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The Game Nintendo Made – Animal Crossing
I don’t love Bunny Day but I couldn’t disagree more with the opinions in this Kotaku article. This isn’t the first time I’ve come across this kind of thinking but it bristles me when I do see it. People who agree with these kind of thinking have missed the point of Animal Crossing.
The author of the article touches upon many things that I’ve heard about Animal Crossing for years. I don’t agree with most of the opinions espoused therein. I do agree with a couple of them. I agree that Zipper is creepy but he is creepy in a very cute, Nintendo way; like Tingle. I also agree that the Bunny Day items suck but I understand that is subjective.
I think the biggest issue I have is with how people who have this mindset are playing Animal Crossing. (I know that we should never be critical of other peoples play styles when it comes to games but, like griefing, there are some play styles that should be criticized.)
Animal Crossing isn’t meant to be played 24 hours a day, 7 days a week until everything is done in the game. (I think this is why Nintendo has always been against achievements in their games. They affect the way that people play games.) Many people in the games industry and many avid gamers have a hard time not playing games until completion and then moving on to the next game. For most games this is a solid way of playing things; beeline through the story and move on to the next thing.
Animal Crossing is different. It is a daily experience and it’s meant to be played at a leisurely pace for about an hour or so per day or a few hours per week.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been out for just over two weeks and the author of the Kotaku article complained,
I was so happy for new fish to show up in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I was tired of catching the same things every time I played. But right as the game cycled out some old fish and added some new fish to catch, Bunny Day happened. And now all I catch is eggs. I hate the eggs.
It’s true that the player will catch many of the same fish but those fish are meant to be sold to give the player money to buy things from the store or the ATM. I’m still finding new things everyday that I play and I have put in a lot of hours into this game. So, it seems to me that people who play in a completionist fashion might be putting too much time into this one game. Do something else for a while.
The article’s first point that there are too many eggs might be true but they can be sold just like the fish mentioned above. Everything is meant to be collected and sold in this game. New Horizons hammers this point home by adding daily furniture items that can be sold at Nook’s Cranny for double their normal price. I never used to sell furniture but I find myself selling it now to supplement my ever growing loan.
I agree that the Bunny Day furniture is terrible. The aesthetics are not something that appeal to me but I’m sure, for some people, the same might be true for Christmas and still some others may love these pastel colored egg themed furniture items.
I look at the Bunny Day furniture as just items on a checklist and most of Animal Crossing is a game of checking items off a list. So, in that case, I enjoy just checking the items off my list and shoving them in my storage. The items could also be sold to fund better housing or items to put in one’s house.
I agree with the last point that Bunny Day isn’t optional and it might be good to give the player the choice to opt-out but that isn’t the game that Nintendo made.
My recommendation to people who have issues with AC would be to not play it so much – or take a break. This is true of everything in life. Instead of voraciously playing the game for hours and hours everyday to be able to place the box on a pile of completed games, come back to it in a week once this event is over.
Animal Crossing is a game that should be enjoyed in small bursts daily or even weekly for years on end. I’ve been playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf for seven years. I go through fits and starts with that game and seasons that I’ve missed out on I’ve come back to in the next year – that is the game that Nintendo made.
The most telling statement that the author is playing this game too much is when they wrote,
My biggest problem with Bunny Day is that I’m forced to celebrate it.
Nobody is forcing you to do anything!
I’m all for giving players more options but I’m more for artistic expression. Some people may have wanted Moby Dick to die but that isn’ t the book that Melville wrote.
Nintendo has chosen to make a game that teaches players that life is about enjoying our surroundings. They want their players to learn that putting in work will reap rewards. They even used the now jobless Resetti to teach the player that cheating the system by moving the clock forwards and backwards, in an effort to get everything and toss the game on a pile, ruins the artistic intent of the game. It cheats the player out of learning the lesson that the artists at Nintendo are trying to teach us.
It’s okay to miss some things. They might come back later. They might not. And, that is okay. Put the game down. Go do something else. Everything doesn’t need to be obtainable and checked off a list right this instant. Everything doesn’t need to be done in a way that satisfies everybody. It just needs to be fun and it should teach us something and Animal Crossing succeeds in doing just that.
I guess I would just like to remind these players that there isn’t a tiny bow that needs to be placed on this game before adding it to a stack of “finished” games. That is what Nintendo is trying to teach us through their art. That is the the game they made.
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Footage-cast – Gears of War 3 Part 3
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Check It Out – Trials Fusion
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Footage-cast – Gears of War 3 Part 2
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Check It Out! – Battle Chef Brigade
This week we check out the newest edition of Famitsu featuring the 3rd Anniversary of the Nintendo Switch, the weekly top 30 games in Japan, Nioh 2, Valorant, Super Nintendo World, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Degrees of Separation, Space Channel 5 VR, and snacks.
