Art & Life

‘Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ game review

Released on March 20th, the same day as “Doom: Eternal,” “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” has been equally hyped and blown up by social media. It is well worth it too, being a cute, fun and relaxing sit-down game that can be played with family and friends via an online connection. You can also play by yourself. This series is known for a unique personal approach and takes advantage of a 24-hour real-time system. Through their extensive history of pleasing fans with wholesome content, “Animal Crossing” and every game after has not aged poorly. 

“Animal Crossing: New Horizons” follows the player onto a deserted island, that’s not so deserted. You make friends with villagers and meet Tom Nook, the man behind all the action. Your goal is to improve the island by any means necessary, and in the process collect bells to spend and pay off debts to Tom. You also dig up fossils and catch bugs and fish to store in a collection at a museum. This game is all about collection, you pick up a vast amount of materials available to build and craft a huge array of items and objects. 

You could spend hours on this game and still have more to do. The appeal is all in the façade put in place by the beautiful scenery and the fun in building up your own home in the game. As famous YouTube gamer, Felix Kjellberg aka Pewdiepie said in his Half Life: Alyx Part 6 video, 

“‘Animal Crossing,’ right, everyone loves that game. You know why? Because you’re in your own little area, everyone gets their own space. There’s no industrial ‘mechanism.’ [he says as he looks out over industrial scenery in the game he’s playing] We’re all just happier in nature. And Nintendo [unwittingly] stumbled upon something without meaning to, simulated exactly what people want, which isn’t living in flats in big cities having day-to-day jobs. They just wanna live in their own little house with enough space that there’s still other people around hence the villagers so you don’t feel lonely. But really you just wanna live in your own little house in the forest because that’s where we all belong…living day-to-day in the happy world, that’s what we all really want. So, ‘Animal Crossing’ basically is the key to happiness.” 

The gist of what he means is that in “Animal Crossing” we are separated from an industrial life, surrounded by huge buildings that take up way too much space and instead are placed somewhere where we are free to live how we please. That gives us an immense freedom over the game that not a lot of games have. 

The freedom and control in a cute little world are what make “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” so appealing. It is a rather relaxing game, especially in these times when we have nothing but free time to play games like this. “Animal Crossing” deserves the high praise it has been receiving over social media. If you’re looking for something to pass the time during this quarantine and take a load off, this game will relieve you of your stress in no time at all, giving you hours of leisure at your disposal. This game gets a good 10/10! 

Image courtesy of Timothy Hall | Kirkwood Communiqué