Animal Crossing New Horizons Review, Gameplay Videos, Multiplayer Impressions

There's nothing quite like Animal Crossing.

Longtime fans of the series have known this since the early 2000s. And a new release was always going to bring some of the same day-to-day goodness for all types of players.  

The question with Animal Crossing New Horizons was always how far the series would leap. Its long-awaited debut on the Nintendo Switch was preceded by revolutionary offerings from Zelda, Mario, Fire Emblem and Luigi's Mansion series, to name a few. 

Rest assured, Animal Crossing gets the same treatment. Long-requested upgrades to the experience and some bold new wrinkles wrapped up in the jump from handheld gaming to the Switch itself means Animal Crossing joins the list of beloved series hitting an apex on Nintendo Switch.  

Graphics and Gameplay

Visually speaking, Animal Crossing on Switch was always going to be the best in the series. Its predecessors inhabited consoles like Gamecube before dominating the mobile gaming scene. 

And yet, even knowing an incredible visual upgrade was coming, it's hard not to be impressed. New Horizons is vibrant, detailed and a sheer joy at any moment. A final shift to HD for the series has a rather breathtaking effect on things. Characters are fuzzy in a way reminiscent of Yoshi's Crafted World, and the work put into the environments really creates a welcoming vibe. 

Longtime players will notice the little improvements besides the general graphics bump. It's all about the details: clouds cast shadows overhead, trees blow in the wind, the player character has a good shadow over the water, raindrops on the water look better than ever. 

Attention to detail extends to inside places, too. It used to be generally accepted that items within a house, for example, couldn't do much on the interaction front. That's no longer the case, and it's fun to see which items have more interactivity than in the past—and what new items can do. 

And Animal Crossing is all about new items. 

The gameplay remains basic but finds itself wrapped in smart systems to keep it engaging for young children right up through adults. Simple button presses pick up or drop items, cast a fishing line, dig a hole, swing a net or talk, for example. It follows the real-world clock and calendar faithfully, only making its companionship to real life more engaging.

And it's all as relaxing as ever. It's not meant to be precision-based or stressful. The hardest things to get are trying to aim the slingshot at a gift tied to a balloon or waiting for a fish to bite on the bait. 

Which isn't to say gameplay hasn't evolved and modernized in must-know ways.

One of the biggest upgrades to gameplay? The ability to place furniture and items outside. It sounds so basic in the head-smacking "why wasn't this part of the series already?" sort of sense. But instead of the village's look being restricted to RNG like in past games, players can now customize all of the outside locales with the seemingly endless number of items available to them. 

Not that in-house management didn't get a gameplay upgrade, either. Past games were clunky with this, as the player character had to interact with objects to move them around and spin them. The sound effect of an impossible move is probably still heard in nightmares of series fans. 

But no more. There's a separate room-arranging tool players can pop into at any time now with a top-down view. Moving things around, rotating them and making it all fit is a breeze and another one of those quality-of-life upgrades that makes this a shockingly good return for the series. 

Similarly, there's no more trying on clothes and seeing what they look like. There is now a full-fledged character customization screen that lets players swap out tons of different looks before actually putting them on in the game. 

These smart upgrades are all longtime players really wanted. Evolving with the times was important. Those players will be happy to hear the streamlined nature extends to general inventory. It's no longer a pain to juggle a bunch of items. Fruits, resources and even seashells now stack while only taking up one inventory space. And much of what a player needs sits smartly packed into the smartphone, which includes access to the photo-taking app, the encyclopedia, all crafting recipes and even a rescue service (a smart inclusion in case players manage to get stuck).

Other general quality-of-life things to speed up the experience are spread throughout. When exiting a shop, the player no longer has to get interrupted with the shopkeeper saying goodbye. Said goodbye is now just a speech bubble above the NPC's head.  

The streamlining is good, but inventory slickness is even better because it's all about collecting. The player character has debts to pay and things to earn from resources found throughout the island and through various merchants. Bells are still the main form of currency, and players will be in debt up to their eyeballs with house upgrades, but in the good Animal Crossing way.  

Elsewhere on the collections front, Nook Miles are another core gameplay loop that borders on addicting. Consider it another form of currency players can earn. Players have a pocketbook full of achievements and milestones that reward these Miles. There are also daily challenges players can keep cycling through. They end up permitting the player to purchase upgrades (think, more inventory space), travel and more. 

It was a little concerning to hear Animal Crossing was throwing in more forms of earnable currency into the mix alongside Bells and otherwise. But the way this is pulled off only means more daily things to do and constant year-round engagement. 

The gameplay systems all complement each other. Grinding out resources for crafting isn't really a grind because it fits into the general Animal Crossing gameplay loop. Players who go out of their way to find the money rock each day by striking rocks with a shovel will drop a ton of rock-based resources. Those who shake trees looking for furniture will get branches; those who hit them with an axe will get the types of wood. 

