"It's good to live in the moment and not live in the past."
Nostialgia will often and mostly will blindside our views and opinions on the games that we play. For many, their most positive experiences in gaming would be reminiscing on times when they were younger, and one of my first every memories was me being given this cartridge of New Leaf after being stuck severely ill in hospital. Unlike most my first memories in gaming were the late DS to Wii era, where most families where brought back into gaming with its aged motion controls and outstanding "3D effects."
To say I wasn't completely addicted to my new devices would be an underestimate. Long gone were my chances of being a normal child and instead grew my passion for gaming and the medium surrounding it as a whole. For these games on these consoles, I am extremely thankful.
So what can I say about New Leaf? For Nintendo this was their 4th rodeo with the franchise, after the extreme commercial success of City Folk and Wild World that both outperformed the original by a shot, and the idea of a newer Animal Crossing with elements of both games together is a great idea considering the 3DS' portable way to be played in short/medium play sessions, making it a no brainer to release another one during the early days of the 3DS' life cycle. It is argued that this game made severe changes and improvements that, in future installments, sorta shaped the way that AC was going as a hole. The most known and important change of this game compared to the others was the player's role in the game itself.
I'm case you didn't know, New (leaf, haha) to New Leaf was the mayor role, the way that the Player can control certain parts about town and later on in the game, build new structures and facilities. Although early game is a slog as it requires you to grind until you unlock these features, it added an immense amount of replayability to the game itself as everyone's towns could be decorated an insane amount more. This has kinda been undermined by New Horizons and the ability to place furniture outside (which you can't here which sucked coming back to) but for the time this was huge. It was also Isabelle's first introduction into the series, being your secretary throughout the game, being crazy as she alongside Tom Nook has become one of the game's mascot and became a cultural icon.
Speaking about NPC's, we are introduced to a lot more characters and structures in this game. One thing I have to say bad about this game is that the villager's personalities start to blend together and you notice repeating dialogue throughout the game, which becomes hard to play towns for a long amount of time. Reese and her husband Cyrus are alpacas and run the Re-Tail shop, where you do most of selling and buying other villager's items as well as redecorating your items. This felt like a weird choice as you could've always sold your items at Nook's (although he now runs a different shop where he upgrades and decorates your houses now with ridiculous bills) but it's usually placed within your acres instead of the Main Street. Leif the Sloth runs a plant store and Dr Skunk the axolotl has a Club where music is played and he also teaches you emotions, I guess?
The last two mentioned earlier as well as other shops throughout the series are placed on the Main Street connected North of your town where by a small loading time connects you to all your shops. Some are unlocked with certain requirements and some like Nook's Cranny have upgrades that sell you more items and unique furniture, which really really helps in the long run.
Tortimer's Island is also there, I guess? The mayor from previous titles return as he owns a private island where you can play "Tours" (glorified minigames) for points which can be used to buy items. They're a really fun and nice distraction, but in my experience you're gonna be there most of the time to catch rare bugs and fish and making nice moola.
After around 3 years of release and ~1 year after the mixed release and reception of spin-off Happy Home Designer, the massive update to NL, titled "Welcome Amiibo" was released. Younger me still had no clue how updates worked so when the title screen changed I was ridiculously hyped. The game added mostly entirely new content (learn, New Horizons) and for me this was a peak of my life as I spent countless more hours discovering what the game has to offer. The update itself just added amiibo as well as other QOL, but this was my first time encountering a large scale update and DLC before in my life and changed my views on everything once again.
New Leaf faces issues that all of it's previous entries face before. Gameplay becomes tedious and relative, dialogue and dialogue all other the place. If you don't have a guide a lot of the unlockables are very hard to get as they don't tell you what to do most of the time and expect you to just find out yourself. Every issue you'd find in this game you'll probably find in all Animal Crossings (except breakable tools, a horrible decision in NH).
Some games that we once loved will age with time and sour. But New Leaf for me will forever be in my heart as the game that made me love gaming itself. This title has continued to age like wine and surpass the expectations surrounding it, and I hope it continues being an amazing experience for many years to come. Thank you New Leaf.
Unless if they port the GameCube one then idk shit I guess.
