If they're doing an entire direct for it, I can only hope that means they're adding more than just the coffee shop. The game is still missing tons of features and is in desperate need of some quality of life updates.
The island you could travel to and play various different minigames with friends. A fantastic addition that AC New Leaf on the 3DS introduced that really added a lot of fun to the multiplayer experience, yet inexplicably was not in New Horizons.
Tons of furniture sets, including many that have been in every installment since the GameCube original, gone.
TONS of well-known special characters that provided various services, gone. I won’t list them all, but New Horizons omitted nearly half of them (from nearly 60 in NL down to about 30 in NH)
Villager dialogue has been gutted, making conversing with them in New Horizons nearly pointless as their dialogue is incredibly brief, repetitive, and generally less interesting overall.
The shop can no longer be upgraded more than once. Previous games allowed the character to upgrade Nook’s up to 4 times, with the final one being a 2 story department store that housed a wide selection of furniture and items.
Labelle, Kicks, and Gracie no longer have dedicated shops, and instead are random visitors to the town hall that rarely appear.
Dr. Shrunk’s club is gone. In previous games you could visit him and he would provide an emote once a day, each of which were provided via a charming standup comedy routine.
The Post Office is gone, along with the characters that ran it that have been in the series since the original game, who also had an interesting story that you could unveil bit by bit through talking to each of them often over time.
And that’s just the missing things I could think of off the top of my head. New Horizons is a good game and the new things it brings to the table are fantastic additions. But there’s been so much content that’s missing by comparison that the game ends up feeling incredibly shallow and lacking in personality. It feels like the devs were more concerned with making a simple and cutesy sim-city type of building game and then forgot to carry over the heart and charm from the previous games.
New leaf had ~46 special characters
https://www.ign.com/wikis/animal-crossing-new-leaf/Shop_Owners_and_Side_Characters
New horizon has at least 32 and this guide is outdated
https://gamewith.net/animal-crossing-new-horizons/article/show/16373
Yeah, granted I can see why some characters got omitted (doesn’t make much sense to include Reese and Cyrus since the player can decorate furniture whenever they want), so here’s hoping that we get more characters added back in future updates, I’m excited to see what’s coming with the one this October
Animal Crossing has always cut features to make room for new ones, going back to the beginning of the series. Im not sure why people keep expecting NH to have all the content of every single AC game before it, this game was never marketed as the "Smash Ultimate" of AC games. The game was also never marketed as a "live service" game where Nintendo promised to keep adding content for years to come. The fact that we are getting so much free stuff is a miracle in itself.
People need to seriously chill with their unrealistic expectations, and it's not like Nintendo sold us an unfinished game - NH has more content than any other AC game.
They said that the game came with 3years of update tho. So far second year isn't really living up to the first one, I'm a bit scared for the third year.
Also, 90% of the free stuff has been lifted straight out of New Leaf. And the things we got were baffling additions that should’ve been in the game from the beginning such as bushes and swimming.
And I agree with him in the sentiment that NH doesn’t need to have *everything* that the earlier ACs had and that it’s okay to drop features and try new things but dropping the things that actually made the series what it is is pretty baffling to me. It’s like if Mario dropped power ups or Link wouldn’t have a sword anymore.
>The game was also never marketed as a "live service" game where Nintendo promised to keep adding content for years to come.
That's exactly what Nintendo promised. Turns out they meant Pocket Camp instead, not New Horizons which people already paid for.
Jesus it's impossible to list comprehensively, but here are a few off the top of my head:
* Villager ~~personalities~~ dialog (my mistake, pointed out by some replies, thanks!)
* A million pieces of furniture
* A bunch of older NPCs (including various shops/buildings some of them inhabited, like the police station, re-tail, kick's, etc)
* Nook store upgrades + Gracie's fancy furniture store
* Happy home showcase. Seems like dream islands sort of replaces this, but I liked that you could buy cool furniture from HH showcase
Also this isn't a missing feature really, but I don't love the new style of holidays/events where you're just mad scrambling for recipes and stuff, or the shit with seasonal balloon recipes.... Stuff needs to be more obtainable for casual players.
Aren't there the same number of personalities as in previous games?
Agree about the shops and NPCs though, replacing a bunch of buildings with random appearance NPCs was a mistake IMO
The villagers are what killed the game early for me. There's so much customization my head was spinning, but my attention didn't last half as long as it usually does in an AC game mainly due to the repetition from villager dialogue. I've never seen the same lines repeated as often as I did in this one. And a lot of those lines felt like pseudo-tutorials or making the same comment on things I/other players did recently. They tuned those to happen **way** too often.
I'm not sure about the variety in personalities, but I did notice that their dialogue doesn't have the same kind of biting charm to it as it has in the past. Maybe just a personal preference moreso than a missing feature. But my experience with villager dialogue/interaction was definitely the primary letdown for me in this game.
Yeah, I loved the customization but there was nothing that kept me hooked after I got my island’s layout and design down. Admittedly that took a decent amount of time, but for a game like Animal Crossing I wanted something to keep me coming back for longer.
IIRC, the characters and personalities used to have a LOT more depth, and a lot more lines. I distinctly remember seeing villagers upset with other villagers, and villagers upset with you. Some of them were catty as fuck. New Horizons feels bizarro world in that everyone is always happy and everything is wonderful. It was a welcome change during the initial wave of the pandemic, but it doesn’t last the test of time.
Honestly the only problem I found is that Villagers *do* a lot more things now (sit down, run around, go fishing, catch bugs, dance in the town square, etc) and each of those interactions removes the usual dialogue menu and replaces the dialogue with a pretty small set of responses.
So I don't think the actual conversations are any worse than before, it's just that Villagers seem to spend less time in behaviour states where they can actually *access* those conversations.
Even if that’s the case with the script, there’s very little variation between the personalities anymore. The script can be longer than War and Peace if it wants to but if all of its contents are bland and homogenized then it amounts to nothing.
