Why Do We Love Animal Crossing?

Ah, Animal Crossing. There’s nothing quite like it! It’s a series that stands out on it’s own and is down right fun.. in an almost obsessive, addictive kind of way. There’s so much slander against games that serve the purpose of giving people a “second life.” You’ve heard it all, I’m sure: “GO OUTSIDE,” “MEET SOME FRIENDS,” and “GET A LIFE” sound familiar? The irony kicks in when the individuals saying such things spend countless killing other players in Call of Duty and get ridiculously ticked off over watching their MMORPG avatar get ganked. I’ll just continue to chuckle at them and water my flowers. I don’t care, I have no shame in that. They raise my mayoral approval rating.

Animal Crossing: Open-Ended Fun!

All joking aside though, the Animal Crossing franchise is a cherished one among gamers young and old. It’s what I like to call an “anti-game,” or a game with no set end in sight and no straightforward goals. You literally get to do anything you want in these games ranging from fishing to bug catching or even digging for fossils all while talking to animals! Now, these aren’t the same lousy kind of creatures you might be used to in Hollywood mistakes like Kangaroo Jack. No, these guys are incredibly well-rounded, each with a personality or his or her own! Growing up, every kid had that favorite animal that they loved. So why not play a game where you can be friends with it and talk to it? It’s cute, it’s charming and above all FUN.

Animal Crossing is designed as a getaway. It’s an escape from all of those troubles you might run into at school or work and a look into a what a world might be like with no turmoil or corruption. Well, I might want to scratch that corruption part. Crazy Redd will randomly show up and sell you counterfeit paintings sometimes and Tom Nook is a bit of an extortionist, constantly charging you to the very last cent (or should I say bell). He even enslaved his twin spawns to run the store in the newest games!

But really, this game is so chilled out. You don’t need to be afraid of the next zombie that may jump out from behind a building to get you or making sure you have enough magical abilities to keep yourself alive. Hell, you don’t even need to eat! Although, Erik the deer constantly does send me on missions to find exotic fruit for him. Lazy bum. At least when I do he rewards me with cool new furniture! See, that’s the stuff I’m talking about. That’s probably the most stressful thing about this game: “Oh no, how am I ever going to find that banana for my friend? I might have to take a boat to a tropical island!” Ah, the struggles of being a mayor.

Let’s take a look at one final thing this franchise has to offer. You live in the perfect world. Your town in Animal Crossing is just about the essence of utopia. The kind of worries you might have are where exactly you might place a park bench or how you want to model your newly upgraded house. That all might sounds rather boring to those who haven’t tried out Animal Crossing, but trust me, that is some stressful stuff. And I love it. As of late, my goals are to pay off a new bridge in my town by catching rare beetles found on palm trees late at night. It’s so relaxing. There’s calming music too! Every hour, the song that flows you throughout your new day will change to spice up your activity a little bit. And every single tune is so mellow. It’s the little things that Nintendo keeps getting right that makes me want to keep buying new installments in the franchise.

Animal Crossing is an addiction that no gamer will want to break. It’s a kind of game that really embraces the concept of living life everyday to the absolute fullest. Each day, you want to make people happy or be amused by just the littlest things. You look forward to having goofy, sometimes nonsensical, conversations with your friends and they do exactly the same. You never know exactly what will happen each day you play while working toward your long term goal and it’s really an incredible experience. But I should probably get back to my town. I just fished out a Saw Shark and I’m pretty sure Wendy the sheep was asking for one earlier