Yui Mio

I finally got my first animal crossing game (unless you count pocket camp) after getting a switch for christmas and well…not going to lie, it’s not at all what I had hoped for. Let me just say, YouTubers definitely helped to massively overhype this game. First off, if you don’t have a friend to play co-op with, prepare to be bored out of your mind. The pacing of this game is dreadfully slow, leaving you with nothing to do at the start but run in circles, collecting fruit and sticks. Other tools get introduced through DIY cards but it takes an unnecessarily long time and a a massive amount of inventory space. The variety in terms of species of fish and bug types is incredibly limited, no matter where you go. Even if you use a ticket to go to “another island” which is just the same lone island with a different lone villager. The Villagers themselves are painfully dull so much so that I forget they exist sometimes. All they do is tell you how to do things you already know how to do. You can gift each other later on but it doesn’t improve much. Oh and if you’re a tight saver like me, well prepare to have every bell/potentially valuable item that could help you pay off your loan or afford a set of furniture or something, stripped from you as everyone always needs the most important items you save! Found a bug?Hand it over to Tom Nook. Found a cool fossil? Uh-oh, Blathers needs 15 of them for his museum. Did you just get the house upgrade and need a place to buy furniture from? Well Timmy or Tommy whoever they are, needs 30 pieces of every type of wood, and 30 iron nuggets. And iron nuggets are a rarity! You only get a certain amount of stones (3 or 4 I think) that spawn on your island PER DAY. With each stone, you can hit them I believe 3 to 8 times? In which they will drop completely random items such as clay, iron nuggets, stone, the occasional pill bug, or bells. Not sure what the drop rate is for iron nuggs but it’s obviously low. Sure you can jump across the creek and try your luck there or climb up higher once you unlock the ladder OR travel to another island given you have enough nook points to afford a ticket, but even that may not be enough. The camera controls are non existent. You’re only able to look above your avatar or at almost ground level. That’s it. You cant look behind you unless you walk in the opposite direction. It’s beyond annoying, especially when swimming! And why on this green earth would you make the same items take up multiple slots in your inventory?! It makes no sense whatsoever. If I have 10 pears, I should be able to stack 10 more in the same slot and make 20 instead of taking up another slot to save 10 more of the same pears! I’d get it if it were like Stardew valley where things only do that if they’re of a higher quality, but there’s literally no need. For $64 USD I definitely expected better. It’s honestly sad that Pocket Camp, a FREE mobile app that has more villagers that have actual personality and give you something to do, more room to explore, more…everything really, is more entertaining than the $64 “full” game.