Animal Crossing: New Horizons Review – Just Chill, Relax and Play

In a world where everyone wants something from you, Animal Crossing is like that backcountry trip you always consider. In a world where games solely rely on add-ons and DLCs after the story campaign ends, Animal Crossing offers hundreds of hours without spending an extra penny. In a world where the news of coronavirus is constantly assaulting on us from red stripes, Animal Crossing is also a necessary moment of respite and relaxation.

Yes. Since Death Standing, I haven't had so much fun with any game for such a long time. And even with Kojima's latest game, I didn't really feel inclined to add more than a dozen hours to the count after the end credits. And having already invested over 50 hours in New Horizons, I never want to stop. Over the years, Animal Crossing has always been a series that could captivate fans for hundreds of hours on end. Until recently, I did not understand this phenomenon – I knew about it, but I wasn't really interested. Preparing for the premiere of the newest installment, I bought the last game in the series, and suddenly, 25 hours of my time have vaporized – and I would've still played it, if the review copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons hadn't arrived. I'm Adam, and here's my story of addiction.

Leave everything and go into the wild

Enter: game of March. Sorry, Doomguy, it's not you. Put the shotgun away, you'll hurt somebody. The biggest release of this month, and maybe the first half of the year, is a game colorful and charming – the complete opposite of the brutal and "metal af" Doom. Yes, yes, it's almost certain that the new installment of the popular life simulators that fans have been expecting for eight years, will probably decimate Eternal when it comes to sales and popularity.

He looks a bit like a psychopath, doesn't he? I mean, look at that smile.

If you have been living under a rock, I'll promptly explain. Animal Crossing is a series of simulators in which we create our own character and then get to a paradise island – the actual heroine of the game. Our goal is to tame this wild piece of land, expand and decorate it – and then fill the house with beautiful furniture, take part in various festivals, tournaments or social events. To achieve this, we collect money, catch fish, extract raw materials and bring in new animals to reside in our estate. And before we know it, we've spent a dozen hours in the game, and didn't even scratch the surface.

If I were to name Animal Crossing's biggest advantage, I would not hesitate and point out to the incredibly riveting gameplay model. In this game, hours just pass like minutes, and you don't feel it at all. At the same time, this isn't a game that will steal your life away from you if you have a job or go to school – you can literally spend hundreds of hours with AC, but you don't necessarily have to play 8 hours a day. Of course, there's plenty to get done, but the series is famous for being oddly playable in the long run, and so your daily chores and obligations don't fall victim to it. Sounds a bit like a mobile game? Wrong, this is just Animal Crossing.

Easy, we'll do it tomorrow

Guess what – he’s happy. AGAIN.

In Animal Crossing, the time of day matters – for example, we can catch different fish in the morning and in the evening, and the store where we sell products closes its doors at 22.00. And this would not be remarkable if it were not for the fact that AC's day-night cycle perfectly matches reality. If it's dark outside, it's dark in the game – this simple solution changes a lot, and I wish games would use it more widely. This completely changes the way we play this game – you end up launching the game at different times of the day, when you can make more money, or get a chance to talk to specific characters.

Then we also get different seasons, corresponding to the real year. Animal Crossing makes sure that the crops, fruits, veggies and animals that you can find correspond to reality.

And that's not Animal Crossing has to offer. If you want to build a museum, for example, you have to meet certain requirements – if you do, you can order the building to be constructed, but it will always take an additional day. Animal Crossing is a game that can't be completed in a few days, even if we work 20 hours a day – because some things just have to wait. Just like in real life.

I don't know how to sign this picture. I got it with a review, so here it is – editor.

As a result, New Horizons offers a unique experience – rare, or even unheard of in other games. There's simply so much you can get done in a single day; sure, you can just "grind" money by catching butterflies, but there are simply thing's that you can't do on the given day or in the given season.

One of the most impressive things about New Horizons was that this whole system is flawless. On the one hand, it gives us plenty stuff to do, so you can play for hours on end and not get bored; on the other, if you're shorter on time, you can just focus on the main tasks and still maintain good development of the island.

Splendid grind

Everything we do in Animal Crossing is trivially simple – all activities, from fishing to catching the butterflies can be completed even by kids. We just throw a fishing rod, wait for the fish to catch on, and then get it out – all this is achieved with a single button. Same goes for designing interiors, planting flowers, or crafting. In fact, it's a great multitasking game. I ended up just taking my Switch, sitting on the sofa, chatting with friends about Netflix, work, or the pandemic, and simultaneously catching new bugs in my net.

If you think that the game has massive amounts of grind, you're right. The thing is, though, that Animal Crossing has a lot of grind, but it's all really fun. I spent about thirty hours in the game, most of the time playing banal minigames. I caught and sold everything I could to earn money for a better house, new furniture, or cooler outfits for my character. There really is something enchanting about these simple games being so compelling for so long – the fuel for my efforts was thinking about the future. I enjoy completing tasks, and donating dinosaur bones or new insect specimens to the museum helped me to meet this need for bringing order to the world. Another important element was the quasi-achievement Nook Miles, that is rewards for... almost everything we do. So, if you're a completionist, who likes to collect things in games, New Horizons will be the paradise for you.

Do what you want

I'm trying to explain what the phenomenon of the gameplay model that Nintendo has designed for Animal Crossing, but I'm afraid words cannot describe it. This is one of those games that you just have to try for yourself to understand. I'm a walking example of this, because before I launched the previous installment (New Leaf on 3DS), I thought I knew what it was about, but I soon learned that I'd actually had no idea.

An adult man plants flowers in a video game. Don't be afraid to judge.

