Animal Crossing: An In-Depth Wealth of Constructive Criticism and Suggestions After Having Played New Leaf

This is not my first post about Animal Crossing, and it probably won’t be the last. You see, something sparks a fire in me about this game. The premise is so seductive. The idea of a game about collecting EVERYTHING sounds like so much fun. Build a house; live a new life. This intrigues me.

I enjoyed the Gamecube version of Animal Crossing. The DS version, called Wild World, was slightly more fun. The Wii version was so atrocious that I resold it (the only Wii game I ever traded in). Now, we have the 3DS version, called New Leaf.

The one big problem I have had with ALL of these games comes right after paying off my final loan. At that moment, I lose all interest, because I felt like I had nothing to work for. I thought New Leaf would be different, with the new public works projects, but it wasn’t. I think, in the case of this new game, it’s because the only way to make money efficiently is by selling beetles caught at the island. Doing the beetle routine every night gets old after a month. Each public works project was just another estimation of beetles I would have to catch to see an object that is already in all of my friend’s towns anyway. If there were more optimal and varied ways to make money, I might still be playing consistently.

As of this moment, it’s been three days since I’ve last checked in on my town. The only reason I’m considering looking at my town right now is because I’m afraid that all my black roses have wilted. “NOOOOO!” I said. In the middle of writing this paragraph, I checked. Eleven out of fourteen of my black roses are dead. I should have put them in my refrigerator storage unit. Man…



My digital life penalizes me for living my real life. It’s strange how often the animals in my town tell me to take a break, yet, when I take a break longer than a day my game kills my flowers off and makes me frustrated to want to return. That’s another gripe I have: it’s NOT Nintendo’s job to tell me to take breaks. Whenever an animal in my town tells me to take a break from playing, I always shout “SHUT UP,” to it. Nintendo, this is telling your customers that you think you know how to regulate their lives better than we do. When your games suggest that we take breaks, you look like a highly arrogant company. This is NOT okay. It’s straight up rude.

Speaking of things that the town residents say to me, a horse named Winnie told me that she was so sad that there were no special days coming up, that she wanted to create her own holiday just so we could have fun. She even suggested making a “everyone tell joke” day and a few other ideas that I don’t remember. I was simply elated reading this, because I thought, Wow, I guess as Mayor I should have the authority to create my own holiday. Alas, the dialogue ended without Winnie actually prompting me with the ability to create a holiday. I checked in at Town Hall, but no, there was no way to create a holiday. Nintendo, the animal in my town only says the things you’ve written for it to say. Why would you make it say such a fantastic idea yet not include it? Mayors should have the ability to create their own holidays. It could be a month away or something, and the animals could all talk about it leading up. There could be a bunch of saved themes to select and combine, to create the atmosphere of the holiday. What sort of decorations should be placed around town? What clothing do the animals where on that day? Do they sing, tell jokes, run out onto the beach? Seems like there could be a few simple ways to add this “create a holiday” feature. It would be cool if one animal “hears” about a created holiday from another player’s town, and then suggests celebrating it in this one.

On the topic of make-your-own, it would be cool if there was a music editor. KK’s CDs are cool and all, but it would be more awesome if KK had a recording studio in the next town. There are a billion instruments to buy in the game, why not be able to play them at KK’s studio? There players could save tracks and make music disks. One of the best parts of Animal Crossing is showing off the patterns you’ve made, and displaying them for others to take and wear. Music disks, of course, should be tradable to other towns or put on display at your town’s studio for others to take with them just like patterns at the Able Sisters.

