A first-timer on 'Animal Crossing' island
By Nathan Kyn | April 7“Animal Crossing: New Horizons” (2020) released on the Nintendo Switch on March 20. Two weeks before then, I wasn’t sure if I was going to get it. One week beforehand, I decided to order it on Amazon, feeling like I wanted any new game to play while stuck at home. A few days beforehand, I canceled my Amazon order… and purchased the game digitally on my Switch so I could play it right at 12:00 a.m. on the Friday morning it was released. Why did I do that? I’ve never been into the “Animal Crossing” series, only having experienced it through brief gameplay of the 3DS version “Animal Crossing: New Leaf” (2012) and trying the mobile game “Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp” (2017). Needless to say, neither really hooked me. Yet the love and excitement for this game all over the internet really drew me in. The memes and serious discussions about Tom Nook, the raccoon landlord who builds your house, made me interested in seeing just what he was like. Fans of “Animal Crossing” games had been patiently awaiting a Switch version for years, and I was also curious whether this game would live up to their expectations. It seems like it has, and it’s certainly exceeded whatever vague expectations I had.
