Animal Crossing: Wild World

Animal Crossing Wild World
a review by Shade

Animal Crossing is a game where you interact with animals in a small town. You are the only human in the town, and you live in a forest-like civilization. Everything is calm, no crime, no violence, nothing like that. Just a peaceful forest town that you would imagine.

Animal Crossing Wild World is the first in the series to feature Wi-Fi playability, which adds a whole new world to Animal Crossing. Not only was Wi-Fi added, many other features were added, as well.

Here's the rundown.

Graphics


An Animal Crossing winter.

For the DS, the graphics were fine, met the expectations. Some could have been better, but what more could you expect? The patterns were completely customizable, and they gave everything a Retro feel since everything looked like sprites. The characters were quite detailed for the DS, but they had their flaws. For one, sometimes, the character looks like it got smushed together. But, for every flaw, there is a positive to make up for it. The menus were clear enough to see, detail was obviously put into them, etc. Overall, nice job.

Graphics - 8/10 - Good enough for the DS standards. Pretty basic, yet good.

Sound/Music
Ahh... music. For every single hour of the day, there is a song to play. And at the top of the hour, the song changes. What's so wrong with that? Needs more variety. I mean, the music does set the perfect mood for the time of day, such as slow music for early morning/night and faster paced music for daytime, but what if you only play at a specific time of day? You hear the same song OVER and OVER again. On the plus side, K.K Slider will give you CDs that you can play in your home. There's a TON of songs for that, but why not more for the "being outside" part? After all, I can guarantee that most of your time will be spent outside.


Animal Crossing Music - 2 AM

As for sounds, we have a different story. I like the way the animals talk, it sounds too funny, yet awesome at the same time. If you don't like it, you can simply turn it off. The sounds are pretty realistic as well. A tarantula rustling in the bushes sound pretty real, the water flowing is VERY realistic, the water crashing onto the beach is realistic, it's all lifelike. Bottom Line, sounds are great.


Music - 6.5/10 - Desperately needed more variety. Not bad, but needs more to it.
Sounds - 8.5/10 - Realistic, probably some of the best for the DS. Sounds even better in headphones, oh yes.

Gameplay

Let's begin with the basic controls, the main part of gameplay. The controls are all very comfortable for the player. Buttons are simple to remember. And if the buttons don't suit your needs, simply use the touch screen to navigate throughout your town. Very simple, easy, and fun.


This is someone's town theme. Just the beginning of what Animal Crossing has to offer.

Now onto the "core" gameplay as I call it, meaning the point of the game and if the overall performance of the game is good. Since you are a young person just coming out of nowhere to make friends, pay off your house, get hobbies, etc. it makes you pretty busy. The various interactions you can have with the neighbors is incredible. You can have competitions, trade items, etc. Plus, with the many holidays, there are near limitless options of what to do in the game. Not to mention the vast amount of outfits/accesories for your characters. Overall, what I just mentioned was NOTHING. There is so much more to this game, I just don't have the time to list everything that you can do. The game is basically completely customizable. COMPLETELY. The way your town ends up is completely up to you.

Now, onto Wi-Fi. Everyone likes Wi-Fi connectivity, and Animal Crossing has a great way of using this feature. With the ability to chat using a keyboard, the ability to trade items, shop in each other's towns, socialize with other town residents, etc. You can catch bugs together, fish, and much more. I mean, what more could you ask for? You can do practically anything you could do offline while on Wi-Fi. Overall, I LOVE Wi-Fi. End of story.


Wi-Fi gameplay.

Gameplay - 9/10 - Excellent. Too many activities you can participate in.

Bottom Line

9/10

So many qualities to kep you occupied for a long time. May get repetitive after a while, but you will go through that phase often. Trust me, I have.

Pros
-Features great Wi-Fi playability
-Completely customizable

Cons
-Can get repetitive
-Needs more music variety for outside of homes