Animal Crossing: New Horizons Reveal Impressions

Nintendo has finally revealed their upcoming Animal Crossing game for Nintendo Switch, subtitled New Horizons. While Nintendo didn’t show as much of the game as I had hoped, there’s still a lot to talk about.

This time, instead of moving into a town, you start out on a deserted island. By collecting raw materials, you can craft them into tools and furniture (by using Tom Nook’s workbench). The crafting aspect doesn’t really appeal to me much, but fortunately, you can also buy tools, furniture, and other things from Nook’s shop.

Timmy: Here's what we have on offer today.

One of the most shocking parts of the trailer was when the player used a stick to pole-vault across the river! That will be a very helpful ability indeed! And it just looks cool.

A human player pole vaults across the river.

That scene also reveals the return of cliffs in town! The island map seems to confirm an upper level as well.

Another great sight is the ability to place furniture outdoors! I guess this eliminates the need for public works projects, since you can just place anything outdoors anyway. This includes the placing of campfires, and tree stumps to sit on. Now you can decorate not just your house, but your yard (and more)!

Various furniture items outdoors in Animal Crossing: New Horizons on Nintendo Switch.

The player is shown using some sort of tool to make a path. It’s not known if (or how) this would work with patterns, but at least there is a proper way to make dirt paths around town. It sure beats running back and forth to wear down the grass!

An ACNH player uses a tool to make a path.

The end of the trailer showed eight players gathered, with various skin tones. Kotaku has confirmed that these skin tones will be selectable (somehow or another) and aren’t just tans from being on the island. And 8-player online games? Sounds fun, although I imagine it could be hard to keep up conversations with that many people at once! That could certainly be confusing.

The bad news is that Animal Crossing: New Horizons has officially been delayed. The good news is that it has a specific release date (March 20, 2020) and isn’t just a vague “2020” release window. It’s still over nine months away though, and that’s a hard pill to swallow. But hopefully, Nintendo will provide us with periodic updates along the way. I sure hope we don’t have to wait until early 2020 to see more of the game!

If you haven’t seen the trailer for yourself, here it is:

In addition to the trailer, Nintendo also showed about half an hour of gameplay at E3. It shows the character early on into their island life, though not the very beginning. That part remains a mystery, so we still don’t know how we’ll pick our character’s appearance, whether it’s from a menu or if it’s based on how we answer questions, like in earlier games.

I’ll now discuss a few things that were revealed in that Nintendo Treehouse session. For one thing, we can now move furniture items in half-square increments (as in Happy Home Designer), which is a welcome addition to the core series. I always hated not being able to properly center a one-square item in a room.

You can get a Nook-branded smartphone, which has features like a camera, crafting recipe lists, and the new Nook Miles program. It is said to work like airline miles, rewarding you for various tasks…including pulling weeds. Overall, it sounds like the CAT machine that was added to New Leaf in the Welcome Amiibo update.

Nook Miles in AC:NH.

The “miles” you earn can be exchanged for new items or activities, though they didn’t elaborate on exactly what the rewards would be.

You can also use the phone to call up another local player for some co-operative play. However, one of the players will be designated as the leader, or host, and the action will follow them. The leader can be changed during gameplay, though.

One other thing I want to discuss is the inventory window:

The inventory/pocket window in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

You can apparently hold 20 items in your inventory, and materials seem to stack automatically. It seems likely that fruit and bells will stack the same way. There isn’t a separate tool menu like I was hoping for, but the stacking should help keep our pockets from getting too cluttered (hopefully).

If there’s one small thing to complain about (aside from the delay), it’s the graphics. The game looks a bit plain, and I don’t think it looks any better (or sharper) than Pocket Camp, which is a mobile game! I was hoping to see graphics on par with the Animal Crossing course in Mario Kart 8.

Granted, the game is far from finished, and it could look much better by the time it’s released. And that’s just a minor complaint, from a series that hasn’t been known for its graphics anyway.

But overall, I like what I see of the game so far and I’m really looking forward to it. Very little has been shown though, and I imagine they’re saving most of the new features and juicy details for a future Nintendo Direct. But it’s good to finally get a taste of the game and to know it finally has a release date.

Once the game comes out, I will start a new blog that follows my adventures and provides near-daily updates. In the meantime, please subscribe to my Youtube channel, where I post other Animal Crossing content regularly.

And if you haven’t yet seen the Kotaku article about my Animal Crossing superfandom, please check it out!

Have any thoughts about the Animal Crossing: New Horizons reveal? Leave a comment below! Have a great day and I’ll see you next time. 🙂

BOTW #26

I returned to Kilton at the Fang and Bone shop, and he informed me that I have now defeated all four Moldugas. As a reward, he gave me a medal of honor! As far as I can tell, it’s not useful in any way…just for bragging rights, I guess. 😛

Medal of Honor: Molduga
Is that the title of a new first-person shooter?