I'm very impressed with how smoothly all the elements of Animal Crossing work together – banal mini-games, a lot of grind and months-long goals make you treat the island a bit like... an island. You'll no longer be surprised that building a store takes 48 hours, and that having it open past 10 pm makes no sense, because you lose 20%. In fact, you begin to adapt to this natural way of life very quickly. It's no surprise that bakeries close in the evening, right?

Over time, you find yourself planning what to do and when to do it – for example, the most expensive butterflies come out in the evening. And since this is a game for the Switch, you can play anywhere, at any time. If your bae is catching up with their favorite Netflix series, you can just put your headphones on and play. like no other game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons fits perfectly into the hybridity of this console.

The thing I love the most about Animal Crossing is the openness and accessibility. This is one of those games that lets us decide what to do next. Of course, as in any production, we are there are certain constraints and requirements, but whether we prefer to focus on designing magnificent homes or developing the entire island, is totally up to us. Fill the museum with new specimen or find all the cute animals. Plant flowers or collect achievements. We end up doing a bit of everything, but the sheer amount of content encourages focusing on particular actions. I, for example, still haven't had enough a chance to really put effort into my house – I'll do it once I have more furniture.

Zoo like no other

Here is young Michael Myers, fishing in peace and quiet. In a few years, during Halloween, he will go on a rampage.

New Horizons is the fifth, full-fledged installment in series that has been around for almost 20 years. Nintendo has again applied its proven strategy, which has produced such good results in Super Mario Odyssey, Splatoon 2 or Mario Kart 8 – this is an intense evolution, but not yet a revolution. The developers have optimized a lot, but the gameplay basics haven't changed much – and that's good, because mending things that aren't broken isn't smart. As a result, the creators managed to improve many of the annoying nuisances from the older games, mostly in terms of accessibility, while preserving all the things that worked just fine.

A novelty, and a very successful one, is crafting. In New Horizons, we can collect raw materials (stone, clay, various types of wood, etc.), and from them create not only tools for work, but also various furniture or small buildings (although those, technically speaking, are also... furniture). Designing it in this way infused the game with so much depth, giving us so much additional work. First, we have to get blueprints, and that takes time. A bottled letter once a day if you're lucky, sometimes a drop from the presents floating on balloons, sometimes getting the recipes from kind neighbors. Then we need to get the necessary ingredients, and it's not easy because more complex items require... other items. I wanted to build a big robot, sort of like Gundam, but I can't – I don't have the components; I don't even know where can I get them.

Hipsters are in AC too.

In short, you will spend 50 hours in Animal Crossing, and will only discover a fraction of what the game has to offer. I've only met a couple of guests who show up on the island. I got some of the available schemes, but based on what Nintendo showed on the trailers, it's probably around 10% of the stuff. Compared to Disneyland-like islands show in the trailers, mine is an adventure park in Montana, and there's still so much waiting to be discovered in New Horizons. And this without a single micropayment. I don't know if Nintendo will add any DLCs over time, but I wouldn't have any complaints – there's still an awful lot of content here.

It is difficult to list all the novelties, and I still recommend checking it out yourself. It's great that you can set furniture outside, all around the island. The Nook Miles system, which I wrote about above, is fantastic, too.

Remember how tiny our hero's backpack was in the previous game? You would barely start fishing, and it would be filled to capacity. And the fruit that had to be combined in heaps (manually!) so that they would take up less space. You will be happy to see how many items we can carry with us in New Horizons. Someone who didn't experience it will have a hard time understanding this, but I just love the new backpack. Of course, nothing comes for free – we begin with smaller bags that we can expand gradually. The new installment is by far the most convenient Animal Crossing iteration ever, so we can focus on the gameplay rather than fighting obstacles. Too bad the devs didn't go all the way with modernizations…

Nintendo, it's 2020

The new Animal Crossing is phenomenal, but that doesn't mean everything's perfect. What this game lacks the most is modernization. Crafting, for example, requires having enough resources. But owning them doesn't matter – they have to be in the backpack. So, we end up switching between the storage in our house, inventory and crafting tabs, losing time and wondering why on Earth can't this game do it automatically. Unfortunately, there are more such inconvenient solutions in the interface. As I said: it is much better than in the previous release, but it's still not enough by 2020 standards.

Furnishing and upgrading your house is fun, but the loading screens can kill you.

Especially since the rooms in your house are separated with loading screens, making switching between them irksome. Once furnished, we simply leave the room and rarely revisit it.

The developers also presented randomly generated islands that we can fly to by plane. Basically, they serve as an additional reservoir of resources – we will get new fruit trees there, animals that we can invite to our village, as well as stone and timber. Unfortunately, if you visit 10 of these places, you will them all very alike – and, in fact, boring. There should be more unusual species of fish or insects to encourage travel, for example. The only incentive are the resources, but going to the island just to rob it of natural resources isn't really fun. I hope that at least some of these blemishes will be improved by the creators as part of the update – it's a pity that we're still not exactly sure what they will look like. Nintendo charms.

The verdict is simple

Exciting formula – how many times have you heard this slogan? However, it so happens that for Animal Crossing this is not marketing BS. I fished, planted flowers, arranged furniture, and talked to the locals – and all that was fun. What's even cooler, the content in New Horizons is very, very abundant. Even though I spent more than 50 hours in the game, I still haven't seen many mechanics, characters, and options. Mushrooms? Forget it, we have to wait until fall. Beetles sitting on the trees? I haven't seen any. Large robots or carousels? I only have a couple of recipes, and I still don't have enough ingredients to craft them.

There are also a few things I'd rather not spoil revealing – discovering the secrets and mechanics of AC is just part of the fun. If you own a Switch and you like this kind of cute grinding, there can be only one verdict: Animal Crossing is a must-play.