Animal Crossing: Wild World

December 14,2005 - It is, most unfortunately, a dark and stormy night. As the cab rolls slowly through the fog and haze into territories unknown, the cabbie turns back too often for safety’s sake. He asks too many questions. The rhythmic pulsing of the wiper blades induces a sense of calm, belying the frantic or mysterious impetus of this journey. Whatever the locales and loves left behind, this cab has a destination and a purpose. Onward to Novaknia, to deliver Dr. Bubs to his new home.

This noir inauguration sets the stage for an otherwise normal mind-trip to visit the bastard child of Absurdity and Hallucination, otherwise known as Animal Crossing. For those uninitiated souls who missed the series triumphant GCN release, Animal Crossing: Wild World for the DS represents another outrageous and absolutely preposterous exercise in the tedium of everyday village life. And scores of adoring fans couldn’t be happier.

Describing plot in Animal Crossing is a lot like trying to describe the taste of a pineapple to an alien from a planet made entirely of abstract thoughts. AC is what the Sims would have been, if the Sims had been created by the typical gang of very-Japanese Nintendo game designers. Once Dr. Bubs moved to Novaknia, he was saddled with a hefty mortgage on a house in the suburbs and forced into menial labor by local shopkeeper (and possible mafia head) Tom Nook. After running a few low-paying tasks for the critter, Nook vouched for almost 1500 bells of service, leaving Dr. Bubs with a debt of 18,400 bells to pay off and no want-ads in sight.

Welcome to Animal Crossing, a world where the everyday tasks of fishing, harvesting, planting, delivering, collecting and distributing bear the fruit of bells, the universal currency of all AC townships. Collecting bells yields less debt, less debt yields more house expansions, and more house expansions yield… more debt! Yet somehow, like Harvest Moon on crack, Animal Crossing: Wild World makes up for its complete lack of plot with the most fun one can have selling oranges to the only shop in town. And that’s a lot of fun!

The township, named by the player, is inhabited by a few variations of AC locals. Male and female animal-people with personalities straight out of a Nickelodeon cartoon will wander the map of the town, offering important advice to the gamer. In Novaknia, for instance, one of the first inhabitants was Pierce the Eagle, who enjoys working out and giving blood. His neighbors were Lobo, the competitive wolf who always loses fishing contests, and Hugh, the overweight and effeminate pig who decorates his house with “Children’s Furniture.” Even given the ludicrous cast of characters like Ribbot, the robot rabbit, or Pinky the constantly bitchy panda bear, it is nearly impossible to interact with any townsfolk without the occasionally, “WTF?! I HATE you!” moment. Somehow, this is the fun of Animal Crossing.

Nook, an entrepreneurial Raccoon, is perhaps the most vocal and annoying citizen of the township. He runs a shop which sells everything an AC townsman could need for all of their… existing. The early stock remains limited, with several types of stationary to use for mailing letters to neighbors, the occasional useful tool, like fishing poles and shovels, and the ever-important home-furnishings which mark AC’s sense of a goal. Loosely speaking of course. As the player-characters of the town spend more and more money at Nook’s shop, it expands its size and selection, eventually becoming a multi-storied department store named “Nookingways.”

But still the question remains; how does one actually play Animal Crossing?

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