By Madilynn Rainey
Student Reporter
“Animal Crossing” has been a part of Nintendo since the release of the Nintendo 64. The first game’s release was in 2001 exclusively in Japan but reached America in 2002. The “Animal Crossing” franchise has five main game titles including: “Animal Crossing” for the GameCube, “Animal Crossing: Wild World” for the DS, “Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Wii,” “Animal Crossing: New Leaf” for the 3DS and the latest installment “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” for the Switch.
Many fans, including myself, often find ourselves in debate of which game is the best out of all these titles. I am here to say it is “Animal Crossing: New horizons.” As someone who has played the games since “Wild World,” I am not backing down from my pick.
My first point is customization, only in “New Horizons” players can fully customize their island any way they want and wish. In older installments players could never, or very rarely, place items outside in the village. “New Horizons” challenges the player to earn a five star island. Players achieve this by decorating the island from ocean-to-ocean. Players can even terraform their islands, cliffs and rivers to whatever they want.
Some players may not be huge on customization, but it gets better. Out of all the games, this one has the biggest museum for the player to complete with the goal of catching 80 fish and 80 bugs. That is not all though, when players also have to collect 43 works of art and, only in this installment, 40 sea creatures. This allows players to find more collectibles for their museums taking a longer time. When playing a video game, it’s about how long the game can keep a player busy.
Another major improve-ment is self customization. In older installments players had to answer certain questions and, depending on the players response, that’s what they looked like. Now, players can decide what they look like the moment they start life on the island. In this installment, they also have skin color options making this game more inclusive. Any time players wish to change characters now, just use a mirror. And there are over 1,252 items of clothing with 4,778 different variants.
Lastly, the catalog has vastly expanded from previous versions. If a player loves to collect items along the way, the catalog will be the biggest change yet. With over 1,200 pieces of furniture with all different variants just in the most recent update, 2.0. Making a total of around 9,000 items to collect and use to create the perfect island. If players are like me, when they finish the game, players can start it all over again. I am on my third island reset myself.
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