Best 3DS game - Best Animal Crossing
PlatformOVERALL
Nintendo 3DS9.60
Overall 9.60
I know what you're thinking: This ain't my first rodeo, you say whilst cocking a half glanced look at Animal Crossing New Leaf, whilst rubbing your stubbled chin. It's been 3 games and by now you've got turnips on the brain and sore thumbs from weed plucking and night time fishing sessions.

What I can say is this - if you've ever enjoyed and really gotten into Animal Crossing, then this is most definitely for you. This isn't any mere upgrade with a smattering of token newness. Whilst the game doesn't have one big idea that dramatically changes the Animal Crossing landscape, it has a million tiny spades, digging and re-rooting the foundations of an already great premise.

New Leaf is freedom, New Leaf is options. There's no way that I can possibly remember and list all the new features in the game but here are a few that stand out:

QR Code reader at the clothes shop. - You can instantly scan in other peoples designs from around the world into your gameworld.

An Island to travel too to play competitions, earning you coins to spend on special items. These competitions range from item digging to, fossil arranging - bug catching, maze running to hammer smashing.

Customise items and furniture at Reese's shop, changing the colour and sometimes design with ores that you dig up in town. Don't like the regal set? How about if you emblazon it with fiery red stripes?

Public ordinances - you are the mayor so decide how you want your time to be run. Want a beautiful town you never have to water? Want everything to earn you more money?

Weeding service - a Garden shop opens in town and you can get them to pull all weeds.

Plant bushes and hedges
Plant bamboo, you can make a bamboo forest!

Main Street, a row of shops that upgrades over time, stores get bigger and better and new shops open.
Customise the exterior of your house

Upgrade the museum with a second floor
A Museum shop opens selling special items
Make your own exhibits - 4 rooms, put your stuff on display

Open a coffee shop in town
Work in the coffee shop, tailoring each drink to each animal.
Earn special coffee shop items

Public Works, make and pay for special exterior public works. This is a huge feature with tons of items to use. You can choose different styles of bridges, a wind farm, a well, garbage cans, street lights, benches, lighted trees, Moai heads, fire hydrants, fountains, campsites which are sporadically populated, stone tablets, rice racks, zen gardens, huge tv screens and tons tons tons more.

The online connectivity is better than ever, 4 player online but now there is a dream suite so you can visit peoples towns even when they are not online. Your lockers are now linked online letting you pull items from your closets at home without having to leave the town and come back. There is instant messaging, and this is important: EVEN WHEN YOU AREN'T IN THE SAME TOWN. The game will detect if anyone on your friends list is playing the game whether they have opened their internet gate or not and you can instant message them (please do this for Wii U Nintendo).

There are new furniture sets like the Modern Wood, Mermaid and Stripe.

It's easier to find everything - if you ever had that feeling that you would never ever find every fossil or catch every bug the game has been tuned to reward you better than ever.

You can hang things on walls, post it boards, paintings

There are far more new features in the game like being able to buy wetsuits and swim in the sea and dive for underwater clams etc but I don't have the time to post about them.

What I'm trying to get across is that New Leaf is an extraordinarily generous game. I have 3 characters with 3 almost completely upgraded houses and I still don't have room for all the shizzle I've collected. I've checked my 3DS activity log and I have logged in over 180 hours in the game. That is like buying and playing 18 triple A, 10 hour games.

The game is also better structured than older AC games, it gradually rewards and upgrades more in regular intervals. There is more of a sense of progression with it.

New Leaf is game that is nearly destroying my 3DS, compared to other games, my hinges are creaking, my unit is covered in finger smudges and dust is floating about the unit, even though I dust it every day (with the edge of my tshirt).

It's an utterly additive, peaceful, delightful, tranquil and perfect retreat for anyone who has ever loved the series.

If you have ever loved the series, you owe it to yourself to get it, if you have never tried the series before, you need to get this game. It rewards you not in hours or days but weeks and months. And that makes it almost entirely worth buying a 3DS JUST for this game.
Posted by gamingeek Fri, 16 Aug 2013 15:14:21
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Wed, 21 Aug 2013 04:13:41
I'm sticking with Wild World. The newer ones just don't do it for me.
 
Wed, 21 Aug 2013 10:53:43
After New Leaf I can't view Wild World as anything other than completely gimped compared to it. It feels like Wild World is a skeleton now and New Leaf is a fully fleshed out person.
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