Nostialgia will often and mostly will blindside our views and opinions on the games that we play. For many, their most positive experiences in gaming would be reminiscing on times when they were younger, and one of my first every memories was me being given this cartridge of New Leaf after being stuck severely ill in hospital. Unlike most my first memories in gaming were the late DS to Wii era, where most families where brought back into gaming with its aged motion controls and outstanding "3D effects."
To say I wasn't completely addicted to my new devices would be an underestimate. Long gone were my chances of being a normal child and instead grew my passion for gaming and the medium surrounding it as a whole. For these games on these consoles, I am extremely thankful.
So what can I say about New Leaf? For Nintendo this was their 4th rodeo with the franchise, after the extreme commercial success of City Folk and Wild World that both outperformed the original by a shot, and the idea of a newer Animal Crossing with elements of both games together is a great idea considering the 3DS' portable way to be played in short/medium play sessions, making it a no brainer to release another one during the early days of the 3DS' life cycle. It is argued that this game made severe changes and improvements that, in future installments, sorta shaped the way that AC was going as a hole. The most known and important change of this game compared to the others was the player's role in the game itself.
I'm case you didn't know, New (leaf, haha) to New Leaf was the mayor role, the way that the Player can control certain parts about town and later on in the game, build new structures and facilities. Although early game is a slog as it requires you to grind until you unlock these features, it added an immense amount of replayability to the game itself as everyone's towns could be decorated an insane amount more. This has kinda been undermined by New Horizons and the ability to place furniture outside (which you can't here which sucked coming back to) but for the time this was huge. It was also Isabelle's first introduction into the series, being your secretary throughout the game, being crazy as she alongside Tom Nook has become one of the game's mascot and became a cultural icon.
Speaking about NPC's, we are introduced to a lot more characters and structures in this game. One thing I have to say bad about this game is that the villager's personalities start to blend together and you notice repeating dialogue throughout the game, which becomes hard to play towns for a long amount of time. Reese and her husband Cyrus are alpacas and run the Re-Tail shop, where you do most of selling and buying other villager's items as well as redecorating your items. This felt like a weird choice as you could've always sold your items at Nook's (although he now runs a different shop where he upgrades and decorates your houses now with ridiculous bills) but it's usually placed within your acres instead of the Main Street. Leif the Sloth runs a plant store and Dr Skunk the axolotl has a Club where music is played and he also teaches you emotions, I guess?
The last two mentioned earlier as well as other shops throughout the series are placed on the Main Street connected North of your town where by a small loading time connects you to all your shops. Some are unlocked with certain requirements and some like Nook's Cranny have upgrades that sell you more items and unique furniture, which really really helps in the long run.
Tortimer's Island is also there, I guess? The mayor from previous titles return as he owns a private island where you can play "Tours" (glorified minigames) for points which can be used to buy items. They're a really fun and nice distraction, but in my experience you're gonna be there most of the time to catch rare bugs and fish and making nice moola.
After around 3 years of release and ~1 year after the mixed release and reception of spin-off Happy Home Designer, the massive update to NL, titled "Welcome Amiibo" was released. Younger me still had no clue how updates worked so when the title screen changed I was ridiculously hyped. The game added mostly entirely new content (learn, New Horizons) and for me this was a peak of my life as I spent countless more hours discovering what the game has to offer. The update itself just added amiibo as well as other QOL, but this was my first time encountering a large scale update and DLC before in my life and changed my views on everything once again.
New Leaf faces issues that all of it's previous entries face before. Gameplay becomes tedious and relative, dialogue and dialogue all other the place. If you don't have a guide a lot of the unlockables are very hard to get as they don't tell you what to do most of the time and expect you to just find out yourself. Every issue you'd find in this game you'll probably find in all Animal Crossings (except breakable tools, a horrible decision in NH).
Some games that we once loved will age with time and sour. But New Leaf for me will forever be in my heart as the game that made me love gaming itself. This title has continued to age like wine and surpass the expectations surrounding it, and I hope it continues being an amazing experience for many years to come. Thank you New Leaf.
Unless if they port the GameCube one then idk shit I guess.