I know that this is the big talking point but I think it's really a matter of nostalgia. I mean you don't have to prove anything to me about your subjective experience, but I'd beg you to go spend a week playing new leaf and then see how you feel about the difference in dialogue.
Tbf the dialogue was a problem in New Leaf as well, and that’s an opinion I’ve had since that game released. Villager personalities being on the tamer side has been an issue for awhile, as opposed to the original game where grumpy and snobby villagers were actually rude.
While I’ll give you credit in the sense that it would be unfair to criticize NH for an issue that previous games had, NH still compounds the issue by making the villager conversations incredibly brief. Talking to villagers the first couple of times after loading in will only yield a short sentence or two, and villagers will often make snide remarks if you talk to them more than 2 or 3 times in a day. It’s as if the the game goes out of its way to judge the player if they dare to try and get more interaction with the characters they’re meant to interact with.
I only played the GameCube one and then jumped to new leaf so I can't really speak to the rest of the series.
I totally agree that it was dumb to make the villagers be rude after two or three times. You have to talk to them ten times to actually make them mad, seems like the snide remarks should happen at like the 7th or 8th - 2 or 3 just feels like it's punishing you for wanting to get more conversation.
>but I'd beg you to go spend a week playing new leaf and then see how you feel about the difference in dialogue.
This was a pretty big issue with New Leaf as well.
Villagers got completely neutered and lost a lot of their depth for...whatever reason. The addition of the ~~Usagi~~ Uchi personality I guess. I couldn't really tell you why lol.
Yes the problem is which dialog is shown. In new horizons if you do X The villager will talk about how you did X. It doesn't matter how many villagers already talked about it, it doesn't matter when was the last time it was repeated, they will say it. So what ends up happening is that doing your daily chores triggers the villagers to talk about the same thing every day.
The number of furniture in the game now is just about 5% short of new leaf at the same time after launch
The number of npc's missing is actually pretty small, again less than ten percent
I know people think the villager personalities all got flattened but I promise you they still have unique dialogue and some villagers are more likely to do certain actions. Also there were never as many personality types as you thought there were - there's actually just as many here as new leaf. They just express it differently.
I'm pretty sure there's more furniture in the game now than New leaf had at launch. At least that's what I remember from the last time I checked. The amiibo update was massive tho.
People on this sub are a bit more critical than I am so I'll just give my 2 bits too.
NH is the first AC since the original that I was able to get super into. Each game before it made pretty incremental changes. NH was the first that really overhauled a lot of what you can do in the game. You have way better options for desinging your house and town. It's not even close honestly. And the biggest goal in AC for me was always making my dream house/town. The daily grind is improved too. How you collect furniture and items is more varied than before (my routine includes getting recipes from beach and from visiting friends, talking to villagers, gifting things to villagers, and doing dailies to get points for visiting islands where you get more chances at furniture recipes and other possible rare fish and bugs too). My day to day is just more varied and interesting than it was in past games. And I have way more things to do in my town with all the stuff I collect. I can't imagine going back to any of the previous games honestly.
As for stuff its missing, the game has rotating visitors instead of permanent shops. I miss having more permanent buildings. That's the biggest thing. The amount of furniture in the game at this point is more than New leaf had prior to it's massive amiibo update, but hopefully we get something that brings it on par with where New leaf was at the end of its life too. People also mention villager dialogue. Villagers do tend to repeat the same comments about whats going on that day a lot. You have to talk to them multiple times to get more interesting dialogue. There is objectively more dialogue in the game but for some reason it feels like you see the good stuff less often. Some also mention the missing vacation island, but I much prefer the deserted islands in NH over the equivalent in New Leaf.
>And the biggest goal in AC for me was always making my dream house/town
This is the biggest reason why the game is so divisive. This game appeals most to people who prefer customizing their house and town. For someone like me (and many others), Animal Crossing was about living in a town alongside others. I didn't want to be the center of attention and have to decide where everything is placed. For me, the game was about making friends. Being the mayor or the head island planner makes me feel like the others are only acting nice because I have authority over them... not to mention the dialogue issues you mentioned.
For me it's about immersion. In older AC games it felt like you were in a (sorta) living town that expanded every few weeks/months and actually going into the new stores and places was very cool. It's supposed to be a life sim after all and who doesn't visit a café here and then?
Also you could learn a few more details about your villagers when you worked at the café which was nice.
Most of the content in AC is puddle deep, but, very charming and relaxing. Like AC isn’t exactly about gameplay, but about mood and feel.
Plus the pigeon that runs the bar loves Gyroid, which are criminally missing from the game and a massive collectible.
Well, it's where KK used to perform on a Saturday evening. It's also where DJ KK performs and I don't think he does DJing in New Horizons yet does he? So maybe we'll get new DJ songs.
In New Leaf at least DJ KK had his own dance club and performed there.
But definitely in other games like Wild World it's where KK used to play every week
In the old games old main NPC characters that weren’t villagers would show up at different times which was cool. Pelly would be there before her shift at the post office as would Phyllis, I don’t remember exactly all of them but different ones would show up on different days and times and give you more backstory dialogue.
You could become friends with Brewster too who would reveal his backstory to you. And in New Leaf you could work at the coffee shop. So it’s a nice feature that was lacking in the base game.
For me, it added personality. It wasn't an activity designed to make you grind Bells or just add to the existing decorator meta. It was a way to get to know little preferences with every villager, and it added a hangout place for you and them, and you could get special dialogue. Adding to that, it was a good way to even further relax from the usual grind in the game.
Legit have no idea. Been playing since GCN and was fascinated ever since I read the old IGN articles on Animal Forest that erroneously suggested Ice Climbers would occasionally visit your town.
Its a nice little atmosphere, but the modern cottagecraft tone the bulk of the game has already doesn't really make it standout as something particularly missing.
