Animal Crossing: Wild World Nintendo DS Nintendo Review

The concept of Animal Crossing is a simple one. You move away from your comfortable surroundings and the loving arms of your parents, flying the nest at last, only to discover yourself in a world of talking animals where humans are in small supply. In this new town, which you name yourself, you live your life, speaking to, trading with, and engaging in friendly (and sometimes not-so-friendly) competition with the animals inhabiting the town. Yes, we sometimes wonder how on earth somebody comes up with the ideas that appear in many Nintendo games, or how they get them past the shareholders, but there's no shortage of that familiar charm that many associate with the Big N. It's quite an adorable game, both in concept and implementation, in fact.

Upon arriving to your new town in a taxi driven by Kapp'n, the sea-loving turtle from the first game who would ferry you to a hidden island, (avoiding flirtation along the way if you're playing as a girl...dirty old amphibian), you are met by a Mr. Tom Nook. Tom Nook may become a name synonymous with dread to you very soon after this first meeting. See, he seems like a kindly, slightly old, slightly mad, raccoon who is helping you out by setting you up with your own house on your own, but the ludicrous amounts of money he requires for his poxy box homes aren't particularly kindly. To be fair, he's a nice fellow really, who doesn't mind when you pay back your money and upgrades your house when you ask, but we like making him out to be some kind of capitalist pig/loan shark liable to snap and throttle you at any moment. It's just more fun that way.

Animal Crossing: Wild World looks exactly like its predecessor in terms of graphical prowess, meaning it looks like a reasonably basic Nintendo 64 title. Far from meaning it has bad graphics, the representation of the characters and the towns actually add to the charm, giving it a sweet rough look, sharp polygons and all. It could perhaps be described as having childish, slightly sketch book-y, visuals, and it's all the better for it. It marries with the following idea perfectly: why have huge, blockbuster visuals when you can have just as much fun with graphics that might not be considered entirely up to scratch? It's certainly got a style all of its own...the humour is also wickedly brilliant, even more so than the original, as it has enough stuff to appeal to children and enough darkness to have adult players cackling - dark humour that’s not obvious to children, either. Perfectly executed, it shouldn’t be overlooked as a game you should play when you’re in need of a good laugh.

The sound is also pretty familiar, too, with garbled voices used for the characters (‘Animalese’, as they call it) and the music stays on a similar twee path, a new song for every hour of the day. Elsewhere, though, there are big changes from the original. Rather than having the town divided into a grid, the world instead scrolls about, sliding smoothly over the horizon. It makes it all feel a bit friendlier, a bit more accessible, a bit more of a free game experience. The towns are also smaller, making it easier and quicker to get to where you want to, while the post office, town hall and the mystical fountain...thing that gave you town advice are all merged into one. The police station has been liquidated and the hounds are instead situated at the town’s gate/guard station. There are a number of new tools for you to get to grips with as well, such as the stopwatch. Of course, everything is much different because of the DS, too...

The dual screens aren’t put to good use at all, to be frank. The top screen displays the sky, while all gameplay is carried out on the bottom screen. Occasionally a present or UFO will float about on the top screen, which can be shot down using a new item, the slingshot, but other than this the top screen’s only function is to display the various constellations that you can design. The touch screen is put to much better use, though: the entire game can be controlled with it, from moving about (though button and d-pad movement is still supported), to digging holes (and using other items), to picking up and arranging items in your house. Pattern design is also made a lot easier, with the ability to draw exactly what you want with reasonable ease, and letter writing is much simpler with a touch screen-based keypad. As mentioned, constellation patterns can also be drawn - a new addition to this iteration of Animal Crossing - but sometimes it’s not clear whether this was a good idea or not. We’ll put it this way; we put up a Pacman constellation. Others are not so pure of mind. Think about it.

The console version was always held back a bit by awkward 'multiplayer' (take the memory card round to somebody else's house, plug it in their Gamecube and leg it about their town without other human players? No cheers.), but this is solved as the series hits the DS. All of a sudden the multiplayer fireworks into an explosion of joy and becomes a central, nay, integral part of the Animal Crossing experience. This is helped, in part, by the ease of the connection. Due to the DS' wireless capabilities, all players have to do is decide who's visiting who, go to their respective town gates and either open them for visitors or leave through them, depending upon whether they are the visitors or visitees. A quick download of the town to the visitor later and you're off, skipping about the environment, and your friend doesn't have to bugger off for you to have the honour, either. The player who lives in the town can run around with you, chatting with you (using the handy touchscreen keypad that can be brought up at will) and stopping you causing all kinds of mischief. Online multiplayer is also just as simple, with the difference being that you can only visit people over the Internet if you have each other's friend codes, but other than that it's near identical. When you've got four players running about in one town, it can only mean trouble.

When you sit and explain the game, there really isn't that much to it. You go about, speak to animals, take things from point A to point B, collect things, sell things, pay your mortgage. Not a typical game at all, you might think. It's a great example of a piece of software that teeters between being a game and a non-game; with just enough game there to entertain existing gamers, and just enough non-game to make people who've never really been into games to pick it up and mess about with it. Animal Crossing: Wild World could prove to be a jewel in the crown of Nintendo's new strategy of expanding the market.