Animal Crossing: City Folk

It's about time we rated this game: after all, our picture features us dressed as Booker and Copper, two characters from it!

Game: Animal Crossing, City Folk (Wii)

Rating: 7.5/10

Overall, this is a pretty sweet game. However, we feel that Nintendo could have done better. Aside from the addition of a small city, the game is pretty much a graphically improved copy of their previous installment, Animal Crossing: Wild World.

Basically, you acquire a small house in a woodsy town (which you get to name, along with your character). You are the only human living there, and the rest of the villagers are intelligent, human-speaking animals. A raccoon called Tom Nook runs the housing industry- and all the shopping except clothes- in the town. So, since you have no money to pay for the house, you owe him a debt. First, he makes you work in his shop. The jobs he has you do basically introduce you to the basic features of the game, such as sending mail to villagers, as well as delivering goods, which lets you get to know the townspeople a bit. after that, you're on your own. You can earn bells, the currency of the town, by doing many things, such as running errands for villagers; selling fruit, items, and the bugs and fish you catch; or using the 'Stalk market', or turnip trade (you can buy turnips on Sunday for a price, then sell them to nook on the weekdays and Saturdays, for prices that change by the day- sometimes, you lose money, sometimes there's a spike and you earn lots of money, sometimes you just break even). Once your initial debt is paid, your house is upgraded (you have no choice in this), and you owe Nook more, until you have reached the highest possible house size. you an also collect furniture for the house, grow hybrid flowers (pansies, roses, cosmos, tulips), play games with villagers, and design your own outfits (the Able Sisters help you with this, or you can buy their own clothes sets), and collect fossils, paintings, fish, and bugs to complete your museum, among other things. Special Characters also visit the town sometimes, and there are special events such as fishing tournaments. Holidays are there, too, but they vary depending on the country you live in (or, which country you bought the game in, to be more exact). It's very cool, and addicting! except, these things are all in Wild world, for the DS, making it kind of a disappointment that they didn't add more things.

One new thing that was added was the City. you can take a bus there. it has more shops, including one for designer clothes, a shady shop you can buy paintings and high priced goods from, a hairdresser, a fortune teller, and a shoe-polishing skunk (you get the color of your shoes changed). There's also a theatre where you can get emotions to use, a nice addition. There are other things, too. However, there's too little change there. Most events can be predicted, and the shops change inventory much slower than the shop in the town, which change everyday.

Another new thing is that up to three fiends can visit your town over wifi, and there's a cool thing called wiispeak that you can use to talk to them. that can be a lot of fun.

Overall, Animal Crossing: City Folk is a great game, but there is much to be desired, such as more of a variation from Wild World.

Of course, if you've never played Wild World, we're sure you'll absolutely love City Folk! It's just the prior fans of Animal Crossing that will be unhappy.