Animal Crossing New Horizons And Being Blind To Nintendo’s Unfair Moves *Update*

Animal Crossing New Horizons is in no way a bad game at all, it is fun, relaxing, full of stuff to do and amid the isolation/quarantine and people needing something to do it is perfect, I’d say a solid 8/10 game. But the issue is that over the years it seems many people are blind to Nintendo’s wrong moves and often think they can do no wrong. I’m afraid that’s untrue and they can do wrong and have done wrong this time with Animal Crossing New Horizons.

One island per Nintendo Switch Console, ONE ISLAND per CONSOLE?! We live in a day and age where consoles are full of storage, meaning games don’t have to be saved on cartridges, disks, floppy disks. In the past when Animal Crossing games, Pokemon games and any other that did the same thing could only have one slot or one world with maybe one or two others joining it I completely understand that, especially on the 3DS with Animal Crossing New Leaf, it was smaller, it was saved to only a cartridge. What frustrates me here though is this move is being put onto New Horizons. One of you gets to be the resident lead, you move in, chose where the villagers live and continue the daily tasks. Player two moves in with the villagers already placed, the museum already placed, they can’t learn some of the blueprints Tom Nook will teach you because player one already did that. It makes you feel as if any other player that moves onto your island or another family member in the house that you have to share with feel like a spare part with no decision making whatsoever. I emailed Nintendo, tweeted several times, commented on videos, forums, I asked respectfully and kindly, why one island per Nintendo Switch, no answer, I wrote about how it could affect families who perhaps have siblings that argue or a couple who want separate islands and what if these people couldn’t afford two Nintendo Switches and two versions of Animal Crossing? It’s not cheap, Nintendo Switch Lites are £199, the game is £45 to £50 and original Switches are ranging from £250 to almost £400 on some sites. Why should anyone ever feel the need to buy another console just so they can play the game their way? I think this is predatory, I think it’s quite disgusting and I am very disappointed at Nintendo.

Animal Crossing New Horizon’s save data backups, what’s going on with that? Why aren’t they being clear, why won’t they put it on the cloud? People are paying a yearly fee that includes saves to the cloud but barely any of there titles use it. Are they afraid of cheating? Well hey, Animal Crossing New Horizons is mostly solo apart from visiting some islands, it’s not competitive so why the stress there? What is it with Nintendo and not being straight about this game. It’s so sad that such a lovely and wonderful title is being really used in a bad way, one island per Switch just annoys the hell out of me. I’ve played it, I’ve been player 2, I’ve looked into it completely makes you feel like a spare part and like it isn’t even your game, I thought Nintendo was the game company that made communities feel together, valued and loved, no, the practices they seem to put in place over the years seem wrong and I won’t fall for it. It’s like Pokemon games, why release two with minor differences? I love the games don’t get me wrong but I feel that the two games per generation preyed on those who wanted all the Pokemon so instead of spending £40 on one they’d have to spend £80 if they wanted to get all the Pokemon and couldn’t trade with anyone, does anyone else find that wrong?

Nintendo makes some great games for adults, kids, families, couples, you name it, they seem to knock the nail on the head and make some good games, I won’t deny that the developers are fantastic. The decision-makers though up high, why are you trying to make people pay more to fully enjoy your titles? You’ve been a great company with the games you deliver but the predatory moves in making people buy more and especially the mobile titles you’ve been bringing out full of absolutely unfair micro-transactions, or the re-releasing the same emulated titles every generation of console and making people pay again and again. I want answers, I want to respectfully talk, or receive a well thought out press-release on why these moves are made, but let’s face it, that’s not how business works, it won’t happen. I understand I’ll probably receive hate for this but I have to lay down the truth, Animal Crossing New Horizon will not get a good review from me because it makes other players in the house feel like they’re missing out.

A little update a few days later, I am still a bit disappointing by this move, and the two player local play is pretty bad due to the second player not really being able to do much but Nintendo aren’t an evil corporation, they’ve delivered some amazing titles to many over the generations. I thank them for bringing those experiences to us. I just wish sometimes they’d listen on a few aspects like for example, increase island limit, don’t start removing content and rushing, and just be different from the rest.