Animal Crossing: Wild World on DS (2006)

Average rating: 66%

from 549 members

8 Members' reviews

Certificate:
User collections:	My Nintendo DS Collection (past & present), My games
Developers:	NINTENDO
Format:	DS
Number of players:	1-4
Released:	07/07/2007

Brief synopsis of Animal Crossing: Wild World

Animal Crossing: Wild World for DS, the handheld sequel to the popular GameCube game, is a true Nintendo original. Move into a living, breathing world inside your Nintendo DS and then invite your friends to visit from anywhere on earth.

The game concept is so simple and addictive, it could only have been developed by Nintendo. You move into a village and just live life, extend a home, interact with your neighbours and explore the village. Its pure escapism and its simply wonderful.

Days and seasons pass in real-time and you can basically do what you like. You might want to go fishing, go shopping for a nice hat or one of the other 1,500 items you can buy or just chew the fat with some of the other crazy characters in your village. Its the Little Computer People concept taken to the 'nth degree.

Manage items and navigate the world around you using the touch screen. You also use the intuitive touch screen control to type letters, draw designs for clothing or wallpaper, drag clothing or items onto characters, and interact with other characters.

Speaking of the other characters, much of the cast of the original Animal Crossing returns, including animals of all shapes and personality types: K.K. Slider, Tom Nook, Blathers, Mr. Resetti and more. There are also a number of new characters, and also new is the fact that all your neighbours have hobbies, so helping them collect fish, bugs or other things will soon be taking up a LOT of your time!

You and up to three friends can hang out in the same village and interact in real time through wireless LAN or your Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. With Animal Crossing: Wild World, you can now visit a friend's village from thousands of miles away, which really is an astounding development in online community gameplay.

After you visit another town, one of the characters in the town you visited might move to their town, or a character from your town might move to the town you visited. You might also find some 'bottle mail' washed ashore, which is simply a bottle containing a letter written by someone in another town. Or you could see constellations created by someone visiting your town in the night sky. ACWW really is a magical gaming experience.

Screenshots

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Members' Reviews

Reviews Voted Most Helpful

* * * This review contains spoilers * * *

Possibly the best DS game out there

whoopeedoos from Halifax [Highly rated reviewer] , 14/07/2008

Well, this is going to be one of those games which many people just 'don't get' - and the reviews so far bear that out.

When my little one was first buying a DS, a lady came up to us in the shop, and recommended we bought this game straight away. She told us how she had only just traded it in as she had played it now right the way through the year.

It's hard to describe this game - certainly without it sounding like something to run away screaming from....'a dolls house simulator' some have called it!

Frankly, it's a 'non-game game'. You move into this cutsie village inhabited by animals (But cute in a Japanese style), you take out a mortgage on your 'house', and need to do jobs to earn to pay off this mortgage. Soon as you have completed jobs in the employment of the same guy (Or raccoon) who gave you your mortgage (which cleverly introduce you to how to play the game - talk to neighbours, deliver a parcel etc), then the game opens up.

You can go fishing, and sell your catch - or put them in tanks in your house, or donate them to the town museum. Plant trees and harvest the fruit - visit other people's villages if anyone you know has a copy of the game (And I know where kids have sat at a party with their DS's, and they've all been fishing in one of their villages, visiting together. All sorts of activities, collect fossils.

There isn't an object to the game, it's all about making friends with the animals - who come and go, move in, move out.

A big charm to the game is how it works in real time. The shop and town hall shuts at the same time in the real world, the sun sets, different bugs come out, different fish - some resident animals only come strolling in the evening. As winter comes, snow falls and you get a covering, in autumn, the trees turn brown etc.

Animal Crossing is one of those 'games' which it's expected you won't spend hours on, but dip in for 20 minutes every other day maybe. Soon though, you like many other adults I've chatted to on games forums, you may become addicted. You'll turn the DS on to see if you have mail, go visiting a new resident.

It's not for everyone, but it has charm in bucketloads. I seriously know adults - sane ones, honest - who are big fans of this.

All I can say is to give it a go - but you need really to finish the first few tasks and get your initial mortgage paid so you can really expand, sell things you find etc.