Animal Crossing: New Horizonsis undeniably a good game and, in many ways, an improvement over its predecessors. It addressed the issue of not having enough to do by introducing a plethora of tasks as well as the ability to customize and landscape an entire island. It shoved practically every villager into its tiny file size so that players like me could get their favorite ones to come to their island, and it offered lots of ways to interact with other players in multiplayer.
However,Animal Crossing: New Horizonsalmostkilled my love of gamingthanks to one of its most frustrating features. It’s something that a lot of players have encountered, but something that is a lot more nuanced than I once thought. While a lot of the responsibility for this issue lies with Nintendo and the game’s fundamentally flawed design,there is some responsibility that I and many other players must bear.
Animal Crossing: New Horizon’s Villager Dialogue Is Repetitive
It Gets Grating Very Quick
One ofAnimal Crossing: New Horizons’biggest flaws is how quickly villagers seem to repeat dialogue. It is easily the biggest feature that I hope changes in thenextAnimal Crossinggameas it fundamentally ruins the social sim aspect, which is, at least in my opinion, the most crucial part. In my initial playthrough, which, like everyone else, was during COVID-19,I found myself rapidly encountering the same lines of dialogue over and over again, which all but killed my enthusiasm forAnimal Crossingas a whole. It almost made me fall out of favor with gaming altogether.
Now, that may seem a little extreme, butit became evident to me thatAnimal Crossing: New Horizonswas prioritizing mechanical freedom over atmosphere and, dare I say, vibes.It is easily one of the mostannoying aspects ofNew Horizonsas, while I appreciate the ability to completely alter the appearance of my island, I would have much rather had villagers that felt like real people, not soulless beings that dispense witty one-liners ad nauseam.
It is especially frustrating considering thatvillagers inAnimal Crossing: New Horizonscompletely lack any bite. None of them are rude like they were in the originalACgames, which means every conversation with them devolves into a player-appreciation party. This happens even with thebestAnimal Crossingvillagers, who were famous for being a little bit mean, at least initially. I felt almost immediately like the world ofAnimal Crossing: New Horizonswas hollow and that spending any amount of time in it expecting to build bonds as I had in otherAnimal Crossinggames was futile.
In fact, I would go as far as to say that almost everyone complaining about repetitive dialogue inNew Horizonsfell into the same trap that I did.
However, after much reflection and returning toAnimal Crossing: New Horizonsall these years later, I realized that this was almost completely my fault. In fact, I would go as far as to say that almost everyone complaining about repetitive dialogue inNew Horizonsfell into the same trap that I did. That’s becauseNew Horizons, much like the previous games, is not meant to be played in one go, or even across the span of a month. However, circumstances and a new game design philosophy forced us all to approach it that way.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons Isn’t Meant To Be Played In One Go
It Should Be Played In Short Bursts
Simply put,Animal Crossing: New Horizonsis a game intended for short bursts. It is a game that should be approached as a daily momentary distraction, a brief escape from the monotony of life for fifteen minutes or so before switching it off. Not every task needs to be completed every day, and, most importantly, not every villager needs to be talked to every day. However, I, much like a lot of people who playedNew Horizonsin 2020, didn’t really have that luxury.
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete May Not Be The Upgrade You Think It Is
Some changes in Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete could actually be a step backward from the version of Pocket Camp that’s going away.
Animal Crossing: New Horizonswas the only game that kept me sane during COVID-19, and even then it didn’t last particularly long. I didn’t have a lot to distract myself from the horrendous events happening around me, so funneling all of my attention into maintaining my colorful island felt like a good move. However, this then led to far longer play sessions than felt necessary, with me desperately trying to feel any sort of connection with the digital avatars pondering about my islands with their goofy expressions.
I suspect many others treatedAnimal Crossing: New Horizonsin this way, and it’s hard to blame them. Because, even without COVID-19,the revamped gameplay loop inNew Horizonsalso encourages longer play sessions, even when it is counterintuitive to the overall design philosophy of theAnimal Crossingseries. The various tasks that players can complete, the many projects that can be invested in, and the total freedom over island customization means that hours can be spent inNew Horizons, which is a lot longer than the mere minutes that could be spent in earlier titles.
Nintendo clearly moved the focus away from the villagers onto other aspects of the game, which, in turn, hurt the best part about it.
For the nextAnimal Crossingto be better, it must abandon this design philosophy as it completely ruins the flow that the original games had. It also, in my opinion, is one of the leading causes of villager repetition. Of course, I still absolutely stand by the notion that I and many others are to blame for quickly exhausting the game’s limited pool of dialogue by playing nothing butNew Horizonsfor hours on end. However, Nintendo clearly moved the focus away from the villagers onto other aspects of the game, which, in turn, hurt the best part about it.
Nintendo Needs To Focus On Villagers More In Future AC Games
They Need To Become The Priority Again
One of the reasonsAnimal Crossing: New Horizon’sdialogue is so repetitive is that the unique dialogue is locked behind default phrases. There is likely a lot of dialogue written per villager - it’s worth noting there are 413 inNew Horizons- butit’s hard to get to any of it when so much of it requires players to talk to a villager four or five times before it is said. It’s a messy system, one that thehighly-anticipatedAnimal Crossing 7needs to fix. However, it goes beyond simply tweaking the frequency at which villagers dish out new dialogue.
I’ve felt for a long time thatNintendo’s willingness to make villagers feel like independent beings has been slipping. Where once villagers would do whatever they liked, regardless of how it affected the player, now they endlessly placate them. The most a villager will inconvenience me is by requesting a favor, which is essentially one of the few meaningful ways of interacting with them inNew Horizons. It’s a shame, as villagers were easily the main reason I and a lot of other people playedAnimal Crossingin the first place. It’s why so many of them are fondly remembered.
Ubisoft’s Rumored Animal Crossing Sounds Better Than The Real Deal
Animal Crossing may finally get a triple-A competitor from an unlikely developer: Ubisoft. In fact, its rumored game could end up being even better.
I hope that Nintendo rectifies this going forward, as each villager’s unique personality and plenty of dialogue will make the nextAnimal Crossinggame feel more alive. I would rather Nintendo reduce the number of villagers so it’s easier to make them feel like individual beings rather than bloat the game with lifeless ones. While it is fair that playing anAnimal Crossing gamenonstop will eventually lead to repetitive dialogue, it simply shouldn’t have happened so quickly.Animal Crossing: New Horizonsmay not have perfected villagers, but it can help teach the next game how to get them right.
