Vanessa's Domain

Do what thou whilt shall be the whole of the law.

Animal Crossing has been one of my all-time favorite games, especially when I was younger. I played the various games an untold number of hours, especially the handheld versions.

It sucks Nintendo shut down the 3DS servers. There were so many dream towns I loved visiting in Animal Crossing. Yes, now we have New Horizons but I’ll be honest, I don’t like t as much as New Leaf. Granted, I do enjoy the new mechanics like crafting, but I still think New Leaf was the best one of the series. New Horizons is fun, don’t get me wrong, but It’s missing quite a lot of things that were there in New Leaf. I especially loved the way the town area was handled. No more riding a train there like in City Folk. It’s just to the north of your map. Club LOL was one of my favorite places when DJ KK was performing. I love how it let you dance with the + pad.

Yes, I know New Horizons keeps adding stuff, and that’s cool, but just something about the setting, the presentation, etc that I really connect with. I honestly wish Animal Crossing was a PC game that just got new updates & DLC but otherwise left the formula alone. I hate having to start a brand new town every time a new game comes out. I hate when they remove features but I understand why they do that. It’s still a good game though and I very much enjoy planing it when I do. I just feel it would be better if you could carry on things from previous games. I’m especially in love with the sound effects and music of Population Growing. They’re very nostalgic to me. It is what it is though, and Nintendo being Nintendo isn’t gonna want to change up what they’re doing when it’s working for them and the games are well worth it anyway.

There is a game called Hokko Life that’s on Steam that’s like Animal Crossing but despite owning it for awhile now and already having it installed on my Laptop, I still haven’t sat down to play it yet. Honestly I’d prefer to play it on the Steam Deck when I get one more than I want to sit in front of the computer to play it. The style of game it is feels like it should be better played on a handheld device. I love that aspect of the Switch that you can use it as both a handheld and a TV based console, but for a lot of games I prefer to use it handheld; those being cozy games primarily.

I know there’s also Castaway Paradise too but I’ve never played it either nor do I own it on Steam yet. I’m not a huge fan of the art style but I do like that it is unique. I feel like games that borrow mechanics from other games are more fun and interesting when they do their own thing and don’t try to copy it too much. That is when the developers let it be its own thing. It is interesting that Castaway Paradise was given an island setting first before Nintendo went the same direction with Animal Crossing.

There’s also Magician’s Quest: Mysterious Times which is somewhat similar of a game in terms of presentation and overall vibes but is very much its own thing. It centers around going to a school of magic. It reminds me of that one TERF franchise and I think that’s what they were aiming at. (They even included a classmate character called Neville) As you can imagine, being for the DS and not even the 3DS it’s more primitive in graphics and the like which is very reminiscent of Wild World.

Love is the law, love under will.

Nostalgic,
Vanessa