Animal Crossing: New Leaf (Nintendo 3DS) Review

This is the gritty, dystopian world of Animal Crossing New Leaf, a world of bleary, red eyed obsession, in which the player whiles away hundreds of hours of their lives hunting each and every bug, fish, fossil, and furniture set over the course of an actual calendar year. Or maybe it's the most light hearted house decorating simulator you've ever seen, full of fluffy bright eyed villagers. Or maybe it's a design tool, letting you create your own clothing sets right down to the cuffs and buttons. Or maybe it's a new kind of multiplayer experience, where you can visit your friends' persistent state towns, trade items and play minigames together for prizes.

Well, actually Animal Crossing New Leaf is all of those things. It's really anything you want it to be. It could even be a grieving simulator, as you visit the towns of your friends and dig up all their flowers and knock down all their trees.

That's the beauty of Animal Crossing New Leaf, an experience that really isn't duplicated anywhere else, not even in EA's popular The Sims franchise. New Leaf is a beautiful little town simulator packed to the brim with content, a full real year's worth, and free form gameplay. Want to dedicate your time to beautifying your village? You can do that. Want to spend all your time playing with friends? You can do that too.

Since its inception on Nintendo 64, which was ported to Gamecube outside Japan, Animal Crossing has made both small and large refinements to the package, while maintaining the core gameplay of gathering items, spending on clothes and furniture, and playing with friends. Animal Crossing New Leaf hasn't radically altered the fundamentals of that formula. You still arrive in town on a train and choose a place for a house. You still wake up poor and in debt to Tom Nook. You still collect bells, the currency of Animal Crossing, to buy things.

However, all the little and big changes of each game up til now represent a fairly big change to the way the game plays. And New Leaf is easily the biggest step so far. No longer are you a hapless citizen of this strangely magical world. Now you're the mayor, and as mayor you have power over your town. Decide how the town will be built, change the town's theme song, redraw the town's flag and even boss around the villagers. New Leaf invites a much needed improvement to the randomly generated villages.

The biggest change, though, is the multiplayer. While you can still visit your friends towns, you can also now play minigames with them. They're good minigames too, Nintendoland-esque minigames, both cooperative (everyone has to cooperate to achieve a goal) and competitive (the player who performs the best is rewarded the most) and always frantic. It's easy to while away an hour or two just playing with friends.

It'll be a pleasant hour or two, as well. New Leaf has received the first major makeover of the series. While City Folk and Wild World had touchups here and there, they were both running on what was, essentially, the original N64/GC engine. New Leaf has heavily upgraded/rewritten that base rendering engine. Immediately evident are modern textures, new polygonal models, and even some quite nice bump mapping, evident from the scaly skin of a chameleon to fluffy snow on the ground. The result is a modern looking game that perfectly captures the series aesthetic.

We could talk for hours about the additions and changes of New Leaf. They are numerous. For instance, QR codes for clothing can be exchanged on the internet. Daily fortune cookies give super swank and unique Nintendo themed furniture and clothing. The player can get another job, serving coffee at a café. There are many more holidays and even birthday parties. Oh, and perfect fruit types, that sell for a ton more bells in your friend's villages… and the music is pure intravenous candy… and… and…