Great in portable form | Quite a lot to do | Online play
Disadvantages:
Slow paced for some
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
The GameCube release of Animal Crossing was a perfect example of how annoying it can be to live life as a PAL territory gamer. After the release in Japan and America, Europe still had to wait for years before the game finally showed up on our shores with Nintendo sporting the 'localisation issues' excuse. When it did come, however, and for those that hadn't already imported it gamers were greeted with pretty much what they had wanted for so long, a living, breathing overly cute world inside your GameCube. Nintendo haven't made the same mistake again in delaying the DS version of the game with a wait of a few months seeming like a breeze after the gigantic wait for the GC release. Though will this new version be enough for gamers already with the GC game to spend money on it again?
For those not savvy with the previous versions of the game, Animal Crossing is a life simulator based in a green little down where, predictably, the population is entirely made up of animals. For some odd reason you, as a human, decide to leave the comforts of your own home and come live the idyllic life with the animals. You manage to get yourself a house thanks to the local shop owner Tom Nook whole you'll grow to loathe over time due to his mortgage fees he lumbers you with. Once settled you can do whatever you please, a bit of fishing, bug catching, clothes designing, furniture collecting, getting to know the animals and visiting other towns. There is no goal in the game (even the loan payments aren't obligatory unless you want a bigger house) and it's set at a very relaxed pace making it a perfect game to wind down to.
For a game in its third incarnation (an N64 version was released in Japan only) very little has changed at the core of the game. There are a few new additions to the game as well as a few strip downs. There is now a café underneath the museum where K.K. Slider, the guitar playing dog, comes to play as opposed to outside the train station (as there isn't one) and there is also an observatory ran by Blather's sister. There is still a Nook's (obviously) and an Able Sisters the town dump is no more and is now a recycle bin inside the Town Hall. The police station is gone and now Copper and Booker attend to the town gates. Instead of the slow process of sending fossils outside of town to figure out what they are Blathers has been at school and can now tell you what they are there and then. There are no NES games to play, the world is smaller and there are no 'real world' themed local holidays as such but more ones loosely based on what is happening but you still get your birthday so don't worry too much.
Obviously the biggest change to the game is the Wi-Fi enabled features. For a game all about communication the GameCube game was pretty cumbersome when it came to visiting other people thanks to it not being connected to the internet. That is a thing of the past with Wild World. Get your DS Wi-Fi enabled and you, and up to three others, can visit a friends town all at once. From there you can do whatever you want. You can talk to the different animals in your friend's town (who may end up moving to your town if they like you enough), pick some different fruit for your town or annoy your mate by chopping down all the trees. You can communicate by each other by using an on-screen chat box, similar to an instant message service, during your time in the town. It works very well, albeit with some lag trouble now and again; though thanks to the whole Nintendo Wi-Fi structure its harder work than it should be getting into a new town. You can't, for example, visit any town you need to first swap friend codes with a mate and to visit their town they must open their gates allowing visitors in which means that you both must be online at the same time which will mean prior-arranging before logging onto the game. It's not perfect but until Nintendo relax their children-friendly service its something that's not going to change.
Porting it over to the DS leads to some nice little advantages. Typing out letters, something that took an age to do via a control pad is far easier now that you can just tap away with your stylus. Also arranging your items you have in your pockets lends itself well to the touch screen as it is now far quicker to re arrange and select items you want. Designing clothes at the Able Sisters is also far easier to do than using a controller to colour in each little square. It is also the fact that the DS is a handheld that is also highly beneficial. If you wanted a quick go beforehand you'd need to actively make time for it but now you can fire it up during an ad-break on TV, on the bus or, as I'm sure many people do, on the toilet. The two screens don't make a huge amount of difference. The top screen is used mainly in the game world as a big piece of sky where you can spot constellations now and again or shoot floating presents or the local postman if you ever get up early enough to see him.
Graphically the game isn't quite as sharp as the GameCube version but it still looks great on the DS. The big difference is the game world is a lot more 'rounded' whereas the GC version had you going across flat, grid areas (or 'acres') the land you travel on now is curved meaning you can see things go on in a distance. The same colourful, cartoony look of the animals and the surroundings is still maintained though.
The fact that the handheld version has only had some minor changes may mean people may question this being an essential purchase. If you do have mates with the game then the online aspect alone is well worth picking up the game for because it really is a lot of fun and very worthwhile. Those who will only play it offline may want to think a bit harder. I was sceptical about it at first, though went and bought it anyway, and a month and a half later I'm still hooked. It isn't just the new addition of the online aspect that's kept me playing. It's the activities, no matter how basic they sound printed, still make you come back and switch on your DS. You'll want to save up for that massive house and you'll want to pay off your mortgage. The animals are also a massive draw. Each one has a personality of their own. They come out with some funny stuff and also some disturbing ones (one animal wanted to know which 'muscle' was his favourite) and a month and a bit later they are saying new phrases every day. They'll gossip about the other animals in your town and even talk about any online visitors you may have had wondering when they are going to pop around and see them again. You'll grow attached to some and do anything to stop them leaving and some you just wish would bugger off from where they came from.
There aren't too many gripes with the game. The touchscreen is put to good enough use but certain things such as fishing could have been a whole new little experiences rather than just a basic tap and grab mechanism. The game does also have limitations. Like the GameCube game before it there really is only so much you can do in a day before you exhaust the possibilities. Also, as an aside, somebody should drill it into the animals that I don't like being asked every bloody day if I want to catch a butterfly…again.
Its storming success in Japan and the US shows that Animal Crossing has a broad appeal which is somewhat ironic with the hassle of getting it to see the light of day here in the first place. Wild World shows off the hardware well and also the WiFi connection, even if it's not the easiest way to get online with a game. There's always going to be something happening in your little town for months to come that will ensure the cart will stay inside your DS for a very long time.
[8 out of 10]
ANIMAL CROSSING: WILD WORLD IS
A good use of the DS hardware Full of interesting and scary animals Good for honing your neighbouring skills
ANIMAL CROSSING: WILD WORLD IS NOT
Just for the lonesome player A huge difference to the GC version To be used as training to 'talk' to animals in real life
Animal Crossing is out to get in the usual places RRP £29.99
just live life, extend a home, interact with their neighbors and explore the village. Much of the cast of the original Animal Crossingâ„¢ returns, including animal...
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