You wake up one morning and are faced with the most precarious decision of your life -- go fishing, catch bugs, or accessorize your home? Animal Crossing will be arriving on the Nintendo DS later this year and will deliver with it the familiar and enjoyable humor, gameplay, and characters. It might be strange to imagine a handheld game being more advanced and fulfilling than its console brother, but in the case of Animal Crossing DS, this possibility is real. First announced shortly after the unveiling of the Nintendo DS handheld at E3 2004, Animal Crossing DS has come a long way and looks to redefine what gamers -- of all types -- expect from an interactive entertainment experience.
Throughout its 20 years of creating interactive software, Nintendo has stressed the importance of communication. The Nintendo DS brings life to this philosophy with its touch screen and microphone. And as we'll explain, Animal Crossing DS was born out of this opportunity. At the 2005 Game Developer's Conference, Nintendo Co., Ltd president Satoru Iwata announced the Nintendo DS handheld will allow players from around the world to play games with each other via wireless online Wi-Fi. He further stated that Animal Crossing DS would be the very first title to utilize this ability and technology. And best of all? It would be free to users.
We had the opportunity to sit-down with Animal Crossing DS at this past E3 experience and the following are our impressions of the demo. If you've played the GameCube version, you are probably very familiar with its basic gameplay. The game places you in the role of an innocent and care-free character who must set out and live life in the world. You must first provide your character with proper shelter by purchasing a house, but eventually your goal is to satisfy other wants and needs including clothes, recreation, and socialization. That's the gist of the game's story elements. There is no "Game Over" and there is no "Save the Princess." Although, this is exactly what makes the 'game' so remarkable. What you do, how you do it, and what pace you do it at are completely up to you. You essentially write your own story.
Katsuya Eguchi will be returning to direct Animal Crossing DS. Katsuya Eguchi began his career at Nintendo as a designer on Super Mario Bros. 3. Eguchi went on to work closely with the Mario and Star Fox series during the 16-bit era. Eguchi's directorial debut came with Star Fox in 1993. After the wide success of EAD's first polygon shooter, Eguchi topped himself with another breakthrough title, Wave Race 64. Handling lead design on such highly regarded projects spoke volumes of Eguchi's talent. Hes currently most involved in the Takashi Tezuka produced Animal Crossing series -- the latest installments of which will be coming to both Nintendo DS and Nintendo Revolution.
In the GameCube version only one town could be hosted on a single memory card. Since DS games are on cartridges, naturally each player can only create one town on each Nintendo DS cartridge. Whereas in the first game players began their travel on a train and your answers to several questions would determine your physical appearance, the intro to AC DS is said to occur in a car. Further travel (as we'll explain later) is said to make use of this car. Gone is the train station, replaced by the "Main Gate". Each gate is guarded by two slightly intimidating, but mostly cute, dog characters. The one on the left is named Booker and is admittedly one who might've ridden the short bus. The other, on the right, is dubbed Copper (you might recognize him as the police officer from the first game) and is far more knowledgeable on the town and the options for travel.
Communicate to Navigate
When you talk to Copper, he gives you the following dialogue options:
- I wanna go out!
- Any lost items?
- Change the flag!
- Help me!
- Oh, nothing.
Choosing the "I wanna go out!" option allows you to then select whether you want to connect locally with another Nintendo DS Animal Crossing player or use Nintendo Wi-Fi to play with a friend far-away. Basically, the way multiplayer works is that one player will act as host, and up to three other players will be able to visit that persons town.
"...in this gate is Copper who is a gatekeeper. You can tell him that you want someone to come visit so he'll open the gate. Or, you can tell him that you want to go visit someone, and he'll search out available villages, and if he finds one, he'll let you out. When you appear in someone's village, that person will get a message that you have arrived. The screen will cut away, the gate will appear, and that player will see you arrive in his or her village." - Katsuya Eguchi
If you are going to visit other people's towns, or have other people visit yours using Nintendo Wi-Fi, you must first know the name of the destination town. Katsuya Eguchi described this process saying, "In order to avoid strangers coming into your town, we make players create a friends list. You can manually enter in that person's name to give them access to your village, or if you've connected with them locally you can opt to add their name to your friends list for online play." Once added, you'll be able to visit the town of any player on your friends list (provided they are in their town online and their copy of the game uses the same alphabet). To assure expanded compatibility, Animal Crossing DS will be the same worldwide, with holidays specific to the Animal Crossing world.