While exploring an archipelago, I was shocked to find Kass performing his accordion up on a stone pillar! I thought had already found all of the Kass(es) in the world. Guess I was wrong!

Kass plays the accordion in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

He had an exclamation point, indicating a new quest for me. He told me the hint, and I quickly swam to the nearby area and found a hidden treasure chest that contained 300 rupees. I was hoping for a new shrine, but oh well. It’s still a side quest marked off my to-do list.

Next, I teleported to a shrine near the Tabantha Bridge Stable. When I arrived, I didn’t have to search long before I spotted a guy named Google Geggle. He pointed me in the direction of a seemingly man-made cliff that could house a shrine! And indeed, a new shrine quest opened up. However, my excitement evaporated almost immediately as the shrine quest was instantly marked complete. It’s one I had already completed, I just never got the hint for it in the first place. 😛

That made two times I thought I was about to find a new shrine, only to be shut down. But my luck was about to change. One of the people at the stable mentioned Ludfo’s Bog to the east. I didn’t remember that being an area I had explored well, so I headed there right away.

The bog has tons of large, mushroom-shaped (but flat-topped) tree-like structures. It definitely has a unique look to it.

Link walks through the bog in Zelda BOTW.

I found several new Korok seeds here. As I moved north, I reached the Thundra Plateau and triggered a clue from a mysterious voice. No doubt about it: This was a new shrine quest, at last! It started storming, so I put on my rubber suit and got to work. I figured out how to gain entrance to the shrine, and then blew up a bunch of stones inside to complete it. Shrine #115 is in the books. Just five more to go!

I continued exploring, and I was quite surprised when I walked right up to a stable that I haven’t been to before! It was Serenne Stable, and it wasn’t even hidden. It was right in the open, right along the path!

Link arrives at Serenne Stable

I was happy to see three guys that had exclamation points above their heads (indicating they had a quest for me). They were looking for leviathan bones, and they asked me to find three skeletons and draw a picture of each one. Of course, I could use my Sheikah Slate to take a photo instead, but these guys didn’t know about that type of technology. So I set off for the lands of Eldin, Hebra, and Gerudo.

First, I went to the desert, because I remembered the large skeleton there. I quickly snapped a photo, and then went up to Death Mountain (the Eldin region). I had a bit more trouble here, because the skeletons on the map weren’t the bones I needed. But after looking more closely, I found what I needed and got the picture.

The Hebra region seemed to be the toughest of all, since I saw no obvious large skeletons on the map. But I did spot some curious features on the map that I wanted to check out. One of those areas turned out to be Goflam’s secret hot spring. It’s always nice to find a new location to be added to the map, but it wasn’t what I was looking for.

Next, I decided to check out a tiny, rectangular pond that I saw on the map. It seemed suspicious, but nothing jumped out at me once I got there. I used cryonis to make an ice pillar in it, and just looked around. I found a big snowball, which I rolled on the ground. To my surprise, it rolled over my pillar and down a hill, and ultimately smashed open a large doorway to a hidden cave!

As I got close, my Sheikah sensor indicated a shrine was inside. But that wasn’t all! A giant skeleton was also in here. Double jackpot!

A leviathan skeleton in the Hebra region of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Dem bones, dem bones, dem leviathan bones.

I snapped a pic, completed the shrine, and then returned to the stable to collect my reward: 300 rupees. And more importantly, that completed a side quest off my list

After examining the map a bit more, I found two bridges between Hyrule Field and West Necluda that didn’t have names. That meant I hadn’t been there yet. So I headed there, and the first one was called Horwell Bridge.

There, I rescued a young woman named Leekah. She said she was going back to the stable…but I didn’t know of a stable nearby. That’s right, I missed another stable! I followed her to Riverside Stable. This makes me wonder how many other stables are out there that I still haven’t discovered after two years of playing?

A side quest opened up, but it was one that automatically completed (I just had to show the person a sword). I also found a guy named Gotter there, and he also had a new side quest for me: I have to find a cookbook in Hyrule Castle!

I still hadn’t beaten the game after acquiring all the memories, so that side quest gave me another reason to head to Hyrule Castle. And that’s what I did. I explored more thoroughly as I made my way up to the castle, although I didn’t find the cookbook anywhere.

One thing that I found interesting is how a guardian I defeated left its ancient gears behind in a nice, neat stack as it exploded. Like a stack of pizzas almost. Very impressive! 😀

A guardian explodes into a stacked pile of gears?

