When you begin Animal Crossing you will start out on a train. A freaky looking cat will sit down across from your character (you won’t actually see your character until you exit the train). This is where you will enter in the vital information, like your name. If you’re the first person to move into your new town you’ll also get to name the town. After this you will be asked several questions. How you answer these will determine the way your character looks for the rest of the game. I answered the questions nicely and my character looked fairly normal (and by normal I mean as normal as it gets in this game). My friend answered the questions rudely and when his character exited the train he had almost-red eyes, making him look all the more evil. I thought it suited him well.

When you first set foot in your village you will get to pick out your house. You only have a small amount of Bell, the local currency. Luckily the local shop owner, Nook, will loan you the money as long as you pay him off in a timely manner. Your house is extremely small to begin with, but since you don’t own any furniture or items, free space won’t be a problem right away. After poking around your neighborhood you will get the chance to locate Nook’s shop and begin running errands for him. Your first task is simple, but an effective exercise in teaching the basic controls. Nook will give you some flowers and trees to plant. You will then scope out some places to plant them and move on to the next task at hand. After several more menial jobs you will get to explore your entire village and visit with the animals living there.

Now, each Animal Crossing game comes with its own memory card packaged right in. Each game sold is randomized, which means the layout of the villages and the townsfolk will differ from game to game. Other important differences abound as well. In my game the local fruit is peaches. Your copy of the game might have pears or apples or some other type of fruit. This “common” fruit fetches 100 bells if you sell it to Nook. However, if you can get your hands on a foreign, more exotic fruit, you’ll get 500 bells each. You can even plant the fruit to create your own orchards to produce more fruit for you and the other inhabitants. Different villages will also have their own set of special items that can usually only be found there. So, to get the most out of your game you will want to try and find a friend with a copy of the game and visit his or her village. Now here’s where it gets even more intriguing.

Let’s say you’re going to your friend’s house to play Animal Crossing. You can create travel data by hopping on the virtual train in the game. This travel data is saved on a separate memory card that you take with you. It only consumes 3 blocks of memory and it contains all of the vital information from your village. You put your memory card in his GameCube and when you turn it on you’ll get off the train and be set to visit his villagers and check out all the cool stuff in his town. Not only that, but by talking with the villagers they will get to know you. A few days later they may talk about you and ask your friend how you’re doing. If one of the animals really takes a liking to you it can actually move out of your friend’s village and into your village permanently! Of course I haven’t really touched on all the trading and stuff you can do between villages, but you can imagine there’s a lot of stuff that can be done. One of the most impressive feats is the ability to send someone else an item from your game. You simply type in the person’s name and village name and you can send certain items via passwords. The GameCube generates a predetermined password that you give to your friend, so the item vanished out of your town and goes into his. Pretty cool stuff, huh?

Other fun things happen in the game when you have a GBA. Hook this baby up to your GameCube and you can visit a tropical island where you will be able to collect coconuts and talk to the hermit there. There’s even a cabin that players share where each has a role in decorating and furnishing the place. There’s a mini-game that can be downloaded into the GBA for play on the go. In addition, you will find NES games within Animal Crossing that can be played on the GameCube. They are perfect replications of the original games. I received Donkey Kong and Clu Clu Land when I first began the game. You can actually download the full NES game to your GBA to play on the go as well, but if you shut off the system you lose the game. Luckily Nintendo has programmed a sleep mode into the NES games so you can play later without consuming much battery life. Also, if you buy the E-Card Reader you will be able to swipe in new messages, music, and even items into you Animal Crossing game via the Animal Crossing trading cards. These are slated to appear in retail in approximately a month, but if you buy the E-Card Reader now you will get one card in there for Animal Crossing.

So, now that you have a little bit of an idea of what the game has to offer, you may be wondering what the point of the game is? Well, Nintendo labels the game as a communication game, and basically that’s what you do. You converse with the town animals and perform tasks for them. Your goal is to make them happy as well as obtain really rare items, such as furniture, wallpaper, flooring, and other knickknacks to outfit your house the way you want. You’ll have to pay back all the money that Nook borrows you and that can be done in various ways. The most profitable way to earn money (at least so far) is to whip out your fishing pole and catch some saltwater fish. Nook pays some big bucks for certain kinds of fish. Finding the right ones will prove essential to paying off your loans in a timely manner. The game uses the internal GameCube clock, which means when it’s daytime outside, it’s daytime in the game. Certain events have been pre-programmed in, such as Halloween and Labor Day. In addition, the game will have its own festivities each month. For example, coming up soon is the Sports Fair where all the animals compete in events to win prizes. If you miss playing on those special days, then you miss out on that part of the game. That’s part of what makes Animal Crossing so addictive. Players won’t want to miss out on any of the events because usually that’s where the rare items are obtained.

There’s so much to do in Animal Crossing that it’s almost overwhelming when you first begin playing the game. Soon you will find yourself falling into daily routines and it won’t seem like there’s all that much to do on some days. I must say that it’s a game that’s truly meant for players that will have friends or relatives to play along with them. By having 2 to 4 players in one village there’s all sorts of interaction that goes on that adds so much more fun to the game. Having said that, therein lies the biggest flaw with Animal Crossing. It really isn’t all that fun playing by yourself and if you’re thinking about purchasing the game you really will want to have some friends at least attempt to play the game with you. Keep in mind that only one player can play at a time, so it’s not a simultaneous multiplayer game. The town’s inhabitants begin to repeat themselves after awhile and there’s certain phrases that they always say that you can never skip that will get on your nerves after a few weeks. Also, the graphics are nothing to shout about either. They are very simple with little texture work on the character models. The game is based on the N64 version that released in Japan, and unfortunately it shows. The graphics are very cute and have a certain charm to them, but this is nothing that couldn’t be done on any system currently available.

Aurally the game is very simple as well. The music changes hourly so you won’t become too tired of it, although it all does have a similar theme to it. The jingle that plays every hour and every time you chat with the characters in the game is changeable and can thus be customized to your liking anytime you choose via a sound editor. The default mode in the game has “Animal Speak” turned on, which means you get to hear the animals talk as the text scrolls across the screen. It’s strangely cool and doesn’t seem to get old too quickly. You can always turn that feature off it begins to unnerve you. You will also find ways to collect new music that can be played in your house via a tape recorder to set the mood when anyone steps foot in your abode.

Animal Crossing is extremely addicting. This is the type of game that you get up early and stay up late for just to see what will happen next. The real-time virtual world is what will keep you coming back for more, just to see how things are going. Nook changes out his wares daily and you know you won’t want to miss what he has to offer, or heaven forbid a sale! I realize that many of the things in the game may sound mundane and perhaps even silly to some readers out there. All I can say is that I too was somewhat skeptical, and my friend was totally against getting the game. That all changed upon playing for a couple short hours. We’re both hooked, and have been for over two weeks solid now. While some things will begin to wear thin on even the most dedicated players out there, it’s safe to say that Animal Crossing will keep offering enough new material on a day-to-day basis that it will be worth playing for many months, if not years, to come. It may not be everyone’s bag, but Animal Crossing is certainly one of the most original, addictive, and fun games I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing. Do yourself a favor and nab a copy today.