'Crossing' into familiar territory

By: Fernando Dutra

Posted: 12/1/08

Welcome to the familiar town setting of "Animal Crossing: City Folk." In this iteration of the beloved franchise for the Nintendo Wii, players traverse a recognizable landscape established and refined by the two previous entries.

As players get accustomed to the new Wii controls, one that facilitates the menu system like "Animal Crossing: Wild World" did by allowing players to point at the tab they want to open, realization sets in that this is the same "Animal Crossing" as the original, released for GameCube in 2002. Tom Nook introduces himself, lets the character choose a house, and then discusses the debt players will have to repay over the course of the game. Nook offers the player a job, which serves as the basic control tutorial for the game, and forces the player to introduce his or her character to all the residents of the town.

After this, the life simulator relaxes its hold on the player. The main draw of the series has always been its living, breathing atmosphere, meaning that the game continues even when the player isn't there. Villagers can move in and leave the village on a whim, especially when they aren't visited often. As Nook's debt is paid off, the house can be expanded, and eventually include a basement.

As days pass, players can partake in various activities to make money to pay off the debt. Players can fish, catch insects, collect fossils, pick fruit, or scavenge for seashells. Most of these items can be donated to the town's museum or sold to Tom Nook for money. Since the game is seasonal, different insects and fish appear at different times in the year or different parts of the day.

Aside from these tasks, players can also pursue leisure activities. Players can speak to neighbors to strengthens friendships and do favors for them also. This usually results in a fetch quest that normally ends with the player receiving a free item. There are also town events, which are usually announced when the player leaves their house. Harvest Day, the game's version of Thanksgiving, for example, brings with it a paranoid turkey who is fearful that he will be eaten. These events are quintessential for breaking up the monotony of the game for those who have been with the series since the beginning.

The addition touted in the game's title is the city section in the game. By boarding a bus, players have access to the city, available from the outset of the game. The city contains stores for players to visit, but they are mostly familiar. Gracie, the fashion designer; Harriet, the shampoo clerk; Katrina, the fortune teller and Red, the black market salesman, are all located here. Originally, these characters were special occurrences in previous entries of the series, so the novelty that they used to be greeted with quickly wears off here. There is also a movie theatre and the Happy Room Academy board room here, where players can get updates as to how their room is doing according to feng shui. The city section is, mostly, just a convenient location, offering nothing new to players in terms of experience or interesting new characters.

Another feature that makes its debut in "Animal Crossing" is the Wii Speak peripheral. This futuristic device is sure to usher in a new era of gaming, what with its ability to allow players to converse with one another while playing the game. This peripheral only goes to show how behind Nintendo is on what the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 has offered since day one - but being that Nintendo is leading the console war right now, who's going to complain about them? The important question is to ask where this feature was when "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" came out, a game that would have benefitted from the ability to talk. Since Nintendo is concerned with a friendlier family image, it makes sense that this peripheral makes its debut in "Animal Crossing," - Who's actually going to trash talk in this game?

For "Animal Crossing" loyalists, this game is definitely worth the money. To those who have never played a game in the series before, this is worth picking up. Anyone else who spent hours playing the original or the DS game should know what to expect, especially since this game feels so much like a retread. The novelty quickly wears off, since they mostly feel tacked-on. It isn't that the core experience isn't fun, it has been and will always be. It's just that Nintendo didn't push this entry into a deeper direction. Instead, it feels like a formulaic part of the DS game and a holding pattern for the inevitable follow-up.