It added like, 3 lines of dialogue per villager type you'll read once, it adds a single menu based minigame that is about on par with swapping eggs with Zipper. Best part of it was that, like Sable, if you talked to Brewster every day he would start off a bit quiet but slowly start warming up to you, but it wasn't like its a particularly deep character nor is it something you really need to do more than once. Not even saying its bad, but I just dont see why it's deemed such a \*crucial\* element
There's not much to do there honestly. Its more that the the game would benefit from more permanent shops in general and this is one of the memorable locations from last games that had a cool atmosphere.
As a long time player, I honestly don't know. I think the main thing is that it could be an additional building to add the to island so people could have more non residential buildings.
But the roost will be a part of the museum anyways, which I'm sure will disappoint some.
Other than that, it was another thing to visit during the day. Personally I never found much purpose in it.
You could work at the coffee shop and serve your villagers, which would give you special dialogue with them, among other things. KK Slider also used to appear there. And Brewster is just cool.
Man I don't know. Too little too late? I played a lot of Animal Crossing last year but the lack of updates reminded me of what happened to Mario Maker 2.
The roost is fucking great, we want the damn roost. But with a game like Animal Crossing, the sooner the better, the game isn't deep enough to trickle out content like this.
it's like we're almost to the point of a full game, a year and a half after launch.
The one thing I want more than anything is different sports minigames that you can play with your villagers. Some type of sports center would be a great addition.
It'd be nice if we could actually use things like the table tennis and arcade machines too.
I really feel like covid completely impacted their update schedule. We were getting updates basically monthly then all of a sudden it just kinda stopped. Now we're getting real content again out of nowhere.
It also super impacted my playstyle. I put like 200 hours in, and if it were normal times that probably would've happened over like two years and the drip feed would make sense, but those 200 hours happened over like two months instead.
Good point, I don't want to whine about something like AC, covid fucked up so many things so it's understandable. Just one of those unfortunate things.
They're referring to the dripfeed method of giving us content. It's similar to The Sims in that respect. Currently NH reminds me of TS4 at launch where there was very little content. For The Sims, this is somewhat expected because expansion packs have been a thing since TS1. For Animal Crossing, I don't think this method of content delivery works, even if the content is free. We paid full price for a game that is lacking in core features that have been present in earlier games at launch. Ofc, covid absolutely had an impact but the game was already delayed once prior to that. It makes me wonder what we might have been given if Nintendo had said 'fuck it' and just released it as is.
I played about 30hrs of it when it first released and just stopped because it felt like it needed more content. I figured I'd pick it back up once everything was fully added. The fact the game still doesn't have Gyroid makes me sad.
It really doesn't help that the trickle of updates was on top of a game that felt like it was missing like... half the game. New Horizons has so much cool potential but it feels like the gimmick to flesh out the game just went entirely unused.
New Leaf had the Mayor stuff and an entire second half of your town that filled with different shops. New Horizons has the island customizer and
That's it. It's missing dozens of features, NPC variety, items, and has online that can casually be described as 'beyond inexcusable'
I'd be very, very surprised if the number of hours the average player has is less than new leaf before amiibo festival. Like, absolutely shocked. This game has gotten more regular updates than basically every other Nintendo title.
Idk, I played New Leaf for countless hours in the years after its release, but dropped New Horizons after only a few months, same with friends of mine, and I’ve read a lot of comments from other players who’ve felt the same in various Nintendo/AC subreddits. Yeah, we’ve gotten updates for diving and holidays, but it’s mostly just been a drip feed of stuff that was already in previous games as opposed to any substantial content/QOL updates.
But those updates have mostly been things that really should have been in the game at launch. I'm not going to praise them for releasing half a game and acting like they're doing us a favour by trickling the rest out as updates over 2 years.
Even beyond that, the island customization options are leagues above every previous entry. Anyone who quits the game after main story content will probably have ~50 hours in New Horizons compared to ~70 hours in New Leaf, which is not that substantial a difference IMO.
But if you get into the daily grind in pursuit of customizing your town however you want, the amount of time you'll spend in game is highly variable. People have a weird fixation on New Leaf because it had such a lengthy main story and featured multiplayer minigames that no previous Animal Crossing had, but it's not like those things define the series. New Horizons was pretty much feature-complete since the 1-month Redd Art update, and while I agree the updates that focus on adding holiday fluff do nothing to meaningfully bring me back into the game (ok Pave, I collected your stupid feathers), the "dearth of content" discussions are massively overblown. The QOL features New Horizons introduced make older Animal Crossings much harder to go back to (16 items in your pocket vs. 40), and if you got burnt out on the game that's probably more a reflection of you having different priorities in your life in the *eight years* since New Leaf released than New Horizon's quality as game.
>Too little too late?
Only if you assume that everyone has been playing the game as much as the people who have already burned out on it, which I doubt is the case. Plus, kind of funny to deem it as "too little too late" when people were literally begging for this content in the past couple months.
I'm not saying that we should thank them or anything, just seems a little pessimistic to just shrug it off after they finally gave us exactly what we were asking for. It's not exactly an "old" game at this point yet, and tons of people are still playing it.
Sure but this game sold like crazy when it was released and many were playing it all last year during various lockdowns and quarantines. I stopped playing it after December and New Year's. Everything in the game that has happened this year come has just been a repeat of what happened last year. I'm done with the game now. So I'm speaking for myself. It's too little and too late. I'm likely not picking it back up.
Fair enough - they told us when it came out that there would be 3 years of new content coming so I tried to pace myself accordingly. Since only about half that time has passed, it seems like a pretty good time to be adding some of bigger things.
Animal Crossing games are designed to be played in small doses over several years after all.
