While I may be four years behind the virtual curve on this one, I’m more than making up for that lost time with it now.
You always knew that your next Friday night was about to go off, whenever you and your childhood best friend got to go to Blockbuster. For many reasons, but one chiefly among them in particular was being able to pick out the next five-day video game rental. Many of those weekends were spent pouring hours upon hours into as many hyper-violent shooters and gory hack-n-slashers, as possible.
One such weekend back in 2002 was different though. My friend’s mom however had a caveat, before I even knew what a caveat was supposed to be. That particular weekend, we weren’t allowed to rent anything “with lots of violence in it.” No quicker could our dual youthful sails be so rapidly and unceremoniously deflated in saddened synchronistic unison. I mean, what else is there to play?
Truth be told, I don’t remember if we were the ones who picked it for ourselves. If only out of protesting spite. Or if it was unchallengeable in choice by our Friday night guardian. Whomsoever made the final decision, is ultimately irrelevant in the end, because we were in that very moment saddled (or so we thought) with Animal Crossing. Truth also be told; I’ve never been happier to have been proven more wrong.
In many ways a spiritual successor to Harvest Moon, Animal Crossing literally became a core memory favourite game of ours literally overnight. Yes, I mean literally, not figuratively. We didn’t sleep a single wink. It’s also one of the few games in my childhood where it's equally just as much fun watching a friend play, as it is to play it yourself. With same friend watching themselves.
Fast forward nearly two decades later, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the Nintendo Switch quickly became all the internet rage. Particularly at the very start of the pandemic, which was a much-needed sanctuary for many. I was admittedly envious of all those that had a Switch and felt utterly left out of the pop culture loop. Seldom does this actually happen. Meanwhile everyone else collectively seemed to be living their best lives in their own respective cutesy and quaint digital oases, with anthropomorphized and resplendently dress talking animals.
Patience as they say, is a virtue. I was recently given a Switch by a very dear friend of mine a few months back and have subsequently been quietly enjoying my own New Horizon’s Island over the past few weeks. I’ll always appreciate a game that lets you customize the look of your character at the very beginning.
And here’s also where my perfectionism starts kicking in. To a painstaking fault. I will legitimately go through every single contentious combination and possible permutation before landing on my absolute final design choices. I spent far too much time coming up with the perfect character name. I somehow spent even more time brainstorming what would be my island name. Worth it. Even at the pace of the most luxuriously minded snail.
Once that necessary housekeeping preface was decidedly out of the way, I found myself quickly able to keep my own digital house, in short order. Or at least, a tent to start. Just like the creation of my character at the outset, New Horizons is a game that genuinely helps with my OCD. Picking weeds in the game is easily much more fun and overtly pleasing than it is to do so in real life. So is spring cleaning my house and moving around all my furniture. Don’t worry, you can still get all the exercise with group cardio, that like the Nintendo Wii before it, encouraged players to “get up and move”.
There’s a real beauty to this game’s simplicity. You can spend all day catching and releasing fish. You can dig up old fossils and net all manner of bugs and other creepy crawlies. You can pick trees of cherries, coconuts and peaches. At least those are the first three fruits that I’ve discovered throughout all of my three weeks of labour. This game has actually lowered my blood pressure a significant amount.
The relatively low stakes of these games are a large part of their inherent charm. Paying off the thousands upon thousands of currencies that you immediately owe in in-game mortgages have absolutely no right to be this fun. And yet they are. Paying off what you owe immediately upon touching down onto the grassy ground of terra firma, even makes capitalism somehow not so horrendously horrible a pill to swallow. Also, money in this universe is called “bells”. This always makes me smile. As do the endless amounts of puns.
I unironically love puns and you can’t change my mind. Never-ever-forever-never. I’m not a self-proclaimed pundit for nothing.
It’s also worth noting the quite beneficial and rather largely flexible use of The Switch to its fullest of all mobile potential. Playing New Horizons while waiting for the bus or the train to arrive at your stop makes those seemingly endless wait times nearly non-existent. I just have to remember to not miss my stop after I’ve climbed aboard. I’ve admittedly missed my stop far more times than I do care to actually admit. It’s a lot.
There’s simply nothing more satisfying than playing your Switch on an hour-long flight without being connected to the Internet. And yes, of course I always put the game in Airplane Mode, because I’m nothing, if not a law-abiding citizen.
While I may be four years behind the virtual curve on this one, I’m more than making up for that lost time with it now. Seeing as New Horizons is indeed four years young, one might be forgiven for expecting a sequel to be not too far down the gameplay pipeline. Fingers crossed we can get another crossing of all them animals within the next year or two.
Regardless of how long New Horizons 2 actually does take to come into full, fanciful, fantastic fruition-- every single sea-related pun has me, well… clam-bering… for more.
Mary-Jane
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