Topic: PREVIEWS: Animal Crossing: City Folk

[NWR_Neal]

This new Wii entry in the Animal Crossing series offers towns, cities, online voice chat, and more!
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/previewArt.cfm?artid=16378

 The heavily rumored Wii iteration of Animal Crossing is now official. Animal Crossing: City Folk will hit stores this holiday season and will bring along the gameplay we all know and love and some very new innovations. The biggest of these innovations is the WiiSpeak microphone. The device, placed on top of the sensor bar, picks up the conversation of the entire room to "encourage a more inclusive experience." The WiiSpeak microphone allows for online voice chat via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. In this upcoming game, you will be able to use this feature with up to three other friends so you can hang out in either your or one of your friends' towns. However, this device will be sold separately.    

The title of the game also hints at the other big innovation in the series. There is now a bus that will take you to the city if "you're in the mood for something a little faster paced." In the new area, you can do many things including, but hopefully not limited to, seeing a show at the theater, shopping at stores like Gracie's Boutique, and going to the hair salon and getting a new haircut and a "Mii makeover," which makes your character look like a Mii. However, if you become too entranced with the allure of the big city, your animal neighbors will begin to miss you.    

Besides these two big innovations, this appears to be very similar to the previous incarnations of the series on GameCube and DS. As per usual, up to four players can live in the same town and you can interact with all of your friends, whether they are CPU-controlled animals, family members on the same system as you, or friends from all over the world.    

After all, who can resist collecting eggs on Bunny Day?  Check out the trailer for the game below.  Animal Crossing: City Folk will come out this holiday season.    

 

[DAaaMan64]

That was cool. But I didn't really see anything new. I'll be excited once I hear of the connectivity options.

[King of Twitch]

The scrolling is so distracting on the DS but why did that limitation have to carry over??

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

cuz the world is a giant rolled sausage.

[KnowsNothing]

I too hate the rolling.  Alas.

The DS version was disappointing because it had very few new elements.  I forgave Wild World because it turned out to be a very faithful handheld adaptation of the console game, which is what I figured Nintendo was going for.  Plus, the DID bring the game online, even though I felt the mode was rather lackluster.

This title really needs something new, and the city is not going to cut it.  There needs to be really great connectivity.  There needs to be an integrated use of Wii Connect 24 to send letters, packages, or anything to people who aren't playing at the same time.  What would be really great is if you are able to visit other people's towns while they weren't playing, but that's obviously not going to happen. actually, what would be really great is if two people could live in the same town online, but now we're moving into dedicated servers and pay-to-play territory, which is not the right direction

At this point I honestly don't have any hope that Nintendo will come through with anything special.  Animal Crossing is one of my favorite games of all time, and I hate to see it evolve so little over so many years, but knowing Nintendo I expect to be disappointed...

[NWR_Lindy]

The WiiSpeak stuff is the only thing new here.  Everything else has been done before.  It's so disappointing.

[NWR_insanolord]

I'm sure there will be more than that new. I played through the game on the GameCube (at least until I got an Action Replay to cheat and get all the NES games, thereby completely filling my catalog and giving me way more money than I needed and I lost a lot of the reason to play), then I played through the game again on the DS, this time doing what I did legitimately, and I will surely do it a third time, especially since I have a friend that's going to do it too.

[Mario]

This looks hugely disappointing on the outside but surely there has to be some awesome new stuff inside. Surely.

Please.

[blackfootsteps]

This looks hugely disappointing on the outside but surely there has to be some awesome new stuff inside. Surely.

Please.

Don't get your hopes up.

[NWR_insanolord]

Anyone expecting huge changes really shouldn't have been, I don't think there's much room to change the game without making it something completely different. No matter what they do you still live in a house in a small town and interact with animals, doing the same kinds of things with a real time clock. The game is going to be the same basic thing no matter what you do to it. They can't make big changes so they have to make a bunch of little changes, which wouldn't necessarily be easily noticed in a short E3 demo.

[ShyGuy]

they could add a lot different elements. Picture taking, bird watching, vehicles like scooters and unicycles, more involved stories for each character (like Blather's fear of bugs storyline) ability to build furniture, multiple musical instruments, more structured competitions, the ability to learn skills like painting or juggling, a larger map with dedicated forest sections, hidden caves, etc. Those are just off the top of my head.

[DAaaMan64]

Better trading adventures.  Trading for something like NES games sounds great.  Ability to own multiple properties.

[KDR_11k]

The "Mii makeover" should've been the default look. There's no reason not to use the Miis by default.

[Pale]

This will rock if they follow through with the WiiConnect 24 thing and let you visit your friends towns even when they aren't on.  That's all it really needs to make me happy at this point.

And I agree with KDR, I freaked out when they weren't the Miis in the beginning...

[Spinnzilla]

And I agree with KDR, I freaked out when they weren't the Miis in the beginning...

I was relieved. I think making you use the miis by default will take some of the personality out of the game. 

[Bill Aurion]

The scrolling is so distracting on the DS but why did that limitation have to carry over??

To show the sky...

[DAaaMan64]

And I agree with KDR, I freaked out when they weren't the Miis in the beginning...

I was relieved. I think making you use the miis by default will take some of the personality out of the game. 

Well it needs to just use your mii, but show it in an Animal crossing style.

[KnowsNothing]

The scrolling is so distracting on the DS but why did that limitation have to carry over??

To show the sky...

Wow, I never realized that no other game has ever shown the sky without using a cylindrically shaped world...OH WAIT

Animal Crossing would be great with a fully realized 3D world.  It would make the town feel bigger as well as open up a slew of new gameplay opportunities like GOOD online hide and seek!

[ShyGuy]

You know, I'm starting to think this is going to be wiiware or at least install a channel. I remember the entire GC game fit in RAM.

[Smash_Brother]

they could add a lot different elements. Picture taking, bird watching, vehicles like scooters and unicycles, more involved stories for each character (like Blather's fear of bugs storyline) ability to build furniture, multiple musical instruments, more structured competitions, the ability to learn skills like painting or juggling, a larger map with dedicated forest sections, hidden caves, etc. Those are just off the top of my head.

...and then you could go to the city and paint sidewalks or juggle and people/animals would drop bells in your hat for your skills. That would be exceedingly awesome.

I don't expect any huge upgrades for one simple reason: it's clear that Nintendo intends to use AC as a milkable franchise in the same vein as the pokemon games. If they gave players everything they could ever want in an AC game, they've effectively destroyed their chances of selling another 5 million copies of the sequel.

That's unfortunately what it boils down to. I mean, how innovative are the pokemon games these days?

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

They're innovative in that they make money.

[NWR_Neal]

so November 16th is supposedly this game's release date.

[Ceric]

This game is a no sale for me.  I've bought all the other US Animal Crossing games but, I feel I've sucked the marrow out of the core gameplay.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Well, you got suckered.  I didn't.

This will be my first AC, and NOA REGGIE will be takin' names in other towns.

[therat]

can you say epic fail? ok, more un-needed plastic... and it will only work if you have 30 codes to connect to someone.
why not just use the ds as a mic? this is very upsetting so far. iff its the ds version with just a town added, i might be passing on this.