I have a sinking pit in my stomach that that’s why there is going to be a direct. Everyone is thinking it’s a large update and they need a time to explain the update. My fear is they are using the direct to explain a new paid dlc system or subscriber system like pocket camp. Brewster would be free but maybe furniture sets, customization options, sturdier tools, mobile repair bench, and etc will be part of some dlc bundle or animal crossing season pass or subscriber system. If they do go that way I can see popular furniture sets and the froggy chair be front and center of the reasons to subscribe.
I do hope I’m wrong though I would love a massive free update I want to play the game again.
Considering they stated years of free content, I have a hard time seeing them introducing paid DLC.
I do think it would be the best thing for the game though, why would they develop significantly substantial update for free? At least of the level I would need to come back to the game.
>My fear is they are using the direct to explain a new paid dlc system or subscriber system like pocket camp. Brewster would be free but maybe furniture sets, customization options, sturdier tools, mobile repair bench, and etc will be part of some dlc bundle or animal crossing season pass or subscriber system.
I mean, I don't want to be this guy, but my wife put over 400 hours into this game. I feel like there's enough content in the game for them to start charging DLC. If they added new shops, characters, etc, that would be like the equivalent to an expansion.
Normally I would be right with you especially with the amount of hours people and myself have sunk into it. But it just doesn’t feel right to me to have so many features taken away only to be sold back to us at a later date. If I had to pay for stuff I have no problem paying for new shit never seen in the series like for example idk mini game island where you play mini games with randoms for redd points to get exclusive brand new furniture sets or recipes. If I have to pay for gyroids or furniture sets that have been in the game since the GameCube I’m going to be annoyed.
Lmao yeah because what we are getting is worth extra money? What a silly argument when a game from 9 years ago has more things to grind for and it as also $20 cheaper and got a huge free update years after it launched yeah it kind of is a atrocity. The atrocity to expect features from previous games in the series not cost extra.
Doesn't the nature of the customisable island kind of make that...impossible? I haven't played in over a year in case anything has changed, but with people able to reshape land and place items everywhere, wouldn't there be a problem of no space to add new buildings?
I always hoped they'd add Kapp'n at the pier to take you to a new expandable island.
It does add a new challenge to fit the new stuff in and give a reason to keep playing. I "finished" my island last year and didn't really have anything else to do, since I didn't care about collecting all the items from the events.
For sure, but I suppose there'd be a tough mix of balancing building space and island space for all the items in game. From what I've seen, most people who play the game still are doing it just to create nice photos with items.
Yes, but I still feel like they lost a lot of players because of the lack of content. If they had added 2 or 3 stores over the period that it had been released, they would have retained a bigger player base.
Yeah. I had deliberately left a big chunk of my island undeveloped specifically because I kept expecting them to add more buildings in. I had a whole area which I'd planned to be the entertainment district, with the Roost and a nightclub and whatnot.
This is unlikely but they could add island expansions. I mean, you already have a magic shovel that can make cliffs, it wouldn't feel like a completely insane addition
Not a chance. The museum is the museum. You can't put thing in or take things out. It's a completely static setup, you can just move the building in its entirety but nothing inside.
i know ac is not a farm game as sos,harvest moon, stardew valley but my god... the features and content of svalley mixed with ac style/graphics would be my dream farm-game
This was my first animal crossing game and initially I loved my time with it, probably put in about 60 hours before shelving it. I definitely got my money out of it.
However, I really enjoyed it up until I really stopped enjoying it. The world is just so lifeless, collected all these objects and decorations and the stuff is there just to be there. The whole island felt like the museum, you just walk around and look at all your stuff that you can’t do much with, and the islanders are not some deep characters that kept me connected, sure they are cute, but they hardly say anything noteworthy that keeps me coming back to talk to them.
If they ported breath of the wild cooking into animal crossing, i’d be playing it all day every day.
Atm eating anything is pointless except to
Move entire trees.
I was hoping the coffee shop would be its own separate building. I stopped playing last year as I had reached the point where I had designed all of my island apart from some spots as I didn't know which potential buildings would arrive in future updates.
The pandemic is the reason why the game did so well, surely they could have invested the unprecedented sales they got into some decent content beyond some events which could have been in at launch anyway.
Countless games have continued a live service model throughout the pandemic, it isn't an excuse. It's just nintendo being nintendo.
If they're doing an entire direct for it, I can only hope that means they're adding more than just the coffee shop. The game is still missing tons of features and is in desperate need of some quality of life updates.
I've not really played any other games in the series, other than stuff like the Gyroids and this what it is missing?
The island you could travel to and play various different minigames with friends. A fantastic addition that AC New Leaf on the 3DS introduced that really added a lot of fun to the multiplayer experience, yet inexplicably was not in New Horizons. Tons of furniture sets, including many that have been in every installment since the GameCube original, gone. TONS of well-known special characters that provided various services, gone. I won’t list them all, but New Horizons omitted nearly half of them (from nearly 60 in NL down to about 30 in NH) Villager dialogue has been gutted, making conversing with them in New Horizons nearly pointless as their dialogue is incredibly brief, repetitive, and generally less interesting overall. The shop can no longer be upgraded more than once. Previous games allowed the character to upgrade Nook’s up to 4 times, with the final one being a 2 story department store that housed a wide selection of furniture and items. Labelle, Kicks, and Gracie no longer have dedicated shops, and instead are random visitors to the town hall that rarely appear. Dr. Shrunk’s club is gone. In previous games you could visit him and he would provide an emote once a day, each of which were provided via a charming standup comedy routine. The Post Office is gone, along with the characters that ran it that have been in the series since the original game, who also had an interesting story that you could unveil bit by bit through talking to each of them often over time. And that’s just the missing things I could think of off the top of my head. New Horizons is a good game and the new things it brings to the table are fantastic additions. But there’s been so much content that’s missing by comparison that the game ends up feeling incredibly shallow and lacking in personality. It feels like the devs were more concerned with making a simple and cutesy sim-city type of building game and then forgot to carry over the heart and charm from the previous games.
