#oneaday Day 440: The Crossing

I watched today's Animal Crossing Nintendo Direct and… I still don't get it.

Not for lack of trying, mind; I played both Wild World on the DS and New Leaf on the 3DS and got some enjoyment out of them, but I tired of both very quickly, and find it difficult to understand exactly what it is that has people so hyped up for a new one.

The most common thing I've seen people say is that it's a "comfy" experience. And I can understand that; it's nice to have something you can just relax with and not feel like it's assaulting your senses or making you think too much. For me, though, I still need a certain something in my "comfy" experiences; games like the Atelier series and Nippon Ichi Software's Destiny Connect (which I'm currently playing on my lunch breaks at work) provide that, whereas Animal Crossing always felt like work; like an obligation.

I guess when you boil it down it's really not all that different from grinding in an RPG or something; you do something repetitively in order to acquire various rewards, then you use those rewards to acquire other, perhaps more tangible rewards. The difference between Animal Crossing and an RPG is that those tangible rewards are things like wallpaper, haircuts, furniture, whereas in an RPG your tangible rewards tend to be things that make bigger numbers pop up in fights.

Note that I'm not saying Animal Crossing is "bad" or anything like it; I just feel like I've never really managed to latch on to the core appeal of the series, despite giving it a fairly substantial go on two separate occasions. I ended up feeling like there were lots of things in the game that were nice to look at, but getting frustrated that there wasn't a lot you could really "do" with them. And I 100% did not understand what the multiplayer mode was for besides appearing in a friend's town, looking around then buggering off again. Perhaps that is all it actually is for.

Anyway. Regardless of my own personal feelings on Animal Crossing as a whole, I'm glad that the Direct went well and seems to have been very positively received by those who have a better understanding of the series than I do. People seem super-hyped for the new one, and that's great; I know this Switch version has been keenly anticipated for a long time now, so it's wonderful to see that it looks like living up to everyone's expectations.

I probably won't pick it up when it releases in March, but I'll definitely be interested to hear some stories from those who do. I always enjoy hearing about experiences from outside my own personal area of expertise and taste, as it just highlights to me what a wonderfully broad and welcoming medium modern gaming is; there really is something out there for everyone.