By Anthony Swinnich on December 17th, 2005

Before I played the GameCube version of Animal Crossing, I was a non-believer. I thought the game just sounded stupid, I mean, come on-- a game with no purpose? No way to win? After spending hundred hours with it, I still didn’t understand exactly why it was fun, but deep in my heart, I knew I loved it; I had to have loved it spending that much time with it, and I even got two friends absolutely hooked. Still, even though the original was able to eat away three lives (among countless others who owned the game), there were some issues with it. Despite Nintendo’s disdain for online play at the time, this game was screaming for it. And the ability to play with each other in the same town simultaneously would have been a great addition.

For the most part, Animal Crossing Wild World takes care of the issues I had with the original, and even fixes some I didn’t know existed. It’s not all roses in this garden, however. Even though the problems were fixed Wild World takes a couple of steps backwards, and doesn’t quite develop some of the new additions as well as it could have. In this respect, Animal Crossing Wild World acts as an update rather than a true sequel, but even so, any complaints should be considered minor since Wild World offers up an astounding amount of value you won’t find anywhere else.

Wild World plays almost exactly like the GameCube version, which isn’t a bad thing, but players expecting a true sequel will be disappointed. Just as in the original, the player moves to a town of animals. Tom Nook helps you get settled in by hooking up with a house, and in turn a mortgage you have to pay back to him. After paying the initial mortgage, you’ll be given the option to expand your house, and incur another charge from the rascally raccoon. This can happen several times in the game, so expanding your house is one of the main reasons to play.

In order to earn money to pay these mortgages, the player will have to perform tasks around town. Things like performing deliveries for the denizens of your fine village, or fishing and bug collecting will help you pay the bills. Sometimes they’ll pay you back in money, though usually in ridiculously small amounts. Sometimes they’ll pay you back with items, and sometimes they won’t pay you back at all. You can even collect the fruit that grows on the trees and sell it at the store. Either way, money is never in short supply in Wild World, the player just has to know where to look for it.

To put it bluntly though, Tom Nook has this little town by the balls. Not only is he the sole source of real estate, but he also owns the only store in town. When you’re not paying him for a house, you’ll be paying him for furniture, clothing, and any other odd items you want to put in your house. The funny thing is, even while knowing this you’ll gladly give him your last bell in order to get that "Chic Sofa" you’ve been eyeing for the last few hours to complete your setup. It’s here where Animal Crossing instills a "gotta-catch-em-all" fever into those who spend more than a few hours with it, but this sickness doesn’t just apply to furniture, oh no, it applies to everything in the game.

You see, Animal Crossing when broken down to the bare basics is all about collecting things. Furniture, while a nice distraction, is the least of my worries when I play. I scour my town for fossils to fill my museum; I go for hours on end, even foregoing sleep before work to catch "just one more rare fish." I squeal with glee each time I dig up one of the strange and quirky noisemaking Gyroids. Wild World offers more to collect in nearly every aspect imaginable. There is easily over triple the amount of fossils to find, new fish to catch, more paintings to donate to the museum, and that’s just scratching the surface of what you can collect. In short, Wild World improves the single-player longevity of Animal Crossing, which is an astounding feat considering the original already lasted months.

While it’s important that Nintendo added a lot of things, Animal Crossing Wild World isn’t about expansion of the single-player; it’s about Nintendo taking the series online, and how the additions work there. Nintendo has created a virtual world for players to explore. Well, almost a virtual world... playing with people online requires players to add those who they wish to play with to a buddy list. If you aren’t on the players list, you can’t play with them. The reasoning behind this limitation is legitimate-- nobody wants random people coming into their town, chopping down their trees, and doing other things to ruin their progress, but it is a limitation none-the-less. Players can circumvent this by finding people to play with using message boards, but already some have horror stories about what happens when you play with people you don’t know.

Even if people could randomly show up in your town, there wouldn’t be a whole lot for them to do anyways-- playing with friends online is good for trading items, and seeing your friends virtual town and inhabitants. Aside from that, it’s up to the players to make things up to do, which is a serious problem. A lack of modes or options means that players probably won’t be going online too much after the initial thrill of traveling wears off. It’s nice that the touch-screen is used for chatting and typing letters, but the space allowed for either is minimal, so you can’t say very much at all. On one hand, it’s amazing that a Nintendo title even has some form of online support, but in the next iteration they need to expand upon what you can do. Multiplayer in Wild World isn’t limited to Wi-Fi though-- you and three other people can connect wirelessly and visit each other’s towns. However, what you can do when connected wirelessly is exactly the same as it is when connected over the Wi-Fi, so don’t expect any new tricks.

The apparent lack of effort put into expanding things in Wild World doesn’t just apply to the multiplayer though-- it applies to almost every addition in the entire game. There is an entire second screen to work with, but the ideas explored are so underused they might as well not even have been included. You can shoot flying items out of the sky using the Slingshot, but the items show up so infrequently it feels like a waste to have your Slingshot taking up an inventory slot. The Watering Can is an even more worthless addition. You can water flowers-- all that means is you don’t have to replant flowers if they die. The touch-screen allows for several things, including easier manipulation of the menu screen and pattern editor, which are fantastic additions, while controlling your character using the stylus leaves something to be desired.

Even if the additions don’t make enough changes to consider this game a full sequel, Animal Crossing Wild World warrants another play through for those who have already taken the trip once and loved it to death. People new to the series will probably fall deeper in love with Wild World, but there’s enough charm here to go around for everyone. In a future sequel, hopefully for the Revolution, Nintendo needs to step up and truly deliver on the innovation, but what’s offered in Wild World will no doubt keep you busy a long time to come.