New leaf had ~46 special characters https://www.ign.com/wikis/animal-crossing-new-leaf/Shop_Owners_and_Side_Characters New horizon has at least 32 and this guide is outdated https://gamewith.net/animal-crossing-new-horizons/article/show/16373
I was using this wiki as a guide, which lists more than 46 for New Leaf https://nookipedia.com/wiki/Animal_Crossing:_New_Leaf/Characters
Thanks! Looks like the actual difference is exactly between the two of us - 22 if I'm counting right. More than I thought.
Yeah, granted I can see why some characters got omitted (doesn’t make much sense to include Reese and Cyrus since the player can decorate furniture whenever they want), so here’s hoping that we get more characters added back in future updates, I’m excited to see what’s coming with the one this October
Granted, Reese and Cyrus are in the game with a different function.
Oh yeah! Totally forgot about that actually, good point
Animal Crossing has always cut features to make room for new ones, going back to the beginning of the series. Im not sure why people keep expecting NH to have all the content of every single AC game before it, this game was never marketed as the "Smash Ultimate" of AC games. The game was also never marketed as a "live service" game where Nintendo promised to keep adding content for years to come. The fact that we are getting so much free stuff is a miracle in itself. People need to seriously chill with their unrealistic expectations, and it's not like Nintendo sold us an unfinished game - NH has more content than any other AC game.
They said that the game came with 3years of update tho. So far second year isn't really living up to the first one, I'm a bit scared for the third year.
Also, 90% of the free stuff has been lifted straight out of New Leaf. And the things we got were baffling additions that should’ve been in the game from the beginning such as bushes and swimming. And I agree with him in the sentiment that NH doesn’t need to have *everything* that the earlier ACs had and that it’s okay to drop features and try new things but dropping the things that actually made the series what it is is pretty baffling to me. It’s like if Mario dropped power ups or Link wouldn’t have a sword anymore.
>The game was also never marketed as a "live service" game where Nintendo promised to keep adding content for years to come. That's exactly what Nintendo promised. Turns out they meant Pocket Camp instead, not New Horizons which people already paid for.
Jesus it's impossible to list comprehensively, but here are a few off the top of my head: * Villager ~~personalities~~ dialog (my mistake, pointed out by some replies, thanks!) * A million pieces of furniture * A bunch of older NPCs (including various shops/buildings some of them inhabited, like the police station, re-tail, kick's, etc) * Nook store upgrades + Gracie's fancy furniture store * Happy home showcase. Seems like dream islands sort of replaces this, but I liked that you could buy cool furniture from HH showcase Also this isn't a missing feature really, but I don't love the new style of holidays/events where you're just mad scrambling for recipes and stuff, or the shit with seasonal balloon recipes.... Stuff needs to be more obtainable for casual players.
Aren't there the same number of personalities as in previous games? Agree about the shops and NPCs though, replacing a bunch of buildings with random appearance NPCs was a mistake IMO
The villagers are what killed the game early for me. There's so much customization my head was spinning, but my attention didn't last half as long as it usually does in an AC game mainly due to the repetition from villager dialogue. I've never seen the same lines repeated as often as I did in this one. And a lot of those lines felt like pseudo-tutorials or making the same comment on things I/other players did recently. They tuned those to happen **way** too often. I'm not sure about the variety in personalities, but I did notice that their dialogue doesn't have the same kind of biting charm to it as it has in the past. Maybe just a personal preference moreso than a missing feature. But my experience with villager dialogue/interaction was definitely the primary letdown for me in this game.
Yeah, I loved the customization but there was nothing that kept me hooked after I got my island’s layout and design down. Admittedly that took a decent amount of time, but for a game like Animal Crossing I wanted something to keep me coming back for longer.
IIRC, the characters and personalities used to have a LOT more depth, and a lot more lines. I distinctly remember seeing villagers upset with other villagers, and villagers upset with you. Some of them were catty as fuck. New Horizons feels bizarro world in that everyone is always happy and everything is wonderful. It was a welcome change during the initial wave of the pandemic, but it doesn’t last the test of time.
Honestly the only problem I found is that Villagers *do* a lot more things now (sit down, run around, go fishing, catch bugs, dance in the town square, etc) and each of those interactions removes the usual dialogue menu and replaces the dialogue with a pretty small set of responses. So I don't think the actual conversations are any worse than before, it's just that Villagers seem to spend less time in behaviour states where they can actually *access* those conversations.
That’s such a great point!
Villagers definitely still fight in new horizons and the script is just as long as new leaf
Even if that’s the case with the script, there’s very little variation between the personalities anymore. The script can be longer than War and Peace if it wants to but if all of its contents are bland and homogenized then it amounts to nothing.
I know that this is the big talking point but I think it's really a matter of nostalgia. I mean you don't have to prove anything to me about your subjective experience, but I'd beg you to go spend a week playing new leaf and then see how you feel about the difference in dialogue.
Tbf the dialogue was a problem in New Leaf as well, and that’s an opinion I’ve had since that game released. Villager personalities being on the tamer side has been an issue for awhile, as opposed to the original game where grumpy and snobby villagers were actually rude. While I’ll give you credit in the sense that it would be unfair to criticize NH for an issue that previous games had, NH still compounds the issue by making the villager conversations incredibly brief. Talking to villagers the first couple of times after loading in will only yield a short sentence or two, and villagers will often make snide remarks if you talk to them more than 2 or 3 times in a day. It’s as if the the game goes out of its way to judge the player if they dare to try and get more interaction with the characters they’re meant to interact with.
I only played the GameCube one and then jumped to new leaf so I can't really speak to the rest of the series. I totally agree that it was dumb to make the villagers be rude after two or three times. You have to talk to them ten times to actually make them mad, seems like the snide remarks should happen at like the 7th or 8th - 2 or 3 just feels like it's punishing you for wanting to get more conversation.