This is my new weekly series where I check out the weekly issue of Famitsu. I’m going to look at the top games of the week, the most anticipated games, Resident Evil 3 remake, Pokemon Sword and Shield, Nioh 2, and some snacks.
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One Word Review – Assassin’s Creed
agitation
Assassin’s Creed is and was a huge success. It was one of two games at the time that everybody I knew owned; that and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. The game caused a restlessness amongst video game players. The story and the movement in the game was something new in a landscape of bland shooters that were trying to top one another but, in reality, just blended into the background with each other.
Ubisoft wanted a discussion to arise with players around the world because of this game. The September 11th attacks were still fresh in people’s minds. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were mired in the mud (which is especially difficult to do in arid regions). Islamophobia was growing exponentially around the world and Ubisoft based their story in the fertile crescent. Moreover, Assassin’s Creed is the story of the battle between Muslim Assassins and Christian Templars. This led Ubisoft to add a disclaimer to the beginning of the game,
Inspired by historical events and characters. This work of fiction was designed, developed, and produced by a multicultural team of various religious faiths and beliefs.
Assassin’s Creed (AC) landed at a perfect time for Ubisoft. People wanted to play something different. Many people around the world wanted a story that turned the narrative around on their Muslim brothers who, for the last 5 years, had seen all of their accomplishments in history expunged and replaced with the image of terrorist and nothing else. Ubisoft wanted to shake up that image of Islam and show the rich history, contributions, and coolness of Islam vs. Western Christianity. They knew that this game was going to push some buttons and they were fine with that, up to a point.
The movement in AC was satisfying. Running across the tops of the buildings in places like Acre and Damascus was a lot of fun. The architecture changed between locals based on which religion controlled the city – some had more churches and some had more mosques. They all had a mixture of religions though, which is part of the message that Ubisoft was trying to impart on people during this time. It wasn’t shocking, at the time the game is set in, to have these people living in the same places and respecting the beliefs of their neighbors. (Why is it shocking to us now?) Sure the leaders were trying to end the other side but the player never sees any of the people in the cities being nasty to each other just based on each others’ beliefs.
Climbing those mammoth buildings of religious significance stirred up a torrent of feelings within me. I loved finding the perfect footholds on those churches and minarets. Of course as I progressed in the game it got easier to recognize the holds, the illusion was gone, but that never stopped it from being fun. The exorcise in starting at the bottom, finding my way to the apex, and then free falling down into a fluffy stack of hay was meditative for me. For a thirty to forty hour game, it is strange that this one mechanic was the happiest part for me.
The story, which I should have loved, was good but it didn’t take me on a voyage like I had wanted. I found the most intriguing moments were those spent in present day, outside of the Animus, the sleep inducing cognitive time machine that transports your character’s memories into his ancestors. The main plot between the Templars and the Assassin’s was interesting but the past, which is the meat of the game, isn’t as intriguing as the few bits of story outside the Animus concerning how these two groups continue to run things to this day. And for a story that largely takes place in the past, that seems like a missed opportunity.
The boss battles have some good story elements that give the player the pathos to want to kill thousands of these nameless NPCs but the final battle between Altair and Al Mualim for the Apple of Eden story wise was obvious. Of course the man who had been mentoring Altair the entire game would turn; Oedipus complex and all that. Also, the combat was terrible.
The combat is a problem throughout the game. From simple fights in the streets with thugs, to the boss battles that progress the story, and the inevitable fights that happen with the bosses’ minions as Altair runs back to one of his safe houses after slaying said bosses. The combat has a fluidity which matches the movement in the game but it just isn’t fun.
It makes sense that an assassin shouldn’t be fighting in large groups. It also makes sense that he should be finding hiding spots to get away from the combat. But, the designers made the combat and they definitely wanted the player to spend time with their combat system instead of running from everything. This is evident during the final chapter of the game when you are tasked with killing the grandmaster of the Templars and you must fight through an army of Templars to finally kill him. I almost quit the game during this final battle because I was so aggravated by the combat system.
I was moved by the environments and the traversal across the world. I enjoyed the prospect of the story but I wasn’t excited by much of it besides the parts out of the Animus. AC came around at a perfect time and the people who played it found the seed of what the developers wanted them to see and this gave them a franchise. I worry that the franchise has become too focused on what it did right, which was mobility around the world of AC, and it should have focused on the problems like making the in Animus story better and the combat more engaging.
The development of this game shook up the established order of making games in many ways. It was brought to life by people who didn’t want to tell the same boring space marine type action story. The game’s traversal system was groundbreaking and the player learned to love moving around the world. The combat fermented some heavy emotions that almost beat me into submission. Parts of the story though caused a pandemonium amoungst players who wanted to see where Ubisoft could take this story while using other times and places, especially in present day which I am most excited to learn more about. I hope Ubisoft keeps shaking things up with this series because they definitely helped change the narrative for many people around the world with respect to current events.