I'm kind of lumping in the DLC with the update, especially since I'm not 100% sure which parts are which. At least not totally.
A rundown of everything between the two and a quick summary of my feelings:
more items returning and new - should've been quicker to add these, but better late than never
cooking - largely pointless, but additional stuff to craft and farm is mildly appealing.
newer and returning villagers - some of the best looking villagers to date
some additional QOL improvements beyond what was already in the first - same as the more items situation
Harv's island, giving more permanent fixtures in case you miss the daily visiting vendor(though not all) - wish it was everybody and refreshed stock more than the once a week or whatever it does currently. nice that you get more haircuts too. wish you could see from your inventory what things are only customizable by cyrus instead of bringing objects to him only
A second nook miles island- afaik only way to get gyroids. 1-2 fragments or full gyroids. also has veggies and such. No villagers afaik, but im not sure what the original has vs. this or if they both can contain both, minus the gyroids.
gyroids returning is sick
custom design portal anywhere is very useful, especially in the DLC
brewster. Kinda fun. I don't know if it has a long tail, as I never did much of brewster back in NL. I know you could get orders for villagers, but I don't think that necessarily happens here? He did start asking me if I wanted the ethically questionable pigeon milk addition to my daily coffee, so since it has some modifiers that may start happening but I'm unsure of it as of now. If it doesn't, it's pretty weak to have amiibo be the only way to see villagers in there, and on top of that no newer interactions beyond the basic from having them arrive.
Designing homes- I like it because it gives you some structure and allows you to have a blank canvas that matters a little less, so you can make whatever without altering your own stuff that you're satisfied with. Excellent that they allowed you to bring that stuff back to your island and do it to your islanders. The narrative isn't anything amazing, but that's obvious if you've played AC at all. It's got some cute stuff and moments, but obviously it'll roll out new features. It could have been just a wee bit shorter since it requires 30 homes modeled and then after you have all your features, you can keep doing home modeling still. So doing 30 is not necessary. Some also were fairly similar to one another. Designed a total of 3 cafes and 2 sort of different robot themed buildings. Which out of 30 different types of decor concepts, that's not bad, and has a lot to do with who you pick. When using amiibo for this, it helps you with a variety of things you wanna do, but it's kind of annoying making one using a spoofer to then not know. Probably even more so hunting down the amiibo card.
It also shows that it needs a search function for the catalog. It's very difficult to find an item if you don't know its exact name. For example, I was looking for a "busted" seat but that doesn't exist. I meant "ruined" and had no way of knowing. I was going to search it on the internet, but did stumble upon it. There's really no reason to not have a search option
So was it still slightly lacking? sure. just like the original NH. It definitely has a ton of extra stuff to do layered onto the base game, so I won't complain. I had a lot of fun with the stuff and plan to continue to here and there.
A rundown of everything between the two and a quick summary of my feelings:
more items returning and new - should've been quicker to add these, but better late than never
cooking - largely pointless, but additional stuff to craft and farm is mildly appealing.
newer and returning villagers - some of the best looking villagers to date
some additional QOL improvements beyond what was already in the first - same as the more items situation
Harv's island, giving more permanent fixtures in case you miss the daily visiting vendor(though not all) - wish it was everybody and refreshed stock more than the once a week or whatever it does currently. nice that you get more haircuts too. wish you could see from your inventory what things are only customizable by cyrus instead of bringing objects to him only
A second nook miles island- afaik only way to get gyroids. 1-2 fragments or full gyroids. also has veggies and such. No villagers afaik, but im not sure what the original has vs. this or if they both can contain both, minus the gyroids.
gyroids returning is sick
custom design portal anywhere is very useful, especially in the DLC
brewster. Kinda fun. I don't know if it has a long tail, as I never did much of brewster back in NL. I know you could get orders for villagers, but I don't think that necessarily happens here? He did start asking me if I wanted the ethically questionable pigeon milk addition to my daily coffee, so since it has some modifiers that may start happening but I'm unsure of it as of now. If it doesn't, it's pretty weak to have amiibo be the only way to see villagers in there, and on top of that no newer interactions beyond the basic from having them arrive.
Designing homes- I like it because it gives you some structure and allows you to have a blank canvas that matters a little less, so you can make whatever without altering your own stuff that you're satisfied with. Excellent that they allowed you to bring that stuff back to your island and do it to your islanders. The narrative isn't anything amazing, but that's obvious if you've played AC at all. It's got some cute stuff and moments, but obviously it'll roll out new features. It could have been just a wee bit shorter since it requires 30 homes modeled and then after you have all your features, you can keep doing home modeling still. So doing 30 is not necessary. Some also were fairly similar to one another. Designed a total of 3 cafes and 2 sort of different robot themed buildings. Which out of 30 different types of decor concepts, that's not bad, and has a lot to do with who you pick. When using amiibo for this, it helps you with a variety of things you wanna do, but it's kind of annoying making one using a spoofer to then not know. Probably even more so hunting down the amiibo card.
It also shows that it needs a search function for the catalog. It's very difficult to find an item if you don't know its exact name. For example, I was looking for a "busted" seat but that doesn't exist. I meant "ruined" and had no way of knowing. I was going to search it on the internet, but did stumble upon it. There's really no reason to not have a search option
So was it still slightly lacking? sure. just like the original NH. It definitely has a ton of extra stuff to do layered onto the base game, so I won't complain. I had a lot of fun with the stuff and plan to continue to here and there.