The Woes of Recreating your Animal Crossing Island

Anyone that has played Animal Crossing knows the game is meant to be a slow burn. There are only so many bugs and fish to catch each month, only so many rocks to hit each day, only a percentage odds that a unique character will be stopping at your island. For example – Redd was introduced quite a while ago now, and I’ve had him at my island…twice…in almost a month. It’s a slow burn, and we all accept that.

It hasn’t been a May Day for reconstructing my island. It’s been a May Month. And I’m tired of it.

But I really wish not everything was so bad. For example, when creating your bridges, inclines, and homes for the first time, I’m ok with them popping up once per day. One bridge and one home. That was it, and that was ok. But now that I have 8 bridges (which I waited 8 days for), and 8 inclines (which I waited 8 days for), and 10 houses (which I waited many days for), I don’t want to rewait all that time to begin recreating my island.

And that is where the frustration exist for myself. I love to create, and I’ve begun recreating. My house was on a second cliff, in the back corner of my island. I moved it to a second cliff directly behind my Resident Services building. That took 3 days to dismantle the 3 inclines I had built in the back corner, 3 days to rebuild those three inclines. Since I had to move some bridges to make room for my new cliff top mansion, I wasted another 4 days moving bridges (dismantling 2, rebuilding 2). So that was 10 days spent just demolishing and rebuilding bridges and inclines.

Gratitude to myself for working so damn hard!

Factor in that I had to move 5-6 island homes so I could move my shops from the back corner to near my Residential Services, as well as move my Museum, and you can imagine my frustrations. The new island construction began around the 10th of May – I’m still moving and waiting on stuff today, 16 days later.

I really wish that Animal Crossing kept the daily grind where it’s necessary – money trees, rocks, number of flowers that grow – but were more lenient with the customization and decoration aspects of your island. Once I’ve maxed out my bridges and inclines, let me move more than one per day. Or at the very least, allow me to relocate or reskin an incline or bridge in one day, as opposed to the current demolish and reconstruct situation that takes 2.

Animal Crossing wasn’t just built on a whim. It was lovingly crafted through multiple generations, across many different consoles. Nintendo has a winning formula, and I’ll be the first to admit it’s one of the best games in 2020. But there are so many quality of life improvements that could be made that DO NOT break the integrity of the system they have created.

Give me some freedom Nintendo, please?!