Going with a long-standing (okay, since I got married) Behrens family tradition, we opened a Christmas gift early last night, and started up Animal Crossing: City Folk. The intent was to smooth over a stressful day with the idyllic setting of Animal Crossing's fabled woodlands. Alas... it was not to be.
Moving in was, to say the least, excruciatingly painful. I don't think it's exaggerating to say that it was the worst first hour-odd with a game we've ever had in our household. It was simple enough to get our characters brought in from our copies of Animal Crossing: Wild World, but then it became clear that someone at Nintendo hated us as each one of us—my wife, myself, and my daughter—found ourselves running errands for freakin' Tom Nook yet again as if we were complete and utter newbies. Mixing in the fact that we were each tying up the TV and Wii while it was being done sailed the insult right past injury—and handing us starter homes with their 4x4 grids moved it into a serious case of assault.
So why am I doing this to myself, my family, you ask? Well, despite being the same software, we'll play it a little differently this time around. My nieces and nephews may end up with the game down the road, something we didn't have last time. My young daughter seems to be immune to the pain I mentioned above. And, you know, it is something we can play together in a way we haven't done with the series ever, living together in the same town. And maybe I might enjoy not being obsessive for once, just chillin' and letting the kid fill the museum while I just garden or something.
For now, though, that atrocity of an opening has soured me so much that I am more than content to leave the thing to my daughter for several days. No matter how many little touches they may have added, there was no better way to reinforce that this was the same game with a new coat of paint than the way it treated us right at the outset.
So why am I doing this to myself, my family, you ask? Well, despite being the same software, we'll play it a little differently this time around. My nieces and nephews may end up with the game down the road, something we didn't have last time. My young daughter seems to be immune to the pain I mentioned above. And, you know, it is something we can play together in a way we haven't done with the series ever, living together in the same town. And maybe I might enjoy not being obsessive for once, just chillin' and letting the kid fill the museum while I just garden or something.
For now, though, that atrocity of an opening has soured me so much that I am more than content to leave the thing to my daughter for several days. No matter how many little touches they may have added, there was no better way to reinforce that this was the same game with a new coat of paint than the way it treated us right at the outset.