First Impressions with Animal Crossing: Wild World

Intro

The recent success of Pokémon Pokopia reminded me of how popular Anaimal Crossing: New Horizons has been as a Nintendo Switch title. I recently got interested in this series of video games as they appear to be the ultimate cozy sand box games.

That being said, I never understood what the "hook" was as I never played any Animal Crossing game in my life. I initially watched some videos on the subject, but I still felt like I was missing something. I decided to go investigate myself.

I decided to play Animal Crossing: Wild World on a real Nintendo DS as this was the most accessible option to me. This is a record of my immediate thoughts after a playing that game for around 3 hours.

Tutorial

The game starts with a series of question. Many of the choices have an obvious function (such as name and gender) but others were less so. I assume they alter the gameplay in some way I am not aware to.

After arriving in the village that you name, you start working for an NPC named Tom Nook. The series of "jobs" given is the game tutorial. To be completely honest it felt like a slog and I disliked the back and forth but I ignored it as I figured the tutorial must be a necessary evil for the game (especially when you consider that children are likely the target audience).

One of the things I disliked during the tutorial was talking to NPCs, or rather trying to find where they are on the map. Thankfully, there is only 3 overworld NPCs so that didn't take oo long. I was a bit surprised at such a low amount, but I figure more villagers come the further you progress the game.

The music in this game is very weird (especially the outdoors theme). I disliked it so much that I muted my Nintendo DS for most of the tutorial. The other tracks I heard were fine I guess.

Freedom

After completing all of Tom Nook's jobs the game explicitly states that you are now free. I knew coming in that this game was a sandbox with very few defined goals. You begin the game with a house debt you must pay, so I decided to work on that first.

I quickly found out that you could shake trees and collect pears. I sold them to the shop to get some money. At first glance it appeared that the pears respawned after a while, so I decided to farm them to pay my debt. After around getting half of the money I needed, I noticed that the trees were no longer bearing any fruits.

As such, I decided to switch gears. I wanted to chop down trees and sell the logs. I went to Tom Nook's shop but the axe was not for sale for some reason. Internet research revealed that you need to upgrade his shop. I find this decision baffling considering it is a basic tool that locks a core gameplay mechanic.

I begrudgingly bought a fishing rod and went fishing instead. I knew that this game had some sort of fishing minigames, but I was not prepared for what was to come. The fishing mechanic in this game is absolutely awful. First, you need to locate a fish. There is like 2 on the entire map and finding one is painful. When you do actually find a fish, catching it is a whole other story. Truth to be told, I never managed to catch any. Either there is some timing mechanic I don't understand or I got incredibly unlucky. Regardless, this was easily the most frustrating part of the game.

One thing I noticed during the tutorial (or shortly after it) is that NPCs sometimes requests an item. One of my villagers wanted a shirt. Although you get a free shirt during the tutorial, I had discarded it to carry more pears earlier. I was wondering if completing these gave money or not, so I gave this quest a shot.

I went to the clothing shop. Although I seemingly purchased something, I did not get a shirt item in my inventory. I was left confused. Even as I write it I am not sure what I did. I figure I must have bought an alternate outfit for my player characters that is accessible through some kind of interface? Why is this a different thing than the shirt item in the tutorial?

Anyway, I decided to go see if Tom Nook's shop had a shirt or not. The store has a "catalog" function that essentially allow you to purchase again any item you discovered. As such, I bought another copy of the shirt I was given during the tutorial.

I was then told that my shirt "would arrive in a few days". I am sorry what? Upon further investigation, I discovered that the game ties events to real life day using the console's system clock. It is apparently possible to change the in-game day, but when doing so the game will punish you by degrading your village.

I am going to be brutally honest; I have zero tolerance for games that do not respect my time. This is the first time that I see a "daily login" dark pattern in a single player game made by Nintendo. I decided to outright drop this game as my time is better spent elsewhere.

During some final testing, I checked if I could add an Action Replay DS code for regrowing the fruits and giving me an axe. I found a code for trees, but it seemingly didn't work. I didn't see the axe in the massive code list I had, so I gave up on that. While restarting the game to test a code, I got a 5-minute sermon by an NPC reprimanding me for turning off my console without saving. I was also explicitly told not to advance time (even though there is a game function to do this). The hell is wrong with this game? Never have I been turned off from playing a game so fast. Needless to say, I won't be touching this franchise again for the foreseeable future.

Aspects

From the few hours I spent playing this game, I gathered that it has the following core aspects:

• Gathering items (i.e pears)
• Fishing
• Woodcutting
• Bug catching
• Growing plants
• Buying/selling items
• Giving items to NPCs
• Sending mail to NPCs
• Making custom clothes
• Decorating your house
• Removing/planting plants
• Talking to NPCs
• NPCs item quests
• Completing the museum

I have no idea what purpose does sending mail to NPCs serves. I am guessing that it boosts your friendship with them, which might lead to better quests and/or rewards.

Criticism

As stated above, my biggest criticism is how the game is bound by real life time progression. If I had to update this game, days would be passed by sleeping in a bed, much like in Stardew Valley. There wouldn't be any punishment for skipping days either.

The other things I disliked are as follows:

• Fruits taking 3 real life days to respawn
• Some items having a "shipping time"
• Fake fruit respawn mechanics
• Limited selection of items per day
• Not all basic tools being available from basic shop
• Confusing fishing
• Confusing clothes store
• The "You didn't save" sermon
• Placing furniture is very sluggish
• Weird partial anti-aliasing on the player's hair (there is no anti-aliasing anywhere else on the screen)
• Weird curve perspective

Conclusions

I must say I didn't expect one of the reasons why people play Animal Crossing so much to be "The game employs a dark pattern that force players to play the game daily in a fashion similar to an MMORPG" to be part of the answer. Aside for that, I speculate that the lack of combat (aka the "coziness") and customization options are major appeals of the game. While browsing the code list earlier, I saw that there was an unholy number of decorative items. I think I understand why Animal Crossing: New Horizons blew up in popularity now.

While I was grinding pears, I was like "hey, I could maybe get into this", but the negative aspects are non-negotiable for me. Considering this an offline Nintendo DS game, I figure there is probably a way to modify the game to be better (be it with an Action Replay or through another way), but I figure my time is better spent elsewhere.

Although this game shares many aspects with RuneScape, this game is clearly not my cup of tea.

Written by manpaint on 13 March 2026.