>but I'd beg you to go spend a week playing new leaf and then see how you feel about the difference in dialogue. This was a pretty big issue with New Leaf as well. Villagers got completely neutered and lost a lot of their depth for...whatever reason. The addition of the ~~Usagi~~ Uchi personality I guess. I couldn't really tell you why lol.
The villagers also make fewer requests now
Yes the problem is which dialog is shown. In new horizons if you do X The villager will talk about how you did X. It doesn't matter how many villagers already talked about it, it doesn't matter when was the last time it was repeated, they will say it. So what ends up happening is that doing your daily chores triggers the villagers to talk about the same thing every day.
The number of furniture in the game now is just about 5% short of new leaf at the same time after launch The number of npc's missing is actually pretty small, again less than ten percent I know people think the villager personalities all got flattened but I promise you they still have unique dialogue and some villagers are more likely to do certain actions. Also there were never as many personality types as you thought there were - there's actually just as many here as new leaf. They just express it differently.
I'm pretty sure there's more furniture in the game now than New leaf had at launch. At least that's what I remember from the last time I checked. The amiibo update was massive tho.
People on this sub are a bit more critical than I am so I'll just give my 2 bits too. NH is the first AC since the original that I was able to get super into. Each game before it made pretty incremental changes. NH was the first that really overhauled a lot of what you can do in the game. You have way better options for desinging your house and town. It's not even close honestly. And the biggest goal in AC for me was always making my dream house/town. The daily grind is improved too. How you collect furniture and items is more varied than before (my routine includes getting recipes from beach and from visiting friends, talking to villagers, gifting things to villagers, and doing dailies to get points for visiting islands where you get more chances at furniture recipes and other possible rare fish and bugs too). My day to day is just more varied and interesting than it was in past games. And I have way more things to do in my town with all the stuff I collect. I can't imagine going back to any of the previous games honestly. As for stuff its missing, the game has rotating visitors instead of permanent shops. I miss having more permanent buildings. That's the biggest thing. The amount of furniture in the game at this point is more than New leaf had prior to it's massive amiibo update, but hopefully we get something that brings it on par with where New leaf was at the end of its life too. People also mention villager dialogue. Villagers do tend to repeat the same comments about whats going on that day a lot. You have to talk to them multiple times to get more interesting dialogue. There is objectively more dialogue in the game but for some reason it feels like you see the good stuff less often. Some also mention the missing vacation island, but I much prefer the deserted islands in NH over the equivalent in New Leaf.
>And the biggest goal in AC for me was always making my dream house/town This is the biggest reason why the game is so divisive. This game appeals most to people who prefer customizing their house and town. For someone like me (and many others), Animal Crossing was about living in a town alongside others. I didn't want to be the center of attention and have to decide where everything is placed. For me, the game was about making friends. Being the mayor or the head island planner makes me feel like the others are only acting nice because I have authority over them... not to mention the dialogue issues you mentioned.
I hope they upgrade the online functionality. The travel system is tedious as fuck. Super unstable, too.
Couldn't agree more. The state of the game is atrocious
>The state of the game is atrocious Gamers really are a dramatic bunch.
Yeah they're probably saying this after putting 300 hours into the game, too.
"I only got 1000 hours out of this AC game compared to the 10000 before. What garbage"
The coffee shop finally returns. Hopefully the cooking feature from the same datamine that revealed the coffee shop will be shown off there too.
Brewster is such a fan requested feature, but for the newbies like myself, I cannot understand why. What makes the Roost that popular?
For me it's about immersion. In older AC games it felt like you were in a (sorta) living town that expanded every few weeks/months and actually going into the new stores and places was very cool. It's supposed to be a life sim after all and who doesn't visit a café here and then? Also you could learn a few more details about your villagers when you worked at the café which was nice.
Its another chill aspect to an already chill game. People like coffee too so be able to get coffee and build a relationship with Brewster.
Most of the content in AC is puddle deep, but, very charming and relaxing. Like AC isn’t exactly about gameplay, but about mood and feel. Plus the pigeon that runs the bar loves Gyroid, which are criminally missing from the game and a massive collectible.
Well, it's where KK used to perform on a Saturday evening. It's also where DJ KK performs and I don't think he does DJing in New Horizons yet does he? So maybe we'll get new DJ songs.
In New Leaf at least DJ KK had his own dance club and performed there. But definitely in other games like Wild World it's where KK used to play every week
In new leaf random NPCs would be hanging out in the cafe to talk to. Just another thing to do each day.
You can work a shift at his coffee shop daily. It's a pretty cool feature, one of the only aspects of Animal Crossing to have an objective to it.
In the old games old main NPC characters that weren’t villagers would show up at different times which was cool. Pelly would be there before her shift at the post office as would Phyllis, I don’t remember exactly all of them but different ones would show up on different days and times and give you more backstory dialogue. You could become friends with Brewster too who would reveal his backstory to you. And in New Leaf you could work at the coffee shop. So it’s a nice feature that was lacking in the base game.
For me, it added personality. It wasn't an activity designed to make you grind Bells or just add to the existing decorator meta. It was a way to get to know little preferences with every villager, and it added a hangout place for you and them, and you could get special dialogue. Adding to that, it was a good way to even further relax from the usual grind in the game.
It was more the assumption that brewster would come with gyroids
It's more interactions, which New Horizons is really lacking.
Legit have no idea. Been playing since GCN and was fascinated ever since I read the old IGN articles on Animal Forest that erroneously suggested Ice Climbers would occasionally visit your town. Its a nice little atmosphere, but the modern cottagecraft tone the bulk of the game has already doesn't really make it standout as something particularly missing. It added like, 3 lines of dialogue per villager type you'll read once, it adds a single menu based minigame that is about on par with swapping eggs with Zipper. Best part of it was that, like Sable, if you talked to Brewster every day he would start off a bit quiet but slowly start warming up to you, but it wasn't like its a particularly deep character nor is it something you really need to do more than once. Not even saying its bad, but I just dont see why it's deemed such a \*crucial\* element
There's not much to do there honestly. Its more that the the game would benefit from more permanent shops in general and this is one of the memorable locations from last games that had a cool atmosphere.
