An Honest Review of Animal Crossing

Nick Woodford
3 min readJan 23, 2021

Animal Crossing New Horizons was released on the Nintendo Switch last March and was timed perfectly against the first UK wide lockdown (it’s almost like they planned it).

The game’s premise is you move onto a deserted island and work with a capitalist racoon who makes you save up money to develop your island into a resort to attract more people, who, in turn, will bring more money to the island — sounds fun right!

With sleepless nights spent wondering if I’d built my house in the right location, to setting my alarm early to get in a good hour of fruit picking before work, to staying up to the early hours trying to spot shooting stars — it’s safe to say this game had me well and truly addicted.

One important thing to note is that the game plays out in real-time, which is where the addictiveness comes from. It’s not enough to just save up enough money to pay for an upgrade or a new building. Once you’ve done this, you have to wait for the following day for the upgrade to happen (yes an actual day). It’s incredibly frustrating, yet in a world where most games reward you instantaneously, it is also incredibly rewarding.

Once you’ve worked through the game and unlocked all the main buildings and upgrades, it still keeps you coming back as everything in the game is designed to keep you playing. From seasonal events and items — yes, I did spend most of my New Years, Christmas and Halloween on this game — to collecting all the different fish, fossils and bugs (which appear at various times of the year), to achievements which reward you for consistent play - this game is horrendously addictive!

Is this a bad thing, though? For me, it has made the regular stream of lockdowns entertaining and many, like me, have used it as a form of escapism for the monotonous Groundhog Day that never seems to end.

As an outsider, you could quite easily watch someone playing the game and wonder what on earth they see in it. To my wife’s dismay, I’ve probably spent more time growing and picking fruit on my island over the past year than I have done watching Netflix — and I watch a lot of Netflix.

I’m not going to reveal how many hours I’ve spent on this game, but it’s definitely been time well spent. I can now identify countless species of fish, insects and dinosaurs, have built up a keen eye for interior design, and have learnt to accept people from all walks of life, even if we have differing opinions — there’s a very annoying chipmunk that lives on my island.

If you need a distraction until this dreaded pandemic comes to an end, then I would wholeheartedly recommend this game. However, if you have an addictive personality, need a lot of sleep, or want to use the spare time you have to do something more worthwhile (although I’m currently struggling to imagine what that could be), then this is the game for you!

For more info, a longer much more boring review can be found here, enjoy!

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Nick Woodford
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London based writer using Medium to dish out honest reviews.