On the topic of patterns, I need to emphasize something. Mable should not be where you can save patterns. Your character should be able to carry all of his saved patterns around with him, all the time. It’s ridiculous to have to swap saved patterns with Mable at her store. Why not just have multiple pages on your inventory? Nintendo, players use patterns for everything. Pathways, paintings, clothing, customized furniture, umbrellas, roads, decorations, wallpaper, carpet, flags, display monitors, etc, etc, etc. Why limit us to only 10 at a time, especially considering that we can save many, many more than that? I had to make an extra character just so that I could set down my paths, yet still keep the patterns I use for wallpaper, my custom table, and my shirt. If I would change any of these pattern slots, all of these patterns would change. This LOCKS me at 10 that I want. The rest are just not useable. I don’t have room to make more creative patterns… yet… they are saved with Mable… if she saves them, then why can’t I display them? It makes no sense. 

Since I’m talking about slots, I might as well add that I think tools shouldn’t take up inventory slots. Anything considered a tool should go into a special “tools” inventory, which is only big enough for one of each tool. I want to carry my shovel, slingshot1, watering can, amplifier2, hammer3, axe, net, fishing pole, and wet suit all at once, but then that leaves me barely enough room to dig up fossils or catch butterflies. Ultimately, this makes me miss out on the game, because I never carry more than 1 tool at a time. If I see a birdwing butterfly, forget it. I left my net at home so that I could harvest fruit4. Balloon5? Nope. No slingshot on me at the moment. In a game where so many things happen at random, such as a rare shark out in the ocean, I need to have the ability to carry around all of my tools without clogging my inventory. Nintendo, I implore you to give tools a special inventory, away from the main one, for those reasons.

1Quick note: The slingshot needs more functionality. I really wish I could hurl water balloons with it. It would be fun if there were more interactive actions to take that just shooting straight up. Perhaps, a shooting minigame using the touchscreen? 1^st person “paintball” mode, where you can shoot other players and animals and splat them with paint? The slingshot is pretty useless in so many ways. I want more!

2Another quick note: The amplifier is dumb. I never use it. What point is there for it? The towns are really small. The animals are not hard to find whatsoever. It should actually project your voice. Maybe it could scare animals when you get too close. Maybe you can train animals to recognize certain words. Maybe it could be used for voice chat online with other players? All I have to say is that any item that does not work in online multiplayer should NOT be in an Animal Crossing game at all.

3And another: When a player is hit with a toy hammer, they should glow and an announcement should be sent to everyone saying, “[playername] has been tagged! He/she’s coming to tag you!” That would make this item waaaaaaay more fun.  

4Note: While I appreciate that fruit now stacks, I really wish it would automatically stack as I pick it up. It’s really annoying to have to stack fruit every 10 pickups when the game should do that automatically. See, Minecraft. Also, it would be nice if there was a visual queue to show when my character’s pockets become full. That dialogue, “Should I swap this out or just drop it?” is vile and annoying. If my character’s pockets would simply look like they’re bursting (like Wario’s belly in Smash Bros when he’s ready to fart), I would go sell/put stuff away and come back. That “Should I swap” dialogue is like punishment to have to click through. Honestly, I don’t think I should even be able to pick any more up off the ground with full pockets. There shouldn’t be any dialogue at all. Players would just know that they are full up if they can no longer pick apples up and their pockets were stuffed. I would leave the “swap it” choice for fish, bugs, and dug-up stuff though.

5Note: in New Leaf, balloons only carry Balloon themed stuff. This makes popping balloons more boring than I could ever imagine. I hardly even want to pop balloons, as the Balloom Set is insanely common and unwanted by me. In the next game, please make more balloons have random stuff inside of them. By the time you get the golden slingshot, you’ve gotten the entire Balloon Set about three times. Why would I want to pop more balloons at that point?

Now, I’d like to go into a few very specific (and possibly nitpicky) suggestions I have for whatever Animal Crossing game comes next. Nintendo. You have a real moneymaking machine on your hands. Animal Crossing is a HUGE seller. The fans have supported this game so much… it’s time to treat the game like a huge seller. It’s time to invest into making these nitpicky yet fundamental upgrades. This game’s fan base deserves to be rewarded for buying it so many times, because, honestly, new entries into this series don’t really add all that much. You can afford to do more with this game. People will get tired of the minimal-upgrade policies you have for sequels on this game, if you don’t change now.