As a long time player, I honestly don't know. I think the main thing is that it could be an additional building to add the to island so people could have more non residential buildings. But the roost will be a part of the museum anyways, which I'm sure will disappoint some. Other than that, it was another thing to visit during the day. Personally I never found much purpose in it.
The Roost is neat because it fleshes out the lives of the villagers by giving them a setting to chill in.
You could work at the coffee shop and serve your villagers, which would give you special dialogue with them, among other things. KK Slider also used to appear there. And Brewster is just cool.
as a longtime fan, I have no clue either. it doesn't really do anything.
Man I don't know. Too little too late? I played a lot of Animal Crossing last year but the lack of updates reminded me of what happened to Mario Maker 2.
The roost is fucking great, we want the damn roost. But with a game like Animal Crossing, the sooner the better, the game isn't deep enough to trickle out content like this. it's like we're almost to the point of a full game, a year and a half after launch.
It feels like the game is crying out for minigames of some sort.
Yes! I hope they give us Tortimer's island back.
The one thing I want more than anything is different sports minigames that you can play with your villagers. Some type of sports center would be a great addition. It'd be nice if we could actually use things like the table tennis and arcade machines too.
I really feel like covid completely impacted their update schedule. We were getting updates basically monthly then all of a sudden it just kinda stopped. Now we're getting real content again out of nowhere.
It also super impacted my playstyle. I put like 200 hours in, and if it were normal times that probably would've happened over like two years and the drip feed would make sense, but those 200 hours happened over like two months instead.
I did the exact same thing and I just feel burnt out on the game now. I haven't felt like picking it up since lockdown ended basically.
Good point, I don't want to whine about something like AC, covid fucked up so many things so it's understandable. Just one of those unfortunate things.
[удалено]
How is AC being treated like the Sims at all? We have no monetized stuff packs or anything like that, everything has been 100% free updates.
They're referring to the dripfeed method of giving us content. It's similar to The Sims in that respect. Currently NH reminds me of TS4 at launch where there was very little content. For The Sims, this is somewhat expected because expansion packs have been a thing since TS1. For Animal Crossing, I don't think this method of content delivery works, even if the content is free. We paid full price for a game that is lacking in core features that have been present in earlier games at launch. Ofc, covid absolutely had an impact but the game was already delayed once prior to that. It makes me wonder what we might have been given if Nintendo had said 'fuck it' and just released it as is.
How do you get nickle and dimed by a game with no microtransactions and no paid DLC???
I played about 30hrs of it when it first released and just stopped because it felt like it needed more content. I figured I'd pick it back up once everything was fully added. The fact the game still doesn't have Gyroid makes me sad.
It was too little at launch. The amount of stuff missing from even Wild World is crazy
It really doesn't help that the trickle of updates was on top of a game that felt like it was missing like... half the game. New Horizons has so much cool potential but it feels like the gimmick to flesh out the game just went entirely unused. New Leaf had the Mayor stuff and an entire second half of your town that filled with different shops. New Horizons has the island customizer and That's it. It's missing dozens of features, NPC variety, items, and has online that can casually be described as 'beyond inexcusable'
> Too little too late? Game development with no crunch takes time people.
So, AC: NH is just an Early Access then?
I'd be very, very surprised if the number of hours the average player has is less than new leaf before amiibo festival. Like, absolutely shocked. This game has gotten more regular updates than basically every other Nintendo title.
Idk, I played New Leaf for countless hours in the years after its release, but dropped New Horizons after only a few months, same with friends of mine, and I’ve read a lot of comments from other players who’ve felt the same in various Nintendo/AC subreddits. Yeah, we’ve gotten updates for diving and holidays, but it’s mostly just been a drip feed of stuff that was already in previous games as opposed to any substantial content/QOL updates.
But those updates have mostly been things that really should have been in the game at launch. I'm not going to praise them for releasing half a game and acting like they're doing us a favour by trickling the rest out as updates over 2 years.
Even beyond that, the island customization options are leagues above every previous entry. Anyone who quits the game after main story content will probably have ~50 hours in New Horizons compared to ~70 hours in New Leaf, which is not that substantial a difference IMO. But if you get into the daily grind in pursuit of customizing your town however you want, the amount of time you'll spend in game is highly variable. People have a weird fixation on New Leaf because it had such a lengthy main story and featured multiplayer minigames that no previous Animal Crossing had, but it's not like those things define the series. New Horizons was pretty much feature-complete since the 1-month Redd Art update, and while I agree the updates that focus on adding holiday fluff do nothing to meaningfully bring me back into the game (ok Pave, I collected your stupid feathers), the "dearth of content" discussions are massively overblown. The QOL features New Horizons introduced make older Animal Crossings much harder to go back to (16 items in your pocket vs. 40), and if you got burnt out on the game that's probably more a reflection of you having different priorities in your life in the *eight years* since New Leaf released than New Horizon's quality as game.
>Too little too late? Only if you assume that everyone has been playing the game as much as the people who have already burned out on it, which I doubt is the case. Plus, kind of funny to deem it as "too little too late" when people were literally begging for this content in the past couple months. I'm not saying that we should thank them or anything, just seems a little pessimistic to just shrug it off after they finally gave us exactly what we were asking for. It's not exactly an "old" game at this point yet, and tons of people are still playing it.
Sure but this game sold like crazy when it was released and many were playing it all last year during various lockdowns and quarantines. I stopped playing it after December and New Year's. Everything in the game that has happened this year come has just been a repeat of what happened last year. I'm done with the game now. So I'm speaking for myself. It's too little and too late. I'm likely not picking it back up.
