Image: baa-dabing tumblr

I have complicated feelings about New Horizons, as you might have gathered if you read the other pages of this shrine. I want to preface this page by saying it's a great game!!! New Horizons is one of the most innovative titles in the series and brought about many amazing features and mechanics. It's always a challenge for any games to live up to their predecessors, though. I might come across as a hater, but two things can be true at once. I really enjoy New Horizons and I was disappointed by it. All criticisms I have are coming from a long time superfan of Animal Crossing and a sincere place of love for the series.

how i sound putting hundreds of hours into the game and saying 'eh mid' (joke)

New Horizons is the first AC game I played on release! My registration date is actually March 19th, 2020 because I live on the west coast, where the game was released a few hours before midnight. I played it THE MOMENT I could! I bought my switch a few months earlier in anticipation for the game. It's funny to compare this to ACNL and HHD where I obsessed over the game for months before being able to play. The joy of adult money lol.

My character camped out on the beach, shortly after launch

One thing I LOVE about New Horizons is how detailed every item and character is. Of course, it's the AC game with the highest visual quality, and it lives up to every standard in that respect. It's clear that the game was crafted with utmost love and care.

New Leaf introduced item customization and flirted with town customization, but New Horizons takes it to a new level. I love the crafting element of the game and how customizable everything is. (Breakable tools, DNI though lol). I've been wanting to put furniture outside since the Wild World days. I'm so happy it's finally possible! Decoration and customization is the strongest part about New Horizons. I would have killed for the ability to fine tune my town like this in New Leaf.

I also love that New Horizons redid the character customization aspect of the game. Finally, a mainline Animal Crossing game allows you to choose your appearance without looking up a 'face guide' online. On a more serious note, I'm happy players do not start off pale as paper by default!! I also love that, for the first time, players can change any aspect of their appearance AND gender! Now, we just need the ability to change our name and town name, hm?

There are many other aspects of New Horizons that are praise worthy, but I will let the game speak for itself.

One other important aspect, though, is that New Horizons brought Animal Crossing to a mainstream audience. Before, Animal Crossing was by no means an underground game, but it wasn't a household title in the same way that Mario and Zelda are. As a kid, I was hard pressed to find anyone who even knew what the game was let alone played it too. Since the release of ACNH, though, everyone has heard of it, and there's been a boom in popularity. That's great! The worst thing for a game series like Animal Crossing is obscurity. Look at the Enchanted Folk series for an example of what it would be like.

Aren't the items gorgeous?

It's time to address the elephant in the room. Why did New Horizons disappoint me, despite all of its achievements and innovations?

I have many criticisms of the game, but the heart of the issue is the soul of the game has been lost. Yes, players have more power to decorate and customize our towns than ever before. New Horizons is by far the most beautiful AC game. However, it is severely lacking in playing like its original genre, a life simulator.

In older Animal Crossing games, the main gameplay loop heavily involved varied interactions with your villagers. For example, in the first generation of Animal Crossing games (the Gamecube version), the player needed to complete chores and errands for their neighbors in order to build friendship and get items. Items and bells were much harder to come by in those days, so villager interaction was vital!

Another example is in New Leaf. The player needed to build friendship with the villagers in order to progress the game. At the start of the game, you must take care of the town and befriend the villagers in order to raise your approval rating, which unlocks your mayoral power. The player must continue to foster relationships with their neighbors to unlock Public Works Projects as well. For those who didn't play ACNL, PWPs were the main way the player decorated their town outside of planting trees, flowers, and bushes.

Unrelated - Anchovy side-eye ft. the pompompurin t-shirt that has a butthole on the back. HILARIOUS!

In New Horizons, the villagers seem to just be there to look cute. Villagers have always repeated themselves but it has never been to the degree that dialogue is repeated in New Horizons. I played 1300+ hours of New Leaf, so of course I got repeated dialogue at times. HOWEVER, it was never repeated so much that I was bothered. New Horizons dialogue makes the villagers feel like robots rather than little animals who actually live in your town. Infrequent interactions like errand running still exist, but it's a ghost of the interactivity of the old games. It feels hollow.