It's a similar story for finding crafting recipes. Some are purchasable, others are gameplay unlocks, or wash up on the beach, or come up in a general interaction, etc. 

Painting broadly, much of this is what players had always envisioned Animal Crossing's gameplay would evolve into, and it's still not even close to being overwhelming or a turnoff for first-time players. The at-any-pace approach and smart layered systems boasts the broadest possible appeal.

Story, Multiplayer and More

New Horizons starts slower than past games in the series. 

Players can't just access the entire island right away. Tom Nook hasn't even set up his shop. There's nothing but a few tents scattered throughout the accessible parts of the island. 

But it's all somehow paced perfectly. 

Who would've thought staggering revelations usually taken for granted and gradually unlocking items and abilities to see the entire island would've been such a welcome shakeup to the series?

There are some minor annoyances with the opening pace, though. Inventory size is limited and requires players to upgrade. That gets messy when, say, the museum is shuttered for a day or two until the new building gets created. 

But again, the pacing is sort of perfect. It's a whole different vibe from the other games where the player arrives and is some sort of outsider intruding on a little village's daily life. This is the player arriving with a few close friends and building everything from scratch—it feels like the essence of Animal Crossing. 

Not only are players building everything from scratch with more control than ever, the measured pace works to make sure players keep waking up each day excited to see what might happen next. Has a new store opened? What items are available? What is the weather like and how does it impact the available wildlife? Any special visitors in town? That general excitement for the day-to-day is overlapped by the non-stop Nook Miles grind for those who want to grind silly amounts.

This game just feels a little more alive than past entries in the series, truly flexing the technology available. Villagers try to catch bugs and fish, stick to paths, show up at events and stores and seek the player out for conversations. Some plop down under trees or on rocks and others chase each other. While Blathers is always sleeping away in the museum, Tom Nook is popping open a book and clapping like crazy when you've put together your zillionth flimsy axe. 

It isn't all rosy, though. Some players might be turned off by the seemingly Zelda-inspired tool durability idea. Flimsy items are just that and break after a certain amount of usage. It's a minor annoyance that eventually lessens, but it strains the early gameplay loop because it feels like a bit of an overstep on the time-gating front. 

There's also—and this requires a big so far disclaimer—not a whole lot going on in the way of special events. It's only March at time of release, of course. But we haven't seen a ton of special types, like Crazy Redd visiting towns, and we can't know how future events, like holiday celebrations, will play out. Nintendo promises big events and the usual holiday flair for the islands, and it's hard to imagine these won't be fun, all-out affairs based on past games, but it's worth noting. 

A special note goes to the museum, which is absolutely staggering. If there is one event or locale that offers major encouragement for what's to come in special events and holidays, it is the reimagined, massive museum that so wildly dwarfs its predecessors it's hard not to laugh. If that same upgrade pass occurs with all eventual buildings and events, the series has really outdone itself in ways hard to describe.

As always, Animal Crossing is better with friends.  

Multiplayer connections are still comically behind the times, or at least feel that way. Someone arriving in to visit a village stops everyone on the island in their tracks. Generally, connection times aren't great, either. There's also a friends list within the game to juggle atop the Switch friend list itself. And just hoping someone has their island gates open instead of just hopping around whenever someone is online still feels a little old-school. 

Are those annoyances game-breaking? Not even close. Animal Crossing is still better experienced with friends. They can swap non-native fruits, items, designs, see what stores have for sale and play the all-important turnip market, just to name a few things. It's a hangout, not a game with set game modes, but leave it to this series to have a unique take on social interaction and engagement. 

Local multiplayer is easy to set up and only needs single Joy-Cons. Multiple Switch systems need to be pretty close, but it's a breeze to invite others and get things going. 

A new player might find New Horizons daunting at first. But besides straight-up asking Tom Nook what to do, generally following the Nook Miles program fuels progression. Heck, just playing and having a good time fuels progression. 

What's nice is "progression" can mean so many different things for each individual player. And New Horizons feels like it was crafted with as many different types of players in mind as possible.

Conclusion

Animal Crossing faithful are going to be blown away.  

There's nothing like Animal Crossing, and New Horizons really leans into the idea. A creative-minded player could spend all of their time in the design suite before sharing their ideas with the world, rarely touching anything else. A collector could scrounge the world for the rarest of fish, bugs and other goodies without so much as putting a line on a blank shirt. Some players will use online to hang out with friends. Others will spend their time engrossed in changing the lay of the land. 

New Horizons is built like a game about to keep players coming back for a decade. Besides the seasonal nature and promise of events and updates, the incredibly creative community now has access to the most creation tools in series history. Come to the island for the daily excitement of the unknown, stay for crafting out long-term plans and seeing what the community does with designs—from shirts to every inch of island.

A highly customizable experience managing to absolutely blow its past editions out of the water while standing firmly on its own in the gaming market, New Horizons isn't just a 2020 Game of the Year contender, it might be the best game available on Switch and is bound to perform like it.