Well it’s been a while since we posted much, but with everyone stuck in doors there hasn’t been much to do, so it’s a good job that for Christmas we both got Nintendo Switch’s and more importantly ANIMAL CROSSING YYYYAAAAAAAAYYYY!
Seeing as The New Horizons Islands are the only Islands we are ever going to be able to travel to ever again, we have made the most of the vicarious travel opportunities.
Ash got a Nintendo Switch as a Present and started playing on Boxing Day and Bob bought her own 3 weeks later – as Ash was going to buy her one, but went for the funky face mask instead (review to come soon).
We both had our switches and were set up on our own islands curtesy of Nook Travel.
The premise of the game is that you, as a character, take up residence on an island with two other adventurers, you start island life with a tent and begin by catching fish, harvesting fruit and finding stuff to sell to the staff of the local shop, this may seem rather basic, but is really addictive and entertaining. Soon you find fossils and donate creatures to Tom Nook the proprietor of Nook Travel, who sends them to his friend Blathers, who soon comes to the island to set up a museum to show off all the creatures and fossils found on the island. There are some other part time visitors, including a sailor Sea Gull called Gulliver, a Ghost, a Clothes seller, an ‘Shady’ Art Dealer, a Fishmonger and a bug collecting Dragon, a Carpet Selling Camel, a Sloth Florist, Blather’s Sister Celeste and a Turnip Seller who come and go, giving you missions and tasks to do for monetary reward, or Bells.
You can learn to make furniture, clothes and other stuff, trade with other inhabitants of the islands and salesman, who visit, find presents attached to balloons, catch all sorts of fish and bugs to build a full collection in your Citapedia, build up your buildings, grow trees and vegetables, buy and sell to the shop and develop the infrastructure of the island, as well as your homes.
So we set up our tents and then built our first homes, curtesy of Tom Nook and ever increasing loans to pay off the developments. We set about growing the island, making the shops and museum visiting other islands via the Dodo Airlines and trying to invite others to come to live on our islands with us and that is basically it, that is all you have to do on Animal Crossing New Horizons.
But some of us have progressed way faster than others. Bob has managed to develop her island, she has about 16 inhabitants, there are shops, houses and concert festivals happening, the Fish Monger visits and the The Abel Sisters have set up shop full time on her island.
While Ash is lucky to not be still be living in a tent. Somehow (and it is a constant puzzle to Ash), Bob has practically finished the challenges – except to find all the fossils and capture all the fish, bugs and sea creatures, but she is 75% of the way there (at least), while Ash has caught about 5 fish and about 5 bugs! She knows every trick, how to harvest fruit, make furniture, run festivals, make friends with passing visitors and other weird secrets, she has visitors on a daily basis and has visited every other island and is worth a fortune, while Ash is penniless and owes Tom Nook his soul!
The game is addictive and you can find yourself having spent 2 hours collecting fruit from trees, fishing, fossil hunting and visiting the random Bamboo Island or Trash Island on the Dodo Airline and Ash spends his entire time frustrated and confused while Bob runs around filling her houses and its fifteen rooms with random furniture and object that she finds, collects and gets given (by Ash’s other island inhabitants mostly), while Ash has a cardboard box bed and a one room shack!
You can visit each other and other players, by either dream walking with Luna, or by getting players SW Code and flying to their island. You can send post cards with presents and share your rewards with your friends.
But there is room for improvement in the game and we hope for upgrades in the future which may allow for making multiple items in the craft table and save on the future Carpal Tunnel of the wrist, from continuously tapping the same buttons over and over and just make a batch of items, rather than making one and then start over again. We really don’t need the whole 5 minute conversation with Blathers, every time you present a fossil for assessment, the same with Tom Nook and Gulliver, the worst of them all, with his blabbering on and on, every time he washes up on the shore, lost and confused.
It would help to be able to sell stuff on other people’s island (in their shops). The mission given by the visitors are the same over and over again, they really needs a bit more variety. You can’t change your island while you have a visitor. Plus you can’t visit random player’s island, you have to have their code and for their Airport Gates to be open, in order to visit, this would make for more interaction and being able to meet people and make new friends, but no it is limited to playing with the friends you already know or visiting the pre-made islands.
Bob has recently bought the Zelda game for the console too and a review of Breath of the Wild, will follow this in a few weeks (or days when she clocks that too!)
But for now we have to go, as Ash needs to go get stung by more Wasps and Bob has a fifth storey to build on her mansion and catch a blue whale and probably a Doughnut shitting Unicorn!
Have you play Animal Crossing New Horizons? How are you doing? Let us know in the comments.
Climbing Moss 