Why did the animals cross the road? To get to Animal Crossing (Animal Crossing (GBA))

Member Name: butters

Product:	Animal Crossing (GBA)
Date:	02/11/05 (252 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great game, there is christmas and haloween on the game. WOW

Disadvantages: A little repetative

it is the game which is real life, events happen (like haloween), and the seasons change. People even move in and out of the town

After hearing about this game last november, i was pretty intrigued, but, alas, i had no gamecube. In february though, i had a list of games that were good on the gamecube, good enough to get one, so i did. I dont have many of those games though. However, i lent animal crossing off of my friend, expecting it to be a large town, a few shops and people, but no.

There is just a small village, where you dig up fossils from the ground, and live with a bunch of animals, who, the more you speak to them, get more and more repetative. there is a coast, a post-office and a dump. Travellers come to the village to sometimes (Gulliver a seagul, Savannah the camel and a carpet salesman/animal to name a few). A museum is used to collect fossils too, which gets annoying having to mail it to someone, which costs money (you buy the paper) to make sure that it is real (and they always are).

Now, the good things. The shop, owned by a guy named nook is fairly good, because his shop gets bigger with the more stuff you buy, which is great because it shows progression. The only other thing that does that is your house, which gets bigger, making your mortgage bigger too. For a few bells (animal crossing money), you can make your own t-shirt or umbrella design too. i have made a pumpkin costume, and a few outfits (superman, spiderman and batman, immature but fun). Each town also differs, only with the layout of the village though, with a river somewhere else, and also a shop.

The shop, as i have said gets bigger with the more stuff you buy. it sells, surprisingly, quite a lot too. For your house (which can have a ground floor, first floor and basement), you can buy anything from a toilet and fridge to wallpaper and carpets. You can sell stuff too and sell turnips (which you buy off someone on sundays), for profit.

In each town there is one type of fruit tree, that holds either, (they are randomly picked when you first move to the village,) apples, oranges, peaches, cherries, pears, coconuts, bananas and pineapples as far as i know. I have 3 villages on three different memory cards (It takes up 57 blocks!) so i know quite a lot of the fruits. The people in the village sometimes give you fruit to bury andgrow, which is clever, but the animals dont know the new fruits in the town, so they always say that there are no pears in your town and try to sell you some. When an animal did this to me, half the trees had pears on. I have five kinds in one of my villages.

Now to the freakish people. At the start of the game, you get a small job at the shop to help to pay off a mortgage, but when the work is done, you can do as you wish. One of you choices is to help some people. Some animals i have met (maximum of 15 to a village, change around sometimes, move out) are Alfonso the alligator, Dover the bear, Spike the rhinocerous and Ribbot the robot frog. Jobs mainly involve collecting things and catching things like bugs. One collecting job made me go and get back a hankey that some animal borrowed to another. But the animal that borrowed the hankey borrowed it to someone else. i went around 6 people to get a hankey, it was stupid. Some jobsget to to get a gameboy that people have borrowed, but a hankey!!Why? i dont know.
The animals are also stupid. They wonder around and sing, never going to a shop, even though they aways have things to trade you with,and they also love getting letters. Another task for me to do was to write a letter to someone. They then answer back with a reward, like always when you complete a job, and you sell to pay off you mortgage.

A much easier way to make money is to catch bugs or fish. Some bugs or fish (which you sell to the shop) get a lot of money, and some dont. You buy fishing rods, and throw the line in the water, when the fish bites, you press 'A' and presto, a job well done. Bug catching involves you sneaking or running up to a bug and press 'A' too. It certainly isnt the most challenging game. You can also dig with a shovel for for fossils or other stuff, and axe down trees.

Haloween, you even get sweets to give to animals.

Altogether, buy it if you like the sound of it. Apart from the repetativeness, it can be addictive. It is mainly for the young ang young at heart. Get it when it goes down to £15, but £25-£30 is a bit excessive.
You get a free memory card with the game, and even get to name the town too. With a gameboy advance and cable you canconnect, just for extra fun (got to another town) too. It really is a good game, and you can easily get into it, but it gets repetative fast,and expects you to go on it daily. Give ita go when it comes down in price

Summary: Good for Gamecube, but repetative and easy.