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| Appearing in upper right hand corner of the screen, this icon indicates someone is trying to communicate with your Nintendo DS. "Please sit still and do not turn the power off." |
Copper will become one of your best friends since he is possibly the most valuable asset to your town. If there are any lost items, you need but ask Copper for related information. "Any lost items?", you question. Besides the obvious fact that each town can be uniquely named, each also has a representing flag. "Change the flag!", you demand. Like in the first game, all designs such as the one for the flag can be created by you, purchased from the Able Sisters, or acquired from an Animal Crossing friend.
Finally, the "Help me!" option provides helpful advice. However, we also hope the final build of the game provides players with the ability to kick certain visitors out should they choose to cause havoc and cut down all your trees or trample all your lovely flowers (or in the case of Oprah, eat all your apples). With all the paranoia of terrorists these days...I must say, don't call me an animalist, but Camofrog looks a bit suspicious.
You control your character with the +(D-Pad) or stylus. The stylus was our preferred method. It was incredibly intuitive and could be used for every action (perhaps because there's no need for jumping and other crazy acrobatics like in Mario 64). In the top left corner of the screen a + or icon in the shape of a pen indicate whether you are using the stylus or buttons. The speed at which the character moves will depend on how far away you touch the screen. A touch nearby naturally makes the character walk slowly while a significant distance will make him or her run. Talking to the village animals can be accomplished by tapping them with the stylus when face to face. Tap the doorway to buildings to enter or exit. The start button will bring up a window that says, "Are you sure you want to quit?" This may have simply been implemented for the demo version. There's still no word on how the game will save data.
The camera perspective in Animal Crossing DS has changed. The DS upper screen shows weather conditions via a view of the sky. Katsuya Eguchi explained in an interview with IGN, "The reason we went with the "rolling log" effect: if you look at the top screen, that's the sky. And it makes more sense to do this effect than using the scrolling camera since the sky is on top...In the GameCube version, there were balloons that floated around the village, and you'll be able to see these on the Nintendo DS version as they float up into the sky. And the pelican that delivers the mail? Players will be able to shoot him down and make him drop his mail. At night, stars will appear, and you will be able to connect the stars and create constellations for your village." The rolling effect is a very satisfying addition as it now only takes 14 seconds to run from the top of your town down to the ocean. This is compared to the GameCube version that takes nearly 20 seconds to run from top to bottom.
According to PlanetGameCube, players will also be able to manually set the Animal Crossing clock to their preferred time of day. If you normally play the game at night, but want to experience daytime events in your town, you can change the time settings in the game without having to change the main clock in the DS firmware.
Super-Size Me
The menu is a very important part of the game and thus it's important to understand how the options and information are presented. The menus are split into the following pages:
- Briefcase
- Drawing Board
- Fish Table
- Insect Table
- Communication Box
- Map
- Escape
You can open your menu by pressing the X button or by touching the two-arrow-graphic in the upper right hand corner of the screen. While in the menu, your player performs an animation that indicates to other players that your attention is no longer focused on the main screen and your eyes are instead navigating the menus. The animation has the player placing his or her right hand on the hip, left hand on the chin, and the right foot tapping.
The menu opens, moving the play screen to the top and immediately presenting you with your Briefcase on the bottom screen. Players can hold up to 15 items including anything from furniture to clothing to a fishing pole (imagine trying to fit that into the overhead bin of an American Airlines jet). Like in the first game, items include a name but instead of also providing a little picture of what each item looks like, items are generalized into shapes -- pieces of furniture are displayed as leaves, hairgear as a baseball cap, and headgear as glasses. Also, either we couldn't figure out the button combination or worse, the feature doesn't exist that would allow players to select multiple items from your inventory. This was an especially important feature in the first Animal Crossing, when selling items to Nook for example. We hope there's a solution in the final version of the game.
