When "Animal Crossing" was released on the Nintendo Gamecube in 2002, it stood out as one of the most unique games of the year. Dubbed a "communication game" by several publications, "Animal Crossing" was one of the true real-life simulators. There were no evil bosses trying to take over the world; the only thing resembling a goal was to earn bells to pay off a debt. One would do this by fishing, capturing insects or running odd jobs for your neighbors. The closest thing to a villain is the rotund, entrepreneuring raccoon who owns the local department store. The key feature, however, was the real-time element. Different events happened at different times in different days, and the game time matched the Gamecube time. "Animal Crossing" eventually became a critical darling and won several awards, including "Most Innovative Game" at the Interactive Arts & Sciences Awards.
Three years after the success that was "Animal Crossing," Nintendo finally released an expanded version for their latest handheld, the Nintendo DS. "Wild World" may have generally the same gameplay elements, but it is filled with so many additions that it dwarfs its predecessor. "AC: WW" has more items, more furniture, more insects, more fossils, more characters, more songs, and so much more to do.
One thing that has not changed is the size of your village. In fact, by eliminating all hills, it may have gotten smaller, although not by much. Your village is also different in that instead of being split up into 36 acres, it has been turned into one big entity, so you can run from one end to the other without waiting for the map to scroll a la Zelda. In addition, your village is set up as if it was on a globe. As you run up from the bottom of your town to the top, your town will appear over the horizon. The new style has its upshot in that it eliminates having to wait as you go from acre to acre, but it means it becomes much harder to find fish.
Fishing was one of the most popular activities in "Animal Crossing," but it has become much harder in "Animal Crossing: Wild World." There may be more types of fish in "AC: WW," but not only are they harder to find, they are much smarter. On the DS, the fish actively swim away from your lure or pull at the lure for 10-15 seconds before biting. Fishing may still be a major part of "AC: WW," but it is definitely not as fun as in "Animal Crossing."
"Animal Crossing" was dubbed a "communication game" because the heart of the game is interaction with your neighbors and other characters. This aspect has been retained in "AC: WW." You start out with three villagers, but can have a maximum of eight. (Neighbors will spend a day to pack if they want to move in, and they spend a day packing if they want to move out, so it is possible to prevent your favorite neighbors from moving away.) You can no longer request a favor from your villagers. Much of the interaction has become small talk about a variety of topics. The favors they ask are no longer of the "get my glasses case from Joey's house" variety, instead, they will often ask for a certain type of fish, fossil, or furniture.
Other than your neighbors, there are several more characters you can interact with. You can talk to Blathers in the Museum to donate paintings, fishes, insects and fossils, or you can talk to his sister Celeste to create your own constellations. Your town will also hold several special events, like fishing tournaments and La-Di Day. Every so often, your town will be visited by one of several nomadic characters, such as Joan the turnip salesperson, Wendell the starving artist and Dr. Shrunk the stand-up comedian/psychologist. And once again, every reset not on wi-fi mode will bring about the ever-popular mole in need of anger management classes: Mr. Resetti.
Other than interacting with villagers, you can also dedicate a lot of your time playing "AC: WW" to improving your home. You start out with a tiny shack and a debt of 19,800 bells. Each time you pay off your debt by selling everything from shells to fishes to fruits, you get an addition (either an expansion or another room) and an even larger debt. By the time you pay off your 848,000 bells, you would have four small rooms and one extremely big room, and you can use it to design your room with whatever you want.
Not only can you make modifications to your house, but you can also make modifications to yourself. You start out with a hairstyle determined by how you answer a series of questions, but if you don't like how you look, you can either get a hat or mask, or you can just get a makeover at the salon once Nook expands to his largest store.
"Animal Crossing: Wild World" is also significant in that it is the third DS game to be have wi-fi compatibility. You can go to the one of your friend's town, or let them come to yours. However, you can visit a town only after you trade friend codes with a friend. (You get a friend code by talking to Copper in the town gates and connecting to wi-fi.) This can be a bit of a bother, but there are certain places where people share their friend codes online. You can only have 40 friend codes at max, but with four characters, you can have up to 120 codes.
But when you're connected via wi-fi, it becomes extremely easy to find villagers. Usually they're wandering around your town and you'd have to scramble everywhere to find them, but when somebody is visiting, they will always be in their house, so you'll never have to run around. It's also easy to get missing fruit or an item you need: All you have to do is jump to another town, make the trade, and return to your village with your new item.
Another limitation is that there can only be four people in a town at once. This isn't a problem if you restrict yourself to people you know in real life. And certain things cannot be done when you're connected via wi-fi. For example, you cannot drink Hot Coffee or donate to the museum, and you can't work together to catch a bee because they never appear during wi-fi play. So I've found that most of the time, wi-fi sessions usually end up with everybody standing around fishing or chatting with the awkward AC text. And there are a lot of errors that prevents somebody from connecting, and there are occasional disconnections that erase everything accomplished since the last save.
One dubious aspect about "Animal Crossing" was its graphics. The graphics weren't bad per se, but they were decidedly simple. Graphics in "Wild World" are approximately the same. However, the game excels in its aural aspects. The sound effects are based primarily on the town tune that you can change, so when you talk to characters, they whistle the town tune, the town square bell tolls in the town tune and, when you go in and out of a house, the town tune plays.
And then there is the music. In "Animal Crossing," you would hear different background music at every hour. Nintendo kept this aspect, but with 24 different tunes. And the ever-popular K.K. Slider makes a glorious return with his popular set of songs that you can take home to your tape decks. Not only does he still have the 55 songs he played in the Gamecube predecessor, but he comes with 15 songs exclusive to "Wild World" for a grand total of 70 songs. These songs cover a whole variety of genres and are great to listen to in their original forms or in "bootlegs" that he gives you.
"Animal Crossing: Wild World" follows in the path of "Animal Crossing" by making everyday chores surprisingly addictive. It may be lacking in innovation, but it makes up for that by giving you many objectives. That said, this may not be enough to convert those that didn't like "Animal Crossing." And the game may eventually become tedious. Even so, "AC: WW" is one of the most unique experiences on the Nintendo DS.
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