City Folk (2008), Nintendo Wii
City Folk was the third game I played. I started my town in late 2009. I remember really wanting the game as soon as it released, but my family did not have a wii until later! Instead, I watched the game on YouTube and obsessively read guides and threads about it on an Animal Crossing fan site named Animal Crossing Bay. I had serious FOMO because most people on the site had the game aleady.
I know City Folk had pretty lukewarm reception, and looking back, I wonder if players felt the same way about City Folk that I do about New Horizons. I think the nuance is a bit different, though. City Folk is a game that is basically upgraded Wild World. While it didn't introduce as many features into the series as other entries, it didn't take away features either. In fact, it brought back many holidays and events from the Gamecube version that were missing in Wild World. As a child, I thought it was amazing!
The city was a novel concept, and I appreciate that is was a precursor to Main Street in New Leaf. I find myself missing having a shopping district in New Horizons. I loved that I could choose where I wanted to live on the map, out of 4 pre-determined locations. I chose the house by the beach, which would become a theme for me in later games. This was also the first town that I shared with my little brother.
In Wild World, I played locally with my brother and later online with friends from ACBAY, online play in City Folk is what I think back on most fondly. The community of people on ACBay was my first online group of friends. If you happened to stumble upon this page and used to play on there, send me an email! I picked up a wiispeak microphone at some point and loved being able to chat while we all played. This was the first time I had ever seen modded AC with 'lightsaber' axes being popular and easily traded for.
At one point, my family couldn't afford to have internet at home anymore, and that meant no more wi-fi play! I felt so embarrassed about this that I lied about having mono on ACBay, explaining why I couldn't play anymore. It's a silly thing to lie about, and I was only about 10 at the time. I don't think I even knew what mono really was lol.
I RP'd as the mayor of my town constantly, and I remember there actually being an election day event in City Folk. This led me down a weird rabbit hole because I can't find any footage of this event. In 2009, I remember Tortimer would run for mayor again with the joke being that he had no competition. Tortimer stood outside and said something like 'thanks for your vote!' And players were mailed the election day poster that I showed above, like other DLC being pushed out at the time.
I remember being irritated that I couldn't run against Tortimer because I was already pretending to be mayor! I didn't think that Tortimer was doing a very good job, apparently. I remember writing smear campaign ads on the town bulletin board, encouraging my villagers to vote for me instead. I can't find any screenshots or video of the event itself, though. If it weren't for the DLC item, I would have assumed I had just made it up and am misremembering. Either way, I was pleased that the player replaced Tortimer as mayor in New Leaf!
This is a weird tangent, so bear with me. Something I appreciated about City Folk is that Rover is the character that greets you every day before entering your town. While I had played the Gamecube version of Animal Crossing by this point, I felt like I didn't have an understanding of Rover's appeal. I read a forum post when I was 8-9 years old talking about how Rover can appear in the Roost (in Wild World), and I thought to myself 'Who the hell is Rover? And why is this person so excited about him?'
Throughout my time playing City Folk, I grew a connection to Rover as a character. This feeling came full circle when Rover appeared in the May Day event in New Horizons. The excitment I felt when playing the event for the first time reminded me of that forum post all those years ago. I imagine I felt the same excitement seeing Rover that that person did so long ago.
These were the villagers I had in my town. Hover for my thoughts on them! I swear I must have had more than these villagers, but I can't remember who else was in my town. I think this shows that the relationships I made in the game were mostly with other players rather than the animals themselves.