You also have space to hold ten letters in your Briefcase. Furthermore, in the middle of the page you find the amount of money you have on hand. Money makes the world go 'round, even within your small town. Yes indeed, capitalistic philosophy also runs through our quaint forests. At the top of this screen you can see your town and personal name. To the right of this info is a very rudimentary self-portrait. You can equip three pieces (four if you include the umbrella) at one time (ex. a shirt, cap and headgear item). If you have the new green tie-dye shirt, you can try it on by selecting it with the D-Pad and B button or even better, simply tap and drag with your stylus (if it hasn't become clear yet, we'll spell it out plainly: the stylus provides the best control). New to the game is the ability to customize your character with caps and glasses (headgear). For example, you can purchase or find a pair of stylish librarian glasses or a hip set of Mario-stache shades. In addition, you can place a combat helmet on your head to protect it from that mischievous neighbor or host a party at your castle and wear the jester's hat. Umbrellas also make a triumphant return. And finally, flowers -- yes, those pretty photosynthesizing plants -- can be picked up and placed in the hair or behind the ear of your character. And if you're feeling especially debonair, pick up the white rose, drag and drop it on your character, and you will see him/her holding it between their teeth. What a tease! Whenever you change your attire, a quick animation is performed. Your character does a back flip and shiny sparkles are emitted. Why? Either some white powder is falling out of the plastic baggy in their pockets or perhaps sparkles are simply cool.
The next menu option is the Drawing Board. In the original Animal Crossing, players could only customize the design of their clothes and umbrella. Now, however, you can create your own design for your cap, home, easel art, shirt, umbrella, rug, or wallpaper. Players will again need to visit the Able Sisters to create designs. Designs are sprite-based and created on a sort of X-Y grid. Fill in the dots to manifest a beautiful design to show off to your boorish, unstylish friends. We can surely expect an AC reality TV makeover show?
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The two menu options that follow are the Fish Table and Insect Table. There were very few fish or bugs in the demo (mainly because it was just that, a demo), but each table showed the potential for a large variety of fish and insects. There were about 15 slots each for fish and insects. The GameCube version had about twice that amount so here's to hoping this was simply for demo purposes.
The next menu option is the Communication Box. In the E3 demo, players could send messages to each other by using the on-screen keyboard and stylus. There were several arrows on the screen including return and new line so it took us several minutes to realize the arrow pointing 'up' was the "send" button. Otherwise, it's a fairly straight-forward interface. Nintendo was showcasing how someone in New York or Seattle (in this case Charles Martinet) could communicate using microphone and headphones. There is a port in the Nintendo DS for such a device and we were told that there is a possibility that this method of communication will be used in the game.
The next menu option is the "Map". There are two sections -- one for buildings and one for houses. Towns will once again be randomly generated, with the placement of houses, rivers, bridges and rocks being unique to each and every town. You can also expect each town to have a primary type of fruit tree thus encouraging the player to interact with others and with Mother Nature by planting a larger variety of trees. The buildings in AC DS include the Shop, Tailor, Town Hall, Museum, and Main Gate. Notice the suspicious lack of Post Office? Its been hinted that the Post Office will now reside within the Town Hall.
Tom Nook's Cranny is the ultimate shopping center. It's no Wal-Mart, but most all your needs -- from wallpaper, to plants, to furniture, to tools -- will be satisfied. Not to mention that the great customer service Tom provides is difficult to find nowadays. As you enter Tom's store, you'll find that Tom has moved into the 21st century and has a fancy new computer. You can interact with this computer and find that Tom has implemented a new "Point System". Once your character reaches 300 points, they will receive 'member' status. Points are earned via purchases. At certain point levels, member status goes up and you get an award. A slight discount is also received at each member status. So basically, the more money spent, the more points and benefits received. It's a great incentive to keep shopping while Tom keeps his customers faithful. The store has three rows of products -- one along the left wall, another along the back wall and one in the middle. The left and back wall showcase furniture and appliances. The back wall also has floor and wallpaper and the left wall has trees and flowers. The middle table contains mainly tools such and nets, fishing poles and shovels. If someone is already inside the store, you are unable to enter. This is done perhaps to keep traffic levels down and also because Tom has but only two little furry hands. In the GameCube version, as you upgraded your house, Tom also grew his business from a small shanty to a luxurious department store. The DS demo version only contained a one-floor shanty, but its been said that there will be a second floor with a hair salon in the final version. Nook will have plenty to sell as there are said to be about the same number of items in the Nintendo DS version -- some taken from the GameCube version while others are brand new.
The Able Sisters are a fabric and clothing outlet. They are highly skilled in their craft and are always in-tune to the latest fashions. When entering the store you will see the Able Sister's workstations to your left. Along the back wall are items on sale including an umbrella, three shirts, a hat, and glasses. In the center of the store are eight mannequin stands that display the latest and hottest designs.
The Town Hall will likely be an important piece of your town. As I stated before, word has it that the Post Office will be located there. It's also possible that the governor will reside there. The Town Hall was under construction in the demo so we couldn't see for sure.