So, my suggestions: 

Bring back the observatory, but make it awesome.

In Wild World, you could draw constellations. It was a very limited design system, where you can to connect the stars. This lead to about 500 triforce constellations, because triangles were about the only form that was able to be made. I heard that Nintendo took out the observatory from New Leaf because nobody used it in the past games. If we’re honest, nobody used it because it was not fun to connect stars to form triangles.

But fear not, Nintendo. You have touchscreens on your consoles. Use them for drawing. Allow players to place stars wherever they want. Allow them to connect stars however they want. Let them add a Milky Way pattern in the background. Why force players to use a preset pattern of stars, when they could be able to place the stars however they want?

The observatory can have more functions than just constellations: I think it would be absolutely hilarious if we were allowed to draw on the moon. Wouldn’t it be fun if we could place our own face on the moon? Take a picture, and literally do it. I wish I could draw on the moon and have it displayed at night. Why not?

And stars are great, but why not be able to decorate the sky with clouds? Draw your own clouds or use patterns? The same sets of clouds/stars don’t have to appear each day, but wouldn’t it be fun to see a cloud you’ve drawn appear in the sky once and a while? The more customized my town is, the more reason other players have to witness it.

Now, the museum has gotten a little stale (we’ll talk about that later), and I think it needs new types of things to collect. A newly renovated observatory BEGS for another new series of collectable things: Planets.

Yes, planets. And meteors, satellites, dragons, starships, UFOs, etc, etc. There are so many cool opportunities for “Sky Collection” at the museum’s observatory. I envision a new outdoor telescope tool that can be used at night. Once a night, you can look through it to try and find the “shooting star” of the night. This star, once seen through the telescope, will fall to the town for you to collect. Inside the star will be a “Sky” object, like a planet. This object can be taken to the museum’s observatory to be added to the collection, just as you would a fossil or fish. Imagine getting to collect PLANETS (and then drawing on them, haha), which are then viewable at night from afar (or through your telescope/at the observatory in more detail)!

Now, I said that I felt like the museum formula was getting a little stale. There have been four versions of Animal Crossing, and each has had us collected a few basic things: bugs, fish, fossils, and art. Usually, the SAME EXACT bugs/fish/fossils/art in every single game, with a few added new ones. Nintendo. I don’t want to collect the same things over and over again without a major change. This formula needs to be refreshed.

What lead me to the idea I’m about to give, is that I realized that half of the museum is already a Zoo. The bug room, the aquarium: this is a place to look at animals. What if the art and the fossils were also places to look for animals?

Enter my big idea for the new Animal Crossing: “Zoo”

Start a Zoo Life. I’m sure the brains out there can make a better pun than that.

First things first: I don’t think this should be an animal zoo in the normal sense. We live in a town full of animals; it would be weird to see some animals behind bars. So, when thinking about spicing up the fossil formula, I got the idea:

Dinosaur Zoo

What if, after you’ve collected a fossil, you had to collect amber samples to bring the dinosaurs back to life? Once alive, the dinosaurs would go live in the DINOSAUR ZOO! Perhaps, instead of being Mayor, you “inherit” your town’s zoo. In this way, you are now the lead owner of the [Townname] Zoological Park! But, uh-oh, there’s no animals in it! Enter the Dinosaurs. Blathers tells you that he has an idea to bring the fossils you collect back to life, but that it requires amber samples.

Instead of the normal museum layout, this new Animal Crossing game has a zoo. All artwork and sculptures can be displayed throughout the zoo’s grounds. All fish (which will now include ancient fish from the Jurassic, as well as aquatic dinosaurs) are now inside the zoo. Bugs (with new, Jurassic period insects to collect) are displayed in the zoo. New museum-collectable plants can be woven into your park.

New Online Multiplayer minigames are featured at the Zoo. These might include Dinosaur rides/races. Photo contests (with the new tool, the 1^st person perspective camera). Dinosaur Egg collecting. The possibilities are endless.

