Jeff's New Horizons Blog

Yesterday, Gulliver was in town, and I dug up his communicator parts for him.

I then redeemed some Miles for five Nook Miles Tickets and headed to the airport. It was time to visit some mystery islands for potential villagers! Even though I do still need a snooty villager for their reactions, I decided I wasn’t going to turn down a villager I really wanted. Besides, I’m still hoping to get rid of Rizzo soon, so I could always get a snooty then.

The first island I visited was a bamboo island with Penelope. Considering I already have one mouse that makes me want to gouge my eyes out, I wasn’t interested in another.

The 2nd island was a spiral island that had Apollo on it!

I like Apollo a lot, and he was probably my favorite eagle until Keaton moved in (and grew on me) last year. And even though it wasn’t important for me to have an eagle move onto Eagle Mountain, I admit it’s a nice bonus. So I asked him to move in!

Believe it or not, I actually don’t have much experience with Apollo. He lived in one iteration of Bananas (ACCF), and I may have had him in the GameCube game at some point (but probably not for long). When I Googled my site for Apollo pics, only two screenshots came up–when he twice appeared as a camper in New Leaf. So this will be a good chance to finally get to know him better.

Today, I received my reward from Gulliver: It’s a tam-o’-shanter. So I see he’s back to sending me hats again, although this one isn’t particularly ugly as Gulliver hats go. 😛

Apollo has moved in, although he’s still in the process of unpacking. Welcome to Forest, Apollo!

There was a new Nintendo Direct today, and it included a look at the new Mario items coming up in New Horizons soon. The update will be available next week, although we can’t order the items until March 1st.

The best part about the Mario items is the warp pipe. You can place two in your town, and warp to another part of your island! Very cool! That will make a nice addition to any future obstacle courses I design. I also really like the flagpole, and I’ve been hoping to see it for a while.

I’ve already had several people ask me if I’ll be making a “Mario Plays New Horizons” video series, but I have no plans to do that. Especially since we can only have one island per Switch.

Are you all excited about the Mario items in New Horizons? Leave a comment below. And Never Stop Crossing! 🙂

Update: No Friday Night Forest this week, but I will have one next week (February 26th). That will be the last time to see my holiday movie obstacle course (except for the video, of course).

While looking at my catalog, I noticed something about the chocolate hearts and heart-shaped bouquets I got in the mail for Valentine’s Day yesterday: They’re all different! Well, mostly. Take a look:

Today is Festivale, so I bought myself a Festivale costume to go with the Festivale accessory I already had. I also bought some drinking straw glasses as an additional accessory. 😛

The first feather I spotted was a red one, and I caught it on my way over to the plaza. Pavé the peacock was there dancing, as were several of my villagers. It was quite a festive atmosphere!

When I spoke with Pavé, he told me to bring him three feathers of the same color. He also gave me a DIY recipe for a rainbow feather, which you can make from one of each of the other four colored feathers. But before I even caught any more regular feathers, I spotted and caught a rainbow feather!

When you have a rainbow feather, you can immediately exchange it for a piece of Festivale furniture (no need to collect three of them…yet). So I gave it to Pavé, and in return, he gave me a Festivale balloon lamp. That’s one of the items you can already buy at the shop, so I was a bit disappointed. But when I put it down, I saw that it’s a different color variation from the one I already have.

Each time I spoke with my villagers, they offered to trade one color of feather for another.

There does not seem to be any mini-games like there were in City Folk and New Leaf. So this version of Festivale seems simplified, but it does help the process go by quicker.

Another difference is that Pavé will accept three feathers of any color: That is a very welcome change! It was always so annoying in previous games when you needed one particular color and kept getting a different one.

I continued collecting feathers and trading them in for Festivale furniture. Each time, Pavé would do a little dance.

Of course, I made sure to say goodbye to my buddy Keaton. It was sad seeing him ready to go. I’ll miss the guy.

The search for feathers was starting to feel a bit pointless, since I wasn’t exactly thrilled with Festivale furniture (even if they are different colors). But then Pavé changed things up: He asked me to bring him three rainbow feathers for an “ultimate” Festivale reward.

It took a few minutes, but I tracked them down and took them to Pavé. He did a “Super Rainbow” dance…

His enthusiasm erupted into an explosion of light, feathers, and confetti.

He gave me the ultimate prize, a Festivale float. Good, I was getting thirsty anyway. 😛 Nah, it’s like a parade float that happens to be a giant, colorful, mechanical peacock. Not only does it light up, but the head turns back and forth and the feathers move as well. It’s a surprisingly cool item!

I decided to keep hunting feathers and trading in for more items. I didn’t get every color variation of every item, but that’s okay. There’s always next year. But I did play long enough to earn three Festivale floats.

I hope you all had a fun, festive Festivale!

Update: Here is my Festivale video:

Today is Valentine’s Day, and I was quite surprised by the volume of mail I had waiting for me in the mailbox: There were 13 new letters, twelve of which had gifts attached! The giftless letter was just my weekly HHA score, and one of the others was just a regular letter from Bones–he sent me a throwback gothic mirror.

But the other 11 were all Valentine’s Day letters, including this one from Isabelle. She included a heart-shaped bouquet.

The remaining letters were valentines from all ten of my villagers. They each sent me either a chocolate heart or the heart-shaped bouquet that Isabelle sent. I didn’t have the heart to sell them, so I put them all in storage for now.

Over on the beach, I ran into Wisp. He asked me to recover his five spirits for him.

Once I found them all and returned them to Wisp, he rewarded me with an eye mask. That’s an interesting gift; I didn’t see it coming.

After 9:00, I headed over to Logan’s town of Moonscar for his Valentine’s Day party. Alex (from Pawnee) and Nami were also there. Logan always decorates so nicely for holidays!

Before long, Jj also joined in. Lolly the cat recently moved into Logan’s town, so I had to go meet her…so that I can eventually steal her away, muhahaha! 😈

Logan also scanned in Bob from an amiibo card, so Bob was in the campsite. I’m starting to think Logan purposely gets my favorite villagers in his town just to torture me. 😛

Jj turned into a sheep, and we all started chasing her for some reason. 😛 But unfortunately, she had to leave not long after that. Logan gave us a tour of his town, and we spent quite a while vaulting over his heart-shaped pond. Then I went swimming and diving, and Nicky also came over to join in.

We ran around at town hall and eventually went back to Logan’s house. It was a bit chilly in there, though.

About 11:40, I returned home. Thanks to Logan for hosting, and thanks to everyone there for a good time! 🙂

Back in Forest, Keaton had a thought bubble above his head. He was asking about moving out of town. Keaton has grown on me quite a bit since he first moved into town, and I do like him. But it’s taking forever for Rizzo to ask about moving out, and Forest does need some fresh blood, so I decided to let Keaton go.

Now I’m wondering if I’ll keep his house plot up on Eagle Mountain, or if I’ll move it. If Keaton’s replacement is another eagle, it’ll be an easy decision. Otherwise, I’m not sure what I’ll do. Maybe I’ll just wing it.

Anyway, I posted a new video today, taking a look back at many of the conveniences that New Horizons has added to the series. New Horizons isn’t a perfect game and it’s still missing a lot of things from previous games, but I thought we could all use a reminder of how much New Horizons has brought to the table.

Tomorrow is Festivale, so I’ll be back with another blog entry then. Viva Festivale!