Some good additions to New Leaf (terraforming!) but the characters have better personalitites in NL and in general I tend to prefer NL's "simpler" game loop.

It feels like NL was made to be played in short sessions every day for the rest of your life, while New Horizons was made to be binged and "completed" by playing it as much as possible as fast as possible. Which to be fair, even if it was true, would probably have been the correct choice for the COVID era. I just prefer NL personally!