The Museum is home to the preservation and showcase of archaeological dinosaurs as well as aquatic life and insects. Additional Museum exhibits are also under consideration for the final version of the game. The Museum was under construction so we were unable to get a first-hand look inside.
The Main Gate is located at the very top-center of your town. It's where Copper is located and your portal to the outside world. Unless you've acquired amnesia within the past five minutes, you should remember our thorough explanation a few paragraphs back.
The real magic takes place at Home. Although the largest house in the demo was only two-stories, the final version of the game is said to feature houses much larger. Multiple characters can enter a single home at the same time. According to PlanetGameCube, unlike in the GameCube game, where your house could be positioned in only one of four locations, the DS game will let you place it wherever you want in your randomly generated town. You get to decide where the house goes -- whether you prefer the convenience of walking out your front door to be greeted by Tom Nook's shop or instead prefer the seclusion and tranquility of the waterfall. Four players can play using the same card, however they will all live in the same house. As your house expands, you can build separate rooms for each character and negotiate to determine who gets which room.
Pressing the Y button inside a house gives full camera control. Also, inside your home is a telephone. We're not sure if this will be used to call other DS's or for communication within your town. It was unfortunately not working in the E3 demo -- "Sorry, can't make a phone call right now". Players can fill their homes with a variety of items and objects. This was one of the biggest allures of the first game -- collecting a complete set of furniture (in the GameCube version there were the classic series, modern series, Mario series and many more). Nintendo confirms that many of the popular items and furniture sets will make a return, with a number of new sets and new types of items being added. If you try lying down in your brand new bed, your character says, "Oooh...It's so fluffy and nice but I'm not sleepy." Forget clutter. Storage will be much easier in AC DS. If you have a refrigerator or any other furniture that can store items, you have space for a whopping 90 items. Each piece of furniture has six separate compartments for storage -- circle, square, star, diamond, triangle, heart -- and each compartment has room for 15 items. Sadly, one set of items that will be left out of the DS version is the collection of NES games. This time, the developers have decided to focus on the Animal Crossing world, opting not to include the classic NES titles. Finally, there's no word on whether or not your gyroid assistant (the little guy that danced outside your home and served as a save point) will return.
However, the Bulletin Board does make a return. When asked if the game had any sleep mode features, similar to the bark mode in Nintendogs, Katsuya Eguchi stated that they have not implemented anything yet, but are considering an option to allow someone to draw something in PictoChat and post it directly to the bulletin board in the other persons Animal Crossing town.
Meanwhile, there's also no word on whether the Dump will have a place in town. If you're a litterbug and like to drop random crap around town (girlfriend that star shirt is hid-eous) droppings will be turned into defined shapes. Items dropped will turn into treasure chests while tools will morph into a toolbox.
There was no mention of an Animal Island on the Map. Katsuya Eguchi explained to IGN, "The reason why we created the Animal Island was to give something for people to take with them on the Game Boy Advance. Maybe with the DS we'll do something similar between the DS and the Revolution."
The final menu option is "Escape," which brings your view back to the game screen. Sure it's not a very exciting menu option, but it does prove useful.
Forget the Zoo
Now even though I've explained the communication aspects of the game and discussed the menu options, I still missed one very important detail. What is Animal Crossing without the animals? There were over 200 in the GameCube version and many of the most popular ones are said to return and a number of new ones are being created. Coming in all shapes and sizes -- cats, penguins, ducks, dogs, pigs and frogs -- one can only expect each to have a unique and colorful personality. If it's a familiar species of animal, chances are it's here. Also, many of the special non-playable characters such as Mr. Resetti, K.K. Slider, Tom Nook, Blathers, and more will return.
Katsuya Eguchi describes a new idea for a special character: "There is one idea we're considering: creating a unique character that might appear in your village. Players can then create this character's face using the art program. When the character leaves your village he might show up in someone else's village where they'll see your face creation as well as find out information about your village."
Players can expect many of the same interactions with the non-playable characters including trading items, running errands or simply chatting. Fortunately, interactions with human characters may provide a little more substance. Its said that players can interact with each other as they would in real life to create their own games of tag or have fishing tournaments or barter with each other for items. In the demo we enjoyed digging holes around other players with our shovels. Although they could kick sand in with the B button to fill them back up, it did provide a few seconds of entertainment.
So there you have it. We hope you're as excited about this game as we are. The game shows a lot of potential and we're confident it will be every bit as engrossing as the first. When it arrives later this year, you're all cordially invited to visit our town. Until then...
*saves file to avoid the wrath of Mr. Resetti*
