How Animal Crossing Ate My Soul

Many, many years ago, I was introduced to a little game called Animal Crossing.  I played it for hours on my little purple Gamecube, and then lost interest.  I wonder how that town is doing now, if it's suffered the fate of the many ghost towns that exist in the settled world.  But I will never know, for in addition to losing interest in the game, I actually lost the game itself.

Enter a new age.  An age of animals if you will.  And also a new leaf, as that's part of the title of this game.  When the title was released for the 3DS, I had to be one of the first to get my grubby little paws on it.  That was about four months ago.

And the truth is that currently I hate Animal Crossing.

Obviously I play it every day.  Only because I feel that I have to.

In the original Animal Crossing, and subsequent titles, you started your game in indentured servitude to Tom Nook.  And you finished your game in debt to Tom Nook, because of home expansions, and because he owns every business in town.  Such a greedy little raccoon this Tom Nook character is!

In Animal Crossing: New Leaf, your indentured servitude is not to Tom Nook anymore.  No!  This time it is to the entire town, because somehow you are the mayor.  Honestly, I do not remember running for mayor in this game, or being elected into office, so why I am mayor I do not know.  What I do know is I do not get to live the life of my all-time favourite mayor, Richard M. Daley.  And Tom Nook still holds a monopoly on this towns' businesses, so one still ends up in debt to him for all eternity!  I'm pretty sure in addition to the home building business and his shop, he owns all of the high street as well.  And Re-tail!  And the Bank of Nintendo!  Tom Nook is a sly businessraccoon, and I hope to learn his secret someday.   

A big part of being mayor is approving public works projects.  The animals in my town will propose them constantly, and when I ask my secretary how the town is doing, I am always told that more projects need to be built.  In a way this is fun; it makes the town somewhat customisable, and every time you finish a project, there is a ceremony with fanfare and those little popper thingies that shoot confetti everywhere, and some of the projects are really cool.  But since most projects are up to what animals propose for you, you might get stuck with a listing of really lame public works projects to choose from.  That parabolic antenna?  Sorry, Rosie, but it's ugly as sin and I don't want it in my town.  The stadium light?  No, Axel, that will just keep everyone up all night.  But the hot spring... the hot spring is fabulous, and I'm glad I let that go through.  And funded it nearly entirely on my own, as your constituents will contribute barely anything to all the projects that they so desperately want.

They also want trees and greenery.  Not weeds though.  So one has to log on every day in order to pull the weeds that upset everyone, and water flowers.  If a flower goes a day without watering, it will die!  And if there are too many weeds, a much bigger, uglier, stinkier flower will sprout up and devour everyone.

I may just let that happen though.  Pokemon X is on its way in the mail, so it might be time for me to move on from the sleepy little town of Camp.  Or maybe not.  Maybe I can continue to strive for perfect town status, as that sort of validation would make me feel good.