Here are my current stats:

  • Completion percentage: 49.71%
  • Shrines: 116/120
  • Korok seeds: 312/900
  • Shrine quests: 39/42
  • Side quests: 72/77
  • Hyrule Compendium: 358/385

And here is my latest Breath of the Wild video, Messing Around #5:

Anyway, I made my way to Ganon and beat the game again. Since I’ve beaten it after collecting all of Link’s memories, I got to see the “good” ending this time. I do have one final thought about the ending, but it contains a spoiler. So if you don’t want to see it, stop reading this entry now.

*SPOILER WARNING*

Okay, here is my spoiler-iffic thought about the ending. As you go through the game, you learn that each Champion (of the four divine beasts) actually died long ago and was only helping Link out in spirit form. Basically, their ghosts were helping Link.

I was fully expecting the same to be revealed about Zelda at the end, since there didn’t seem any confirmation that she still had a physical body any more. But even after seeing the good ending, that’s apparently not the case. She seems to be alive and well. I guess that’s a good thing, it’s just not what I expected. 😛

See you next time!

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Review

Link is free to explore the vast, expansive world in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. To call the game huge is an understatement. The world is colossal, easily dwarfing every other Zelda game by a wide margin. And that world is filled with many hidden things to find…shrines, Korok seeds, treasure chests, and much more.

Holding up a rock at sunrise.

#Goals

Completing shrines will be one of your first goals in the game. There are a whopping 120 of them in the game, and each one is essentially a mini-dungeon. Many of them have puzzles to be solved, some of them are combat tests, and a few even use motion controls to roll an orb around a maze (those are my least favorite).

Each shrine will yield one spirit orb upon completion, and you can trade in four spirit orbs for a new heart container or stamina vessel. Even though I preferred to stock up on heart pieces early on, I eventually discovered that stamina is more valuable. Having multiple stamina wheels allows you to climb higher, run farther, and explore easier. Fighting enemies in the overworld, for the most part, is optional. Many times, it’s better to run away…especially if you’re not stocked up on health items like food and potions.

Speaking of food, Breath of the Wild allows you to collect items you find–mushrooms, fruit, flowers, monster parts, and more–and cook them to make various dishes. Characters may tell you recipes for certain foods, and others can be learned through experimentation. Certain dishes and potions will give you abilities that last for a limited time: They may give you extra stamina, resistance to heat or cold, attack/defense boosts, and so on. Cooking up exactly what you need is very helpful ability, but it’s a tedious and time-consuming process if you’re making multiple dishes.

The first few shrines in the game give you runes, which Link can use to obtain special powers. That includes the ability to place bombs, the power of magnesis (the ability to lift and move metal items, regardless of size or weight), cryonis (the ability to make ice pillars on water), and stasis (the ability to stop time for an object and hit it repeatedly to add up its kinetic energy). These abilities are essential for completing many areas of the game, so mastering them is a necessity.

Link uses the power of magnesis to move a large metal panel.

In many ways, Breath of the Wild is not your traditional Zelda game. It’s far less linear than just about any previous Zelda game, and most things can be done in any order you wish. Instead of a traditional eight dungeons, Breath of the Wild essentially has five main dungeons: Four mechanical “Divine Beasts,” and then of course Hyrule Castle at the end of the game. And even those feel nothing like the typical dungeons you’d find in a Zelda game.

There are also dozens of side quests scattered throughout the world. But sometimes the most fun comes just from exploration and experimentation. You can use your rune abilities in creative ways, and some tasks can be completed using a variety of methods. You can sneak up on wild animals to mount and tame them, and then ride them around. That ability isn’t limited to wild horses, but also other wildlife including deer, moose, and even bears! And of course, you can also set things on fire and watch the world burn.

Sword Loser

By far, my least favorite aspect of the game is the weapon system. It starts out with a cool premise: You can pick up weapons from defeated enemies, and even use defeated skeleton’s arms to bash other baddies. The problem is that the weapons you acquire are fragile. In many cases, they won’t last more than a few minutes of fighting. You may even need multiple weapons to defeat a single enemy (and not just bosses)! So you always need to be stockpiling weapons to swap out each time one of them breaks. (The same thing applies to shields and bows).

Link's rusty broadsword breaks while trying to cut a tree down.

I originally thought that would just be a temporary problem. Surely, once I got the Master Sword, I’d be set for the rest of the game, right? Nope. While the Master Sword doesn’t break, it still runs out of “power” after a while, and it can’t be used while it recharges. So you’ll still need to swap in other weapons. It’s a bit of a pain.

Graphics & Sound

The graphics look great, as the game has some truly stunning landscapes. Sometimes I’d stop exploring just to watch a sunset, look at a rainbow, or watch a storm pass through the valley below me. The sound effects are also quite satisfying, from