Animal Crossing: Wild World – Review

Town of Genovia, where the streets are paved with gold, where, it is said, if you work hard everyone can get the ‘Genovian Dream’, a nice house in the burbs and basically the good life. As Watson sat in the cab on her way to Genovia, she thought “I have a good feeling about this town” and she was right. No sooner had she stepped foot on Genovian soil than Tom Nook, local shop owner and entrepreneur was there to greet her, with an offer too good to be true. Move into a small house (ok more of a hut) owned by Mr Nook and work part time for him doing errands, pay off the house and it would be hers.

That is how Animal Crossing begins and your social life as you know it ends, because from that point forth this title will consume your very being. For those of you that have not had the joy of Animal Crossing on the Gamcube (review here – Ed.) this title begins with you choosing a character, male of female, naming it anything you like, naming your town anything you like and being delivered in the aforementioned manner. Those familiar with the GC version will be stunned to see the word ‘cab’ given they’d expect the train journey, but sadly the train is no more, now the key to visiting other towns and other townsfolk visiting yours lay in the town gate, but more about that in multiplayer. The gameplay remains true to the GC version, you still walk around town, chat to neighbors, purchase / collect items (over 1,400), find items, go fishing, search for fossils, make money, spend money, decorate and expand your home and essentially live a fairly stress free life. Now this may sound so boring to non Animal Crossing players, but it isn’t. I’m not sure what it is that makes this title so addictive, but it has it, for the purpose of this review let’s say it’s the F word .. ‘Fun’. The only thing notably missing is the inclusion of the collectible and playable NES games… oh well now you can make your own star constellations, how cool is that!

As you would expect, the overall control mechanism has changed given this title utilises both screens. For the most part the action takes place on the touch screen and the sky rolls by in the top screen. You can use the stylus to move your character by dragging the stylus along the screen, pick up items by tapping them, use, talk and also to navigate the map and various inventory features as well as letter writing and design facility. The addition to now be able to drag numerous items to sell or donate is truly heaven sent because things no longer take an age, the same applies to letter writing. For those who find the touch screen a bit of a pain you can also navigate using the D-pad and buttons, though this will take you longer, I preferred a mix of both, D-pad for movement and touch screen for menu navigation.

Graphically this title is as cute as they come, it’s called Animal Crossing because the townsfolk are animals. Cute houses dot the landscape, along with trees and various commercial buildings, Tom Nooks store, the Museum, Post-office / Town Hall and the Able Sisters Clothiers. The odd thing about this title is that although it appears to be geared towards children (bright colors, cute sounds, non violence and basic game mechanic) it is just as suitable for the adult gamer. Comparing this to the Gamecube version is all too easy to do, but there are a few obvious differences. The world now rotates in rolling log fashion and is slightly curved as you move around it, there’s no more get to the end of a piece of land ‘pause’ and load the next acre, the whole town is fully loaded and awaits the pitter patter of your tiny uninterrupted feet. Character models in this are superb, particularly given their minute size, weather effects too are lovely, the ‘Wind Waker’ styled streams and waves lapping beaches are all just lovely and add to the atmosphere. Essentially the DS version is every bit as nice as the Gamecube version, it still works in ‘real time’, so when it’s night for you, it’s night in game, when it’s a cold season, it’s cold in game and so on. All in all this is graphically resplendent and it has a great navigation system.

That brings us ever so neatly to the sound, which, like the graphics, is wonderfully done and every bit as good as the Gamecube version. The animals all still speak in ‘Animalese’ with their words appearing in speech bubbles, this means the deaf or hard of hearing gamer can play this title no problem, the only aspect that utilizes sound based interaction is the ability to write a new town theme or listen to K. K. Slider, but this isn’t a necessary aspect of the game. The music in the title still has the same feel as the Gamecube version, though I’m yet to see K. K. Slider out doing his thing, I understand he now hangs out in the coffee shop in the basement of the museum. A downside to the sound, the sometimes repetitive conversations you may encounter with the townsfolk, when you’ve been told 4 times that someone is wanting a particular piece of furniture, it leaves you not wanting to speak to them again until you have it in your possession.

Animal Crossing Wild World is one of a new breed of Nintendo DS titles that utilize the Nintendo WiFi connection service. This title makes better use of the service than Mario Kart, which had a fairly disappointing online aspect given you really had to pre-arrange with friends to the precise minute when you were going to play. Animal Crossing works a little differently, if you’re logged into the WiFi service it is possible for you to visit friends towns, or them to visit yours but you will need their friends code and vice versa. Security is fairly high and strangers can’t just waltz into your town and steal your items. You will need to have your town gate open as will your friend. On the downside some features will not be available when you have a visitor, you wont be able to donate items to the Museum for example, also if you lose the connection during play you will lose any progress you’ve made online, but this is extremely rare. All in all though it is amazing this is on a handheld and the addition of being able to send little text messages to other players at least gives you some form of communication with them. Along with the wi-fi aspects there’s also wireless DS multi-card play and as if that wasn’t enough you can also have up to four characters on the one cart.

Female gamers can play a female character in Animal Crossing and despite the other townsfolk being animals there are female characters. In the Gamecube version of the game, the male characters would sometimes get offered cooler items than the girls (an example of this was girls got a doll, guys got a car.. hardly fair!). Thus far there’s no evidence of this blatant sexism with Animal Crossing Wild World at least so far, though the comments do change to some degree dependent on your gender choice and the cab driver makes a comment or two that may have girl gamers rolling eyes, but persevere as this is a superb game for both male and female players, young or old.

Overall this game isn’t going to be for everyone, but it is going to be for those people who let themselves relax and remember what gaming is all about, it’s that F word again.. fun. The overall game mechanic of collecting and blatant materialism sounds repetitive and it is, but with this title that little fact just doesn’t seem to matter, that said, if you hated the Gamecube version, you’ll still hate this one. This is graphically gorgeous for the DS, with easy to navigate menus and a charming environment, sound too is well done. You can play a male or female character, which is always welcome and all your old favorites are there and then some. Although this has kept the same core game as the Gamecube version, the fact you can now take your town with you should be more than enough reason to make the purchase. The overall law remains the same, you will get out of this title what you put into it. In a nutshell if you own a DS you really should own Animal Crossing DS for true escapism and a whole lot of F word.

Check for the homage to the gamecubes Kapp’n in the cab.. and yes that is him driving.

Review by Angela

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