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Nintendo LifeFor much of this year, Nintendo’s latest entry in Animal Crossing series has been a safe space for many Switch owners who have started new lives on the deserted island of Tom Nook. Today marks exactly 15 years since the brilliant DS arrived in North America, so now is the perfect time to revisit this feature – originally released in May of this year – where we return to our old village. Wild World after a decade of absence …
Was it Jack Reacher or someone else who said “never go back”? We forget, but when it comes to video games, nostalgic travel can be a disappointment. Some gems hold up wonderfully, while others are irreparably tarnished by Mother Time and Father Progress and may not live up to your precious memories. Old games, which are fondly remembered, can also be tied to people and places from your past that gambling alone cannot replicate. It is better to leave some things alone; Gone but not forgotten.
Our last few weeks have been busy playing Animal Crossing: New horizons. We made our home on Tom Nook Island, meeting new villagers and smiling ear to ear when we see familiar faces. We were lucky enough to reunite with several villagers that we knew, and reuniting with old friends was a big part of the experience.
Yet our memories of Animal Crossing: Wild World (the Nintendo DS entry and this writer’s first encounter with Nintendo’s series of quiet life simulations) are clouded with nostalgia. Our time with the game in 2007-2008 was intense – an 18 month period where we played the game every day – and he left a lasting affection, but the details are hazy now.
For several reasons, we haven’t launched the game since, so in the interest of “ science ” and finding out how the 15-year-old version of Animal Crossing compares to the lovely and shiny New Horizons, we have decided to finally revisit our old playground. We wanted to refresh our failing memory, catch up with (very) old friends and see how the old place held up after more than a decade of neglect. Still, we couldn’t shake the feeling that going back might be a mistake.
Only one way to find out.
Old friends
We turned on our DSi – an upgrade from the white DS Lite we originally played on – and heard this calming and charming theme again before being presented with our bedroom:
The first thing to address was the elephant in the room, or more accurately, the ex in the bedroom. The top floor of our house has two beds, one of which belongs to someone we haven’t seen or spoken to for a long time. In all honesty this is the main reason we have never been back before.
Time tends to mask the cracks, however, and a lot has happened in the years since. We can now jump over the mental barrier that had previously blocked our curiosity to revisit the game. It’s sobering, it’s a little melancholy, but it’s well.
In the weeds
As the village loads up, we prepare for the worst. Remember in Ocarina when Link comes out of the Temple of Time to find the ruined market town of Hyrule with Redead growling in the square? In our mind, this is what awaits us.
However, when the village finally loads up, we walk out of our front door to find a rather cheerful ruin. It is very early in the morning and we are greeted by cloudless blue skies and the light 6am melody (soon followed by 7am) which makes everything seem less hopeless.
As expected, weeds spread over Dibly from cliff to cliff. Nature has taken over the city and it reminds us of heading to our local park recently after two months of COVID-19 shutdown. The flowers are mostly gone except for a few dried pansies which crumble to dust when we walk through them, but our tough golden roses remain. Rotten acorns cover the ground (leftovers from a fall festival, if memory serves) but the trees are laden with fruit and a bright blue sky makes us imagine a return to full time; a small side project far from our desert island on Switch to get Dibly back in shape after a decade of absence.
Our mailbox is booming and we have two letters: one from the Happy Room Academy (74,249 points – not bad!) And a second from the Post Office informing us of the 99,999 Bells interest earned while we were away. Zoink!
Where are we? When are we?
The first thing that jumps out after returning to this 15 year old game is the framerate; silky, it is not. Go from 30 fps to anything is shocking, at least at first. We’re getting acclimatized soon, though – it’s somewhere in the 20 fps region, which seems endless, but for this type of game it’s fully usable.
The exact geography of Dibly is hazy in our minds (it’s been a while), so we display our map – easily accessible using the stylus on the touchscreen. From a control standpoint, Wild World is always a joy and while you can play using the buttons, we’re fully tactile.
A list of names showing residents’ homes on the map immediately fills us with joy, and a bit of confusion. Faithful favorites like Aurora and Twiggy – one of our earliest and favorite residents – are unforgettable, but who the hell is “Mallory”? I had to move here just before I left the place.
By closing the map we are about to start exploring the village when we spy on the movement …
Meetings
Aurora, who just happened to settle on our island in New Horizons, is out fishing. She doesn’t recognize us, but after exchanging jokes it’s like we’ve never been gone. She wants us to run for a crayfish, but we turn down her offer and feel bad afterwards.
Dora is another resident who is also on our New Horizons Island, so we head to her house and find all of her things in cardboard boxes ready to move. We persuade her to stay, even though we don’t know why. Dora well, but until we saw her again, we had actually forgotten that we had ever met her. Animal Crossing has always done a great job of making you feel bad for running away from the characters, so our guilt must have come forward and kept it from leaving. We know that social engineering of your population is standard practice, but it has always felt a bit fascist to our tastes.
Oh, we’re not beyond leaving poop-like fossils outside Curlos’ house and saying yes when he asks if moving is a good idea, but we won’t hand him over. to resident services simply because he is arrogant and inconsiderate. , thoughtless sheep! We should really get to get along with these guys.
We soon catch up with Ribbot and Twiggy, although the other villagers are still sleeping. Unfortunately, the town hall notice board is up to date with recent posts. We missed La-Di-Dah day earlier this month, apparently. And Yay Day before that – too many events to count.
Pelly gives harsh comments on the absolute state of the city before meeting Saharah who asks us to deliver a package to Blathers. What luck! We were just going in that direction.
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