More Thoughts From Me Special Edition: Focused On New Horizons

Animal Crossing New Horizons was my favorite game of E3 2019. I knew that if Nintendo showed an Animal Crossing, it would be my favorite game of the show. Nintendo did not let me down. Well, ok, they let me down a little. I am not happy with that March 20, 2020 release date. But putting that aside, I loved the trailer for this game and the Treehouse Live segment. I also ate up every piece of information that came out of E3 on this game. And now I’m here to talk about Animal Crossing New Horizons!

Animal Crossing New Horizons is not at all what I thought Nintendo would reveal at E3 for the franchise. I thought that the new Crossing would be much like New Leaf: the mayor returns, a town, lots of old features and some new features. Instead Nintendo revealed New Horizons and I’m still blown away by how different it is.

Some people may look at New Horizons and believe that this is just another Animal Crossing game. Yes, the human characters and animals look like New Leaf in HD. Everything else, though, is so different from New Leaf or any of the previous AC games.

There is no town. You start New Horizons by going to a deserted island where there’s hardly anything expect two or so animals, Tom Nook and his family’s little shop/tent, and….thats it.

This is is a deserted island after all.

The player will set up a tent, whereever he or she wants, and then start paying Nook (or not) to upgrade to a house and to build up the island.

New Horizons is much more structured than other Animal Crossing games. Well, its still up to you. You could live in a tent forever if you want. But most players will likely upgrade to a house and start creating a better island. It seems like there will be more goals to this Animal Crossing.

However, these are not the only chances that New Horizons introduces!

In all of the Animal Crossing games so far, the player has bought items from stores or got them from animals/friends. In New Horizons, there are recipes to actually create items. Just like Minecraft or any other creation game, you’ll have to find materials first though.

The creation system is a new feature for Animal Crossing. The closest we got to this before was having Cyrus change the color of items or add patterns to them. This time around, you create items! Sure you can still buy some items or get them from animals, but if you want to, you can go and create things. Not only that but you can put furniture outside! The player is being given the power to decorate their island however they like. I really love that and can’t wait to make my own unique island.

The changes don’t stop there. Just about everything in the game is changing. Isabelle only comes to the island if you get a house. Resetti is out of a job because New Horizons has an auto-save feature. You can actually tell animals were to put their house! And so many other changes have been made to the game.

I think there’s things in New Horizons that we don’t even know about yet.

The Animal Crossing developers were not satisfied with just bringing us another traditional AC experience. They wanted to bring us something new. So yes, Animal Crossing New Horizons lives up to its name. Its going to be a brand new day for Animal Crossing!

Well, March of next year it will be. sigh.

Next week: I checked out Fallout 76 on the Playstation 4 some during its free trial period. What did I think of the game? I’ll tell you next week on a regular edition of More Thoughts From Me!

More Thoughts From Me is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed here are mine and mine alone. Wish I could play this game now.