I’ve always said that Fandom and Entertainment can work to not only take our minds off of difficult situations but they can even take us to new places entirely. As such, I have to tell you of one of the most perfect games I’ve played in a while and that’s Animal Crossing : New Horizons.
For those of you who don’t know about Animal Crossing then let me give you a quick explanation. It’s basically a life simulator similar to The Sims only it’s inhabited with a large number of anthropomorphic animals. The primary one of which is Tom Nook. He’s a Raccoon who started Nook Inc. and is typically working on different Business Ventures. In this one, he’s trying to building up deserted islands to be great new places to live/visit. You arrive and he gives you a tent and some tasks to pay off your loan and help build up the Island. You’ll do this by Fishing, Building things on your workbench and just by doing random odd jobs and collecting things for other people.
Now, recently we did a podcast where we discussed a movie and described it as Perfect. Perfect might seem like a strong for some of us but why? To me, something is perfect if it nails the quality of what it’s trying to accomplish. So, is Animal Crossing the perfect FPS Shooter? Obviously not, but it is perfect in the sense that it is peaceful. It doesn’t have hard hitting music to push you through each checkpoint, it doesn’t have hundreds of enemies coming at you to vanquish and even it’s goals are moreso up to the player as a whole. Go, have fun and occasionally work towards something and you might get something out of it. Maybe it’s Nook Miles or Bells, which are the two currencies of the game, maybe it’s a new item for your island or maybe it’s just satisfaction that something looks neat. I spent the first few days of playing getting my garden the way I liked it…then I heard about Hybrid Flowers and now I’m replanting all over again. Was I frustrated that I have to redo my Flowers? No, in fact, I enjoyed learning about something else that I could do.
The game lets you play how you want. You wanna grind out on some resource collecting and get all of your buildings done in a few days? Go ahead! You wanna take your time and focus on how pretty your flowers are going to look? Then that’s how the game is played by you. In the absence of true objectives and goals you gain this peace and freedom that Nintendo is giving you with this game. I could prattle on about how the music is a perfect blend of the traditional 16-Bit and modern styles of Video Game music or about how the visuals are both exceptionally detailed and yet whimsical enough to seem accessible to anyone but instead, I’m just going to say that if, in these troubled times, you need something to relax with then there’s a Nook Miles Ticket waiting for you.
