Ranking the Animal Crossing Games Because the World is a Trash Fire
In this trash fire of a world right now, the only world we can trust is Animal Crossing’s world. These wholesome Nintendo games have been filling our dark world with bright characters, trees, and screaming moles since 2001 and they’re not stopping yet. In fact, their newest game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is being released on March 20, 2020, just in time for the end of the world.
I already made a YouTube video celebrating both the upcoming game and my favorite thing ever (hint: it’s books), but here’s also my blog post ranking all of Animal Crossing’s existing games according to my personal preference. The only games exempt from this list are Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival (2015) and Animal Crossing: Wild World (2005) because I never actually got an opportunity to play them (sorry Animal Crossing mega-fans).
5. Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp (2017)
Was it a little ambitious for Nintendo to compact their incredible world-building video game into a free mobile app? Perhaps. Was everyone super duper hyped for it at the time? Sure. Did it pay off? ….not exactly.
The video games themselves are a simple enough concept, run a little world by achieving small goals. But the appeal of the video games lies in the depth defined by the players themselves. They’re the ones who decide what friends to make, how to beautify their little towns/cities/islands/etc., and how to find meaning in between laying out furniture and collecting bugs.
Pocket Camp took that depth and reduced it to grind work.
Don’t get me wrong: you still get the cute aesthetic. Your friends are still there. You can even still visit your real life friends too. But the game itself is boring. It lacks the magical oomph of the main games by dedicating the entire gameplay to the small achievable goals to define the creativity associated with it. I personally dedicated a month of my life to it, gave up, and now can’t really remember anything beyond how bored I was and how annoying it was to try and set up the camp I wanted.
Good idea, bad execution, and unfortunately, three years post-release, haven’t really improved upon anything like Pokemon Go did following their initial lackluster start. It’s an awesome way to promote the game to potential new players though.
4. Animal Crossing: City Folk (2008)
Believe it or not, this was my very first Animal Crossing game! I found it on sale after Christmas one year and invested hundreds of hours into it. I still hold nostalgic fondness for the game, but after playing the other games, I have to admit that it doesn’t really hold up against them. It’s cursed with the naturally poor controls of the Wii, poor loading times to get from your village to the city, and just an overall lack of features compared to its successors. The console versions of the game were also tough to play with the real time gameplay aspect so that never really helped its case. I did always enjoy visiting the city featured in City Folk though and found the tight world to be an enjoyable one to live in while I could. The characters also captured my heart in a way I haven’t really been able to invoke since playing this game.
Angus, if you’re reading this, you legitimately broke my thirteen year old heart when you left my village in City Folk without a good-bye and that is why you’re banned from all future cities. That is all.
The face of evil
3. Animal Crossing (2001)
The OG game that started it all and it also happens to be the least played of my personal collection. It’s not my fault I was an actual child when it first came out. I also didn’t own a GameCube until college so I had no real reason to grab the GameCube version of the game when the Wii version of City Folk did me so well for a long time. But when I did finally get my hands on it and decided to play it to see what all of the fuss was about, I absolutely fell in love.
Are the map controls a little wonky? Yeah, but it was also 2001. Razr flip phones weren’t even a thing yet. So I’m willing to forgive the technological limitations in favor of the incomparable chill vibes from this game. Maybe it was because I only really played it late at night during the quiet moments of my normally hectic college life, but there is 0 stress to this game. The other games can get stressful with all you want to accomplish, but the original Animal Crossing game lacks the lofty goals set by other games. It’s just you, some trees, the dopest soundtrack to hit your ears since Lo-fi Hip Hop Beats to Study and Chill To, and adorable characters that are always happy to see you.
Unless it’s Resetti. He’s never happy to see you.
2. Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer (2015)
Listen, fam: I don’t careeee that this is technically a spin-off game that was probably released to test potential game mechanics for New Horizons. I freakin’ loved Happy Home Designer. I still even play it from time to time because it’s easy to dive into time and time again. They dropped the real time mechanic and still managed to keep it fun and unique across multiple playthroughs.
What I also love about this game is that it really allows you to dive into the personalities and interests of all of your Villager friends. If you’re anything like me, you probably hoard all of your neighbors for years and years because it makes you too sad to see them go so you never meet anyone new ever. Happy Home Designer eliminates that heart-breaking aspect of the game (seriously, Angus, wtf) and allows you to actually meet more characters while you create Happy Homes for them based on their personalities and interests. I became really attached to a handful of them that never ever appeared in any of my previous towns so I’m really looking forward to adding them as neighbors on my New Horizons island.
This game at least filled the hole in my heart left by New Leaf better than Pocket Camp ever did.
1. Animal Crossing: New Leaf (2012)
This isn’t a surprise to most Animal Crossing fans. New Leaf capitalizes on the success of its predecessors by copying what worked for previous games and doubling that magic. You get the excellent soundtrack, the adorable and hilarious characters, the fun world-building, a great utilization of the real time gameplay mechanic, and it’s actually fun to watch your town grow with each tiny goal achieved. Really, the only aspect to relatively frown at was how they handled furniture and clothes organization. If you’re a hoarder (like me), then it becomes an absolute mess after a while. I had seven rooms completely filled with furniture and still managed to fill every slot of my storage containers as well.
Other than that, this game is literally perfect. The characters everyone loves are there, they introduce some other great ones like our goddess and queen Isabelle who should 110% be the mayor instead of you, and there’s always something new to discover about the game. I played this, no joke, every day for an hour before bed for a year and a half. It’s that compelling and relaxing of a game and if New Horizons manages to replicate even a portion of this game, then I’m going to actually lose my mind when I get my hands on it.
I’m already buying a whole Switch for it, what more do you want from me?
Check out my YouTube video about Animal Crossing here! I also have a whole YouTube playlist dedicated to video gaming if that interests you. And also a whole blog post ranking my favorite villains of all time. No Resetti isn’t on the list, but Angus definitely deserves to be…..