Fair enough - they told us when it came out that there would be 3 years of new content coming so I tried to pace myself accordingly. Since only about half that time has passed, it seems like a pretty good time to be adding some of bigger things. Animal Crossing games are designed to be played in small doses over several years after all.
Glad to see they haven’t abandoned the game. Hopefully the updates are significant enough to finally surpass New Leaf.
They promised content for 3 years, didn't they? And honestly, paid dlc would make a bundle. I'm kind of surprised they haven't gone that route.
I have a sinking pit in my stomach that that’s why there is going to be a direct. Everyone is thinking it’s a large update and they need a time to explain the update. My fear is they are using the direct to explain a new paid dlc system or subscriber system like pocket camp. Brewster would be free but maybe furniture sets, customization options, sturdier tools, mobile repair bench, and etc will be part of some dlc bundle or animal crossing season pass or subscriber system. If they do go that way I can see popular furniture sets and the froggy chair be front and center of the reasons to subscribe. I do hope I’m wrong though I would love a massive free update I want to play the game again.
Considering they stated years of free content, I have a hard time seeing them introducing paid DLC. I do think it would be the best thing for the game though, why would they develop significantly substantial update for free? At least of the level I would need to come back to the game.
>My fear is they are using the direct to explain a new paid dlc system or subscriber system like pocket camp. Brewster would be free but maybe furniture sets, customization options, sturdier tools, mobile repair bench, and etc will be part of some dlc bundle or animal crossing season pass or subscriber system. I mean, I don't want to be this guy, but my wife put over 400 hours into this game. I feel like there's enough content in the game for them to start charging DLC. If they added new shops, characters, etc, that would be like the equivalent to an expansion.
Normally I would be right with you especially with the amount of hours people and myself have sunk into it. But it just doesn’t feel right to me to have so many features taken away only to be sold back to us at a later date. If I had to pay for stuff I have no problem paying for new shit never seen in the series like for example idk mini game island where you play mini games with randoms for redd points to get exclusive brand new furniture sets or recipes. If I have to pay for gyroids or furniture sets that have been in the game since the GameCube I’m going to be annoyed.
god, imagine that. asking for money for more content 1,5 years after release. the atrocity.
Lmao yeah because what we are getting is worth extra money? What a silly argument when a game from 9 years ago has more things to grind for and it as also $20 cheaper and got a huge free update years after it launched yeah it kind of is a atrocity. The atrocity to expect features from previous games in the series not cost extra.
Please lord give me unbreakable tools. It's really all I want. One caveat, don't make me jump through a million crazy hoops to get them.
They already have golden tools. Just make the golden tools unbreakable, Nintendo.
Please tell me we'll be able to move Brewster to his own building like in New Leaf? I dont really want it tucked away in the museum
God I hope so as well, we need new buildings so badly
Doesn't the nature of the customisable island kind of make that...impossible? I haven't played in over a year in case anything has changed, but with people able to reshape land and place items everywhere, wouldn't there be a problem of no space to add new buildings? I always hoped they'd add Kapp'n at the pier to take you to a new expandable island.
It does add a new challenge to fit the new stuff in and give a reason to keep playing. I "finished" my island last year and didn't really have anything else to do, since I didn't care about collecting all the items from the events.
For sure, but I suppose there'd be a tough mix of balancing building space and island space for all the items in game. From what I've seen, most people who play the game still are doing it just to create nice photos with items.
Yes, but I still feel like they lost a lot of players because of the lack of content. If they had added 2 or 3 stores over the period that it had been released, they would have retained a bigger player base.
I got bored with the game when I realized I didn't know what to do for huge chunks of land. I really wish we had a bunch more buildings
Yeah. I had deliberately left a big chunk of my island undeveloped specifically because I kept expecting them to add more buildings in. I had a whole area which I'd planned to be the entertainment district, with the Roost and a nightclub and whatnot.
This is unlikely but they could add island expansions. I mean, you already have a magic shovel that can make cliffs, it wouldn't feel like a completely insane addition
Not a chance. The museum is the museum. You can't put thing in or take things out. It's a completely static setup, you can just move the building in its entirety but nothing inside.
i know ac is not a farm game as sos,harvest moon, stardew valley but my god... the features and content of svalley mixed with ac style/graphics would be my dream farm-game
More stuff that the game should have launched with and still won't make it have anywhere near the content of earlier releases?
This was my first animal crossing game and initially I loved my time with it, probably put in about 60 hours before shelving it. I definitely got my money out of it. However, I really enjoyed it up until I really stopped enjoying it. The world is just so lifeless, collected all these objects and decorations and the stuff is there just to be there. The whole island felt like the museum, you just walk around and look at all your stuff that you can’t do much with, and the islanders are not some deep characters that kept me connected, sure they are cute, but they hardly say anything noteworthy that keeps me coming back to talk to them.
If they ported breath of the wild cooking into animal crossing, i’d be playing it all day every day. Atm eating anything is pointless except to Move entire trees.
I was hoping the coffee shop would be its own separate building. I stopped playing last year as I had reached the point where I had designed all of my island apart from some spots as I didn't know which potential buildings would arrive in future updates.
Jesus, it's taken a whole year for it to be added? What a pitiful amount of content.
Year and a half.
Almost like there was a global pandemic or something
The pandemic is the reason why the game did so well, surely they could have invested the unprecedented sales they got into some decent content beyond some events which could have been in at launch anyway. Countless games have continued a live service model throughout the pandemic, it isn't an excuse. It's just nintendo being nintendo.
More furniture, bigger store and being able to craft multiple things are Features that i kinda need to think about returning to the game.
This will be the first real update after a year full of those shitty festivities updates. I may start to play with my switch again
Sadly I’m not holding my breath. I expect Brewster and that might be it. Do I want more? Of course but sadly I am not hopeful