That little delay between trying to do a thing, and having it. Even with a modded 3DS, that little bit of effort to just move a villager's house 3 feet to the right as we juggle our mod tools to do so, rather than just ask a villager who's like "Actually, I was thinking of doing this just fine <3". That little bit of annoyance as we hear a villager is planning on moving out from another villager, but they'll just never spill the beans. That mad dash to and fro Tortimer's Island and Re-Tail as we sell tons of bugs. And the waiting patiently for our hybrid flowers to just grow already, on our own terms, rather than some "right" way. Hell, we'd go as far as to say that while we wish that loading between towns was faster, we don't MIND the thematic cutscenes and dialogue trees conceptually--it's telling that that's basically the only true "wait" shared between New Leaf and New Horizons. We rambled a bit, but you get the gist, right?
To us, Animal Crossing is one of the fabled "zen garden" games. New Horizons is just too damn fast for its own good, except for in the one place it mattered most--the update cycle.