Alternatively, if my Zoo or Re-booted Observatory ideas seem too extreme, I have a few alternative ideas for spicing up the museum.

World Wonders exhibit: collectable items from around the world. The Statue of Liberty. The Arch. The Space Needle. The Pyramids. The Eifel Tower. The Leaning Tower. Many of these wonders are already in the game, but it would be cool if there was a more interesting way to collect them, and then if Blathers would display them in his museum.

Also, Nintendo Items were RUINED in New Leaf. The playcoins made these items insanely easy to get. The Nintendo items used to be special. Getting one was a big deal, because they were ultra-rare. Now, they’re super common. It would be cool if they because rare again, and if there was a videogame-inspired place in the museum. Every other house I visit on my friend’s list became a Nintendo museum, because of how common the items were. It made it all less special, and it made it boring to look at other’s houses, since you knew you’d just be looking at the same Nintendo set over and over again.

Another idea for a new museum exhibit: Transportation or industry. It would be awesome to collect cars, trains, or planes for the museum to display. Perhaps you have to renovate them as well, find engines or tires, and fix them up.

Many real cities have Science Center-type museums. Perhaps there could be a science exhibit at the museum, where you have to collect test tubes or something. Maybe when you dig up a gyroid, you can transform it into a full-bodied robot at the science museum. How cool would that be?

Make a magic museum, filled with spell casting wonder. Make a new 1^st person camera tool, and then add a museum of photography, where the player is tasked to take pictures of certain things. Nintendo, I’ve just given you 20+ ideas for making the next Animal Crossing’s museum not just the same thing all over again. Please, use my ideas, unaccredited.  I don’t care. Just do something awesome. If you leave the museum unchanged, you will have sold the same exact museum for 5 games. That’s ridiculous.

Now, I’m going to just list out a bunch of random ideas that didn’t seem to fit within any of the things I’ve written about thus far:
1. Sidewalk chalk as an item, used for sketching on the ground/paths outside. Washes away when it rains.

2. There was a new shoe store in New Leaf, but I was disappointed that I couldn’t buy shoes that looked like monster feet for the Halloween costumes. LOL. I love that each animal leaves a unique footprint in the sand, based on what animal they are. It would be cool to be able to buy animal-feet shoes at Kick’s.

3. Bamboo was an awesome addition to Animal Crossing. You should be able to plant it next to each other, so that way you can create mazes. I realize that you don’t want players to get trapped (not that they can, you always emerge from your house), so… just have bamboo break if it is shook three times.

4. typing with the stylus is why nobody sends letters, allow us to handwrite letters. Also, let us attach photos, stickers, much like swapnote. Also, we live in the Internet age, please allow us to send letters to our friends whenever we want, even if they aren’t online. Also, letters should be placeable on the walls of your house, for the world to read and see.
5. the bug containers are not easy to see from inside the home, please make them completely glass like fish tanks

6. The lake/river should be as swimmable as the ocean. Also, forget the wetsuit, allow us to swim in whatever clothing we want. This would make it so that no player can ever get stuck from plants or trees grown by the water. So, then allow us to plant, build houses, etc directly next to the water.

7. It would be cool to have a rope/tire swing from a tree, where you can jump off into the water

8. I wish there was a leaf-themed roof to buy for my house

9. It would be cool if there was a tall grass type plant to have outside. For hide-and-seek purposes.

10. I wish I could grow pumpkins in October, and carve them for Halloween using the stylus. Also, they need to be place-able outside

11. the fact that your best-friends list is limited to 32 is infuriating; who is Nintendo to decide how many of my friends are best friends? It sucks to never be able to invite 3/4^th of my friend’s list over to my town. Also, it would be nice if I could simply pick specific best-friends to mute.

12. I want to be able to make pants, shoes, and socks. Why not?
13. It would be cool if there was an online feature that tells me how popular my patterns are. Like, how many other players have downloaded my design, how many animals in my and other towns are currently wearing my pattern, etc. I want to know how famous of a designer I have become!
14. You should be able to reskin ANY clothing with patterns. Meaning, the accessories you buy. If I want to reskin my chef’s hat or mummy mask with my starry pattern, why not allow me to?