Many fans complain that villagers are too nice now, compared to the sassy dialogue of the Gamecube and Wild World versions. I do not personally remember the villagers being rude all the time. Though I played those games as a young child, so the sarcasm and passive aggression likely just went over my head. Regardless, the sassiness was toned down significantly in City Folk and New Leaf, and I saw far less complaints about the change compared to now. I think what people are really dissatisfied with is how bland the villagers are in ACNH. As cute as they are, they just blend together. In New Leaf, I would make up stories and headcanons based on what the characters did and said. At one point, I had 3 smug villagers in my town at once, but they all felt distinct, even if their lines come from the same pool. Now, all the animals feel interchangable. It's disappointing!

One thing I do like about the villager writing in New Horizons is that it achieves the same weirdness of the past at times. Everyone always talks about how mean villagers were in early Animal Crossing. But no one talks about how WEIRD they are in ALL games. New Horizons continues that tradition lol

Lazy villagers say the weirdest stuff in this game LOL

Aside from the disappointing life simulation gameplay, I have other criticisms of the game. I wish there had been quality of life updates such as mass cooking, crafting, and leaf ticket printing. Animal Crossing is by nature a very slooooow grind. But there is no reason to artificially inflate play times of an already slow-paced game. I wish inventory management was easier, like being able to select multiple items at once, like the Gamecube days. In New Leaf and Wild World, inventory management was more intuitive because of the stylus. My partner, who is new to Animal Crossing, was most grated by these small QOL blindspots rather than the big-picture.

Unrelated - Moments before disaster strikes

This next criticism speaks to missing part of the Animal Crossing soul and identity. I dislike that so many features and were removed. One improvement to the series I loved with City Folk and New Leaf was having a shopping district. I prefer Main Street in ACNL over the City, but both work well. One of the satifying progression systems in ACNL is your shopping district slowly growing as you progress. It was practical and cute! I know that in the ACNH 2.0 update, 'Harv's Island' attempted to remedy this, but in my opinion, this wasn't enough. For one, the load times in ACNH are quite long, so going to Harv's island is an inconvenience. Secondly, the RVs are nowhere near as charming as each NPC having their own shop. It feels like a major step down compared to Main Street.

I miss old characters like the pelicans at the post office, Dr. Shrunk, Digby, and other characters only accessible through Amiibo. I think the absence of these characters is part of why it feels like New Horizons is missing so much of its Animal Crossing identity.

The cooperative play was also downgraded in New Horizons. In New Leaf, other players could visit your town similar to all of the other games post-Gamecube. But there was also a place called 'Tortimer Island' where players could play mini-games together. I remember this fondly as it gave my friends and I something to do once we got bored of walking around town. I missed this a lot in New Horizons.

One aspect of multiplayer I did like was the addition of players who share an island being able to play together. It's lacking in functionality, unfortunately, but I'm happy it exists at all. I grew up playing Animal Crossing with my little brother, and we would have loved this, despite its limitations. I also know in my heart we would have fist fought each other over it, also LOL! I hope that in future Animal Crossing games, this feature is expanded on and improved!

My partner and I playing together in local co-op mode!

I have new memories just as valuable as the ones I made playing older Animal Crossing games. For one, I was able to share my town with my partner who had never played an Animal Crossing game. I let my little sister "borrow" my first copy of ACNH because I wasn't playing it at the time. This is her first AC game too. I assumed she would get bored of the game after awhile and give it back to me. She did not, in fact, get bored of it. So I bought myself another copy so we could play together LOL! It was great to be able to share one of my favorite series of all time with both of them.

I don't have as many villagers in this game bc I get attached and don't let them move out HAHAHA! I wish they would send letters when they leave like in past games. I always held onto the letters Hover for my thoughts on each!

In conclusion, Animal Crossing New Horizons is an amazing game that I was disappointed by. I did my best to be fair and not overly negative. This criticism comes from a place of love for the series, and you know I will be playing the next game on day one. Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts and exploring my shrine!