On…Animal Crossing: New Leaf

Wait, didn’t I already write about this? Well yes, but that was a first impression, and I did suggest I might return to it. Over a month later, I finally feel ready to talk about the game in more depth. I’m sure in six months’ time, I could delve even deeper into this game. Look at me, I make it sound like a really deep and complex game. It’s all very simple really.

I have my routine now. I built it into my real life routine.  I wake up with a shovel and watering can in hand, ready to dig up my daily fossils and water any dead plants. I recently acquired the silver watering can, making the task of watering significantly easier. Still, I have planted dozens of flowers in hopes of regrowing my grass, which I so carelessly destroyed because I forgot that running kills grass. I should have put up some don’t walk on the grass signs. I should have set my sprinkler on. Oh wait, no, that’s real life I need to set my sprinkler on. Better remember to do that after this play session.

Anyway, after finding my daily fossils, I’ll go to the museum where Blathers will inevitably be sleeping. He’ll tell me the same things every day, but still, I listen to him and contemplate whether to tell him he might have dementia. I’ll donate the ones I haven’t already discovered and sell the rest. I’ll head upstairs to my newly opened museum shop, which has basically become a storage unit. The similarly dozy Celeste will be there and will also apologise for sleeping after I demand to buy a museum display so that I can proudly exhibit my collection of Nintendo items.

Since I’m here on Main Street, I’ll stop by Nook’s Home just to see if there are any home improvements that can be done. I’m going for a mermaid exterior and I just about have everything except the elusive roof. One day, it will be complete and I’ll finally fulfil my childhood dream of living in a pretty pink mermaid castle. Next stop is Super T&T, not quite the largest upgrade yet but getting there, and I’ll buy out everything they have to offer. Little Tommy (or is it Timmy?) Nookling will go glassy-eyed at my huge sack of bells as I offer to buy every piece of furniture and every wallpaper and carpet too; all part of my plan to catalogue everything this town has to offer. I’m not sure why.

There’s a lot in this game that I don’t know why I bother with. For example, I get my hair redone every day. Sometimes it’s disastrous. Other times I quite like it, even though I know it’s only a fleeting fashion. I think I read somewhere that if I change my hair enough, I can then get coloured contact lenses. That would be neat.

I also head into the Able Sister’s shop and buy out all the clothes there. I’ll head next door and buy accessories too. Then I’ll go into Kicks and buy shoes. Loaded up with all a girl could need, I’ll then head on down to Re-Tail and sell it all to a pink alpaca. Those guys must be doing something shady, they seem to always have enough bells on hand to buy whatever I sell to them. They unquestionably take my huge bag of assorted fish and bugs no matter what. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were running some cartel in my quiet little town – they seem the type. For now, they’re giving me a good deal so I’ll just carry on catching my pretty butterflies and hooking them up with sea bass. Thank you for giving me a monetary value for all the bugs I see in real life. Now, instead of freaking out when I see a large beetle, I momentarily think, “Ooh 8000 bells!” before realising where I am…and then freaking out.

As the mayor, of course, I have to check up on my favourite secretary Isabelle. I’ll ask her how the town is doing. She informs me that it’s perfect. Well great, but it’s not perfect to me. There are still too many patches of dirt where they should be grass. The trees aren’t arranged perfectly. The flower fields haven’t yet yielded many hybrids. I need more perfect fruit. No, my job is not done Isabelle. It’s cute that you think it is, but I know better. I am the mayor after all.

Strolling around town, I’ll talk to my favourite villagers. I have a newcomer to my town today. He’s a penguin called Roald who’s rather rotund but seems to be a fitness freak. He’ll get along with Moose, the rat who looks scrawny but boasts about his workouts. I know people on Facebook they’d like, the sort of people who like pages called “Girls who do Squats” which is semi-exercise related but really just an excuse to look at girls’ butts. Anyway, I’m not sure Roald or Moose would do that, they constantly gossip about the other villagers and their rendezvous but I never see them with a female companion themselves.

I like the females in my town. There’s Tiffany, the stuck-up rabbit and there’s Pashmina who’s also a stuck-up cow. Literally, a cow. Or is she supposed to be a goat? Either way, they make me laugh with their petty obsession with fashion. One time I caught a flea right off the face of Tiffany. I bet she cried herself to sleep that night.

Oof, this is getting a little dark. I definitely don’t hold any resentment towards this game for taking over my life. Nope. In fact, to prove how zen I am, I’ll take a visit to the tropical island. How ironic that the resort centre is actually where I work hardest. I borrow a net and a fishing rod and get to work, desperately gathering up expensive beetles and sharks. All in the name of pure greed. Well, I justify it to myself by saying I’m the mayor, I need the money to buy new public work projects. But really, when I go home, I’ll load all that money into my own personal bank account or to pay back my home loan.

After all that harvesting of precious wildlife, I might take a look at the furniture on offer. Anything mermaid-themed catches my eye immediately. I can only buy it with medals though and I can only earn medals playing mini-games. So I suffer through half a dozen mini-games including scavenger hunting (looking for furniture) and shark fishing, just to get enough medals to buy myself a mermaid dresser. I get the impression that the islanders are making a killing off all these unsuspecting tourists; I bet they have a hidden camera somewhere to record all these pathetic mini-games and then upload the best bits in some kind of youtube montage.

Anyway, it’s getting late, I better get back to my town. I’ll take the boat back and quietly listen to Kapp’n’s sometimes very creepy songs, and then get off before he sexually assaults me. I sell all my bugs and fishes, and with that money, I’ll head up to the post office to pay off my loan. I pay it off, only to go back to Nook for a larger loan, to get more extensions done to my house. I currently have three small rooms on my ground floor and one large room on the 1^st floor. But it’s not enough. I need another room for my musical instruments. And another to keep my clothes. I’d quite like a dedicated kitchen too, rather than this open plan business I have going on currently.

Just before I go, I’ll pop into Club LOL. It’s the saddest night club I’ve ever seen. There is just the owner, dancing by himself by the doorway, and a D.J. who seems unperturbed by the lack of any clubbers. Only once have I seen a fellow animal in the club, and she didn’t seem very into it either. I guess even in Animal Crossing, no one really likes clubbing.

I’m tired now. But there’s still more for me to do. I’m sure I missed a fossil somewhere. There’s patches of flowers unwatered. I forgot to harvest the fruit off trees. I needed to buy the piece of art from Redd’s tent. I had to check on the camper that has set up on my newly built campsite. Ah, too much to do and I’m so tired already.

I stop by in the coffee shop for a coffee. The owl serves it to me steaming hot and insists I drink it all. I scald my mouth but at least I keep up my pretence of being a coffee hipster. No Starbucks in this town! The owl asks if I’d like to work part-time in the coffee shop. The nerve of him! I am the mayor, aren’t I? Do I really have enough time to – oh alright, I guess I will take on a few shifts. As long as my hours are flexible. Oh you know what, being a barista is ok. Maybe when I retire as the mayor, I’ll work full-time here. What a life.

Then I’ll finally save and turn off the 3DS. I go to sleep. I wake up tomorrow and I start it all over again. It’s a hard life really.

EDIT: I have been informed that Brewster is a pigeon, not an owl. I think I mistook him for an owl because he was introduced to me by Blathers, who definitely is an owl. I guess I’m a bird-racist or something.