15. You allow us to wear Mii masks… this is Animal Crossing, give us Animal Masks. I’ve wanted to play as an animal for some time now, let me in the same way as Miis!

16. Licensed stuff is a missed opportunity for DLC. Where is my Spiderman mask? Where is my Batmobile Bed? How about Monopoly Pieces Furniture Set? I want to see my Toy Story toys all over my room! Nintendo, I implore you to look at LittleBigPlanet as a model for this. There’s so much of a missed moneymaking opportunity here!
17. Bring back the message-in-a-bottle. This would have been a golden Streetpass opportunity. It was truly one of the best reasons to walk around the beach. The beach, that’s another can-o-worms. The beach is boring now, with the cliff separating it from the rest of town. Going to the beach is now a chore when before it was just the place you’d come to when you walk around. It lost some magic when it was separated from the rest of the town.

18. Speaking of the town’s terrain, it would be cool if there were more unique styles.

Everyone’s town looks almost exactly the same in New Leaf. What if each player got a section of town with Unique terrain, to make it more worthwhile/unique to visit other towns. There could be a swamp, a sandy desert, a rocky mountain, a tall grassland, etc. One unique land type per town. It wouldn’t have to be the entire town; just a section of it.

19. The towns are getting smaller. I’ve noticed. The entire game takes place in one town; make it big. I would suggest adding a randomized forest area right outside of the town. Each day this forest area might change. You can chop down trees, hunt mushrooms, etc, without really have to care if you’ve maintained it for beauty. It will reset tomorrow. It would also be cool if there were caves to explore.
20. It would be cool if I could draw where I wanted my river to go with my stylus in the very beginning.
21. There should be outside-items. I want to be able to take certain stuff, like BBQ grills, etc, outside.
22. In your inventory, display a picture of the item OVER the picture of the leaf. It’s so annoying to have to click on each item every time I redecorate simply because all of my furniture looks like a leaf within my inventory. Give us a visual. So that I don’t have to click around so much.

23. I want to display my patterns directly on the ground for paths, but also as paintings for signs. I realize that they’ve moved signs to the public works projects part, but that’s way too much for a sign. Bring back anywhere signs. Signs I can move around when an animal inevitable moves right in the middle of my road, and I have to move the road. It’s annoying to have to move the sign by buying it back and making a new works project.

24. The problem with Animal Crossing’s DLC is that, whenever it comes, everyone has that same exact item. It becomes the most common item. Therefore, it is too common and boring to display, as everyone has it. It’s not worth the development time. Instead, sell licensed stuff like LittleBigPlanet does for money. Not everyone would pay to have it, therefore it would be more worth buying for those that do (and you make money J).
25. Custom house layouts. I want to have a hallway here, two smaller rooms here instead of one big one. Look at the Sims. It doesn’t have to be that complex, but allow us to customize how the interior of our house is arranged a little more. I hate that there’s a room to the left, to the right, in back, upstairs, downstairs. Why can’t I just have a downstairs, another stairway down another level, another, another… a underground laboratory of twisting pathways. Make this happen.

26. It would be cool if I could piece together animal ears, noses, smiles, etc like a teddybear at Build-A-Bear and then create my own Animal to live in my town. Also, it would be cool if you could create a custom animal personality.
27. Chat needs to be overhauled. It sucks having to type with a stylus. If you’re not going to give us straight up voice chat, then give us voice-to-text recognition, so that it is easier to chat. Also, allow us to save common phrases so that we don’t have to type things that we say over and over. Also, all chat should be saved for 5 minutes, because EVERY TIME I leave a house someone will chat me, and I’ll miss whatever they said. Then they have to repeat it, but they won’t want to because typing on the stylus sucks.

28. There needs to be more minigames WITHIN the town. Going to the island is an annoying process. The saving. The boat rides. Getting people to go to the dock. It’s frustrating. I have a solution to this: make all the games you can buy playable. You can buy a billiard’s table in your house, just allow us to play a simple version of it. It would make having players over more fun (because other than trading stuff, there’s not really much you can do with multiplayer). You can buy a ping pong table for your house, allow two people to play it.

29. Allow more than 4 people at once in your town. There are much crazier games that allow for hundreds of people in a game at once. Animal Crossing can do AT LEAST 12 at a time. Only 4 seems… archaic.

30. There used to be more dialog options to say to Animals, bring that back I miss it.

31. Animals invite me over “later on” in the day, but my play time is right now. They get mad because I can’t come over in two hours. I’m playing now; if you’re going to invite me over, invite me for right now.

32. We need more end-game goals that do not involve paying large sums of money.
33. The Online Multiplayer is extremely glitchy, and often has an issue that boots everyone off of it at once. When this happens, everything resets. This is really annoying/frustrating because then everything we've done in each other's town goes away. All the time we spent trading designs, furniture, shaking trees, etc... all of that time is lost. The reason for this is because Nintendo doesn't understand how real online multiplayer should work. There should be no " Player arrival" train scenes and saving... this should be automatic. Saving should be constantly happening every three minutes. Anything less is irresponsible of Nintendo, with such a glitchy game. If Nintendo wants the player to have the option to go back to the way their town was before players came, they should add an option when ending multiplayer to "reset to save."
34. They should add cooking to the game. There are apples and there are ovens... why can't I make apple pie?
35. Flowers shouldn't have to be watered when it rains. Give us a break day!!!
36. Kicks has ties on his wall... why not have wearable ties?
37. A Hall of Achievement would be cool, a place where players can display awards, trophies, badges, and plagues.
38. Make the wallet size 1 million. I don't know why Nintendo wants you to save money in the bank, but the bank is pointless. Let us hold more money on person! You have items that cost that much, let us hold that much!
39. Nintendo should consider having dedicated Animal Crossing servers, so that towns can be hosted online. It would be fun if other players could come to my town, even when I'm not there, and leave me presents and other things. The dream-world is cool for non-friends, but I trust my friends to come when I'm not policing them. Heck, this could be a feature for best-friends only.

Now, I have a few final rants that deserve special attention.

Black people exist, Nintendo. They want to be able to play as themselves. Allow players to pick their skin color. I know you can “tan” but that’s not the same as being born black. WE ARE NOT ALL WHITE PEOPLE UNDERNEATH OUR TANNED EXTERIOR! Many of my black friends who were first-time players were VERY disappointed by the lack of skin color options. Also, a black Mii mask with white body skin… do I even need to say more?

END THE SEXUAL DISCRIMINATION. When Mable asks if I’m buying a dress, “as a gift” because I’m a dude, it is really sexist and homophobic (I don’t wear the skirts, but I want to fill out my catalogue (also, I’m not gay; I just support LGBT people!)). Transgendered players should not be HARASSED and DEGRADED by Mable when they want to wear something in particular. Just have Mable keep her opinions to herself, because its rude for her to specify which gender each article of clothing belongs to.

I would like to conclude this monster blog by saying that I have no idea how hard it is to create games. There are many things New Leaf did right, but my blog is not a review. My blog is a constructive-idea machine. Not all games deserve such an overhaul, but Animal Crossing sells and it hasn’t changed much at all since the first iteration. Nintendo, your fans deserve some dramatic progress and new features for the next one. My ideas are all free-to-use. I don’t need credit for having thought of the. I don’t need to give permission for you to use them. I don’t need anything; just use my ideas in your game. Nintendo, if you like what you’ve read here, you can contact me to discuss anything you want (and I have thoughts about many of your games). I am a true Nintendo fan. The ones who love you most are also the ones who are hardest on you, which is why I blog so much about you, Nintendo. They’re my favorite videogame company.

Thanks for stopping by my blog!
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