There are plenty of great Nintendo exclusives that find a home on each new piece of hardware. From The Legend of Zelda to Metroid, the company has some of the most beloved properties in gaming to boast. One of those is Animal Crossing, a somewhat unconventional life/farming simulator that asks players to dip into their town or island for a few minutes per day to resume a tranquil virtual life full of interesting personalities and fun interactions.
It caters to a whole new audience, and if the 2020 Switch game is anything to go by, Animal Crossing has the potential to bring millions of players to the system to build their own island, pouring countless hours into it as a matter of daily habit. The series has evolved over the years with new additions, settings, and mechanics, but despite improving over time, there are still some things that need to be improved on if it wants to enjoy a fruitful future. The crafting in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is not fun, and making a simple change to something more streamlined could do it the world of good.
Quality of Life is Low in Animal Crossing
Though its cute visuals and charming characters take up most of the attention of players, what lurks beneath all Animal Crossing games is a complex building simulator where islands and towns can be expanded from a humble abode to a towering metropolis. The satisfaction of the series lies in making that progress, improving the space, and feeling like the hours spent collecting materials was worth it. However, the crafting controls and lack of intuitive menu inputs means that it's hard to enjoy the process as players are constantly fighting against the awkward mechanics.
Painstakingly crafting one item at a time is boring, and while it adds to the limited realism of Animal Crossing, that's not enough to justify it being so cumbersome. Crafting is essential, and in many ways a necessary evil as Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer showed that the fun is in organizing, rearranging, and manicuring the space, not crafting the materials needed to make the area shine. Giving players the simple, quality of life benefit of crafting multiple items at once, and simply creating the things that's needed to make an upgraded item would be welcomed.
Animal Crossing Has to Compete with Other Farming Simulators
While it was arguably the king of farming simulators in console generations past, Animal Crossing now has to compete with other titles that are, in many ways, better than it. Stardew Valley proved with its simple mechanics that a game in the genre can be intuitive and player-friendly while constantly maintaining a sense of rural comfort. The same can be said of Story of Seasons. While the aforementioned examples require a different gameplay approach, as Animal Crossing is designed to be picked up and put down for a few minutes every day, they are undoubtedly more seamless and less repetitive as a result.
Animal Crossing making that simple, but very necessary change to its crafting and upgrading system would be an instant improvement, and keep it closer in line with its contemporaries. Even giving players the choice would be a start, as one of the biggest complaints about an otherwise stellar series is that its systems are cumbersome at times. Fixing this would make sure that future Animal Crossing games can continue to set the bar.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available now for Nintendo Switch.
