Animal Crossing III

While animal resident interaction benefitted greatly from at least a textual upgrade in Wild World, there's so much more that can be done.

Start off by actually having the animals move and do things when they say they are going to. If you're having a fishing competition with a resident, they should actually go off and try to catch fish out of the river or ocean, then run up and interrupt you when they win. It doesn't even need to be a competition; just have them follow you around and fish along with you. Same goes for hunting for bugs and the like; turn it into an experience that really feels like you are going off with one of your friends, rather than just dropping by an NPC for a quest.

And for some feedback, introduce that thing that all the cool kids are doing: give the animals their own web diaries. Using the computer back at your house, you can check up on everyone's entries, see photos of things they found memorable, see how they're getting along with their own neighbors. Maybe you'll catch one grousing about your tree-chopping habits... Write your own entries (with screenshots for photos), and share them with both other human residents of your town as well as your friends online.

One key problem with animal interaction as it stands is that everyone is your friend, right out of the box, and if you want to make them more your friend, you just robotically give them gifts. Oh, sure, there are varying degrees of how much you're loved, but if you wanted to really play some residents up and others down, it's not reflected in the conversations you have with them. The depth of this needs to be expanded greatly.


For starters, through the magic of conversation and mean-spirited discourse, you can really make a resident's life enough of a living hell that he not only packs up and leaves but vandalizes the town gate on the way out—or you could simply settle for playing animals against each other for kicks. Also, one thing I tried repeatedly in Wild World was to convince animals to move out by sending them offensive presents, such as trash I pulled up out of the river. It didn't work; I just got low-value gifts in return and presumably an increased friendship level for thinking of them. Animal residents should, after they get to know you, have certain expectations. Abusing them by sending them mismatched furniture or the aforementioned trash should result in less love for you, not more.

Also pretty played-out is simply the notion of asking an animal what's up and waiting for him to just give you a random thing to do or talk about. A far better option: let the player ask the animal if he's interested in something. Offer something for sale, offer a gift, ask them to deliver packages for you—generally turn the tables on the whole thing. Expand on the preferences hinted at in Wild World; have animals seeking to complete sets of furniture or what not and have them offer money or friendship accordingly for bringing them the right gift.

Finally, and Wild World dipped its toes into this a bit, but it wasn't anywhere near enough: the animals' own social network could use a beef-up. That's great that Nana doesn't really care much for Apollo, but it doesn't really affect you in the least; you can happily be friends with both provided you do the requisite tasks. Why not make it so Apollo gradually starts to despise you as your friendship with Nana grows, and the other residents' opinion of you adjusts accordingly?


Must you always be a good guy? Perhaps not, if we get our way. The original Animal Crossing hinted that you could nudge others' furniture in Nook's opening speech, but you really didn't have any options there. In the new Animal Crossing game, you should be able to rearrange others' furniture at will—if you're willing to pay the price in reduced friendship, of course.

And while we're at it, perhaps it's a good idea to have the animals actually care about the gardens they plant, to the point where they'll call the cops on you if you routinely steal their flowers to breed your own. Maybe some forms of harassment (pushing residents into pitalls, trapping them with rocks, etc.) could even land you a night in the clinker.

Of course, law enforcement has its perks as well. If you spot a visitor doing something you don't like, call the cops and get his sorry ass hauled out.


The massive collect-a-thon is what keeps a lot of Animal Crossing players going: working a little bit every day, for months or even years, to achieve that 100% completion. There are a number of things Animal Crossing on Wii can do to make that more fun.

For starters, expand the museum. Drastically. It doesn't really matter if it falls outside a museum's traditional purview or not—if it's collectible, show it off. Have halls of furniture where sets and series can be shown off. Add botanical gardens where the various rare flowers that have grown in a town are kept and kept alive. Create a series of concert halls full of gyroids that visitors can set off to make their own cacophonous symphonies.


Sometimes finding that last piece can be an absolute chore, so Nook should help out by offering a gift registry service, linked of course via the NookNet to your friends' towns. If you're seeking something, your friends can find out about it and keep a lookout, and your town residents can send it your way if they come across it as well (if they like you enough, of course.) Speaking of those animals, why shouldn't they be contributors to the museum as well?


We also had some other things we thought of were just too good to pass up, even if they don't fit any particular theme.

• Equippable fish. Bring the famous IRC trout-slap into the world of Animal Crossing as you swing your fresh (or perhaps not-so-fresh) catch at your friends and your enemies.
• Bring back the ball, but this time make it an inventory item that you can drop for a game anytime. It goes without saying that the ball needs to be usable by all the visitors to your town as well, of course.
• Themed towns, to inspire a sense of uniqueness amongst all the towns you may visit on your Wi-Fi travels.

While it is true Animal Crossing Wii has a lot to prove, it doesn't need to do everything here to be a good game. A handful of these items—or some direction Nintendo would like to take the game in that we would never have dreamed of—would be more than enough to make the sequel a winner. The one thing they really can't do is rest on their laurels. Well, perhaps they can, if Wild World's Japanese sales are anything to go by... but we sure hope they don't. The series really needs to stay fresh to keep its fans around for a long time to come.

Got your own ideas for what Animal Crossing III would be like? Drop on by the N-Sider Forums and have your own say.