Many people will tell you that Animal Crossing is a game about nothing. They’ll tell you that, although you’re continually busy, running here and there in your little town, you don’t do anything of substance. Don’t believe them. Animal Crossing may be a study in mundanity – of catching fish, running errands, collecting furniture – but it’s also a study in complexity.
Just think about how alive your town feels. How it reacts to seasons, how nuanced the townsfolk seem, how much there is to do at any time. Every individual element of Animal Crossing is perfectly simple. But the delicate interplays between them mean that, as a whole, each town has a tangible intricacy that few gameworlds have ever matched.
Consider your fellow townsfolk. Each one is composed of one of just a few different personality types – the jock boy, the stuck-up girl, the lazy boy, the sweet girl. But each character’s limited set of interests and phrases achieves a remarkable level of individualism when it’s fused with one with the many species Animal Crossing’s ecosystem supports.
A certain appearance, a set of clothes, each character’s preset interior layout, and where its house is in the town, whether by the sea, set apart from others, or who the neighbours are – all these meld together to create deep bonds between clockwork animal and player. Any Animal Crossing aficionado will tell you about the characters that they love, laugh with and despise.
One of the main characters is Tom Nook. This fussy and status-anxious raccoon owns the town shop, and, because he’s lent you the money for your house and its subsequent (and compulsory) extensions, he owns your soul, too. Much as Animal Crossing’s little society might seem egalitarian, with its citizens cheerfully exchanging presents and offering quaint games and friendly words, the player’s relationship with Nook exposes the game as a wry comment on consumer culture. To pay off that mortgage and get the largest house in which to fit your collections of furniture and knickknacks you need to earn money. Growing exotic fruit and fishing are the order of the day, all to fuel Nook’s imposed and monopolistic economy.
That the pleasure of finally completing a set of furniture is quickly dispelled with dissatisfaction is a kind of comedy. The Cabana set quickly looks boring – how about going out on a limb and attempting to get the Mario-themed one instead? Nook, ever aware of restless, base human nature, fuels it with his enticing daily rollout of random goods to buy, which necessitates daily visits to see what’s new. As your house fills with the clutter of half-finished collections it becomes apparent how easy it is to fall into the trap of futilely attempting to appease shallow desire.
With the town tied to the actual calendar, players experience the same slow drip-feed of environmental change that they do in real life. Natural events like the first fall of snow, or the coming of spring, which features cherry blossoms falling between April 5 and April 7, incrementally transform the town during the year. It unfurls with such engaging and graphic simplicity that Animal Crossing can actually focus new attention on the world outside of the screen.
Its gentle simulation of the real world extends to marking big festivals, too. Christmas in the Animal Crossing town includes a reindeer giving out free, festively themed furniture, while New Year features a countdown and fireworks visible in the town pond. There is something strangely magical about hearing the digital pops and squeals of Animal Crossing’s mini celebration coincide perfectly with the sounds outside of the window.
Animal Crossing has no real win situation – you can make the town ‘perfect’ by planting a specific density of trees, weeding carefully and tidying rubbish, but retaining this state requires constant maintenance. You can collect all the fish, insects and fossils for the town museum. You can earn enough money to pay off the house and its extensions, and earn yourself a gleaming statue of yourself next to the station. You can collect sets of the furniture and homeware you covet.
But these are hardly the point. These aims may provide impetus to keep playing from day to day, but at Animal Crossing’s heart is the low, slow reveal that is the rate at which new things happen in the town. It makes every change, no matter how small, cursory or superficial (and most are) seem all the more significant and precious.
Because, while Animal Crossing’s economy exposes something of our will to consume, this celebration of the mundane exposes something altogether prettier: a love of the simple life.
This article was first published in Edge Presents: The 100 Best Videogames in July 2007.
The post Retrospective: Animal Crossing appeared first on Edge Online.
via Edge Online
http://www.edge-online.com/features/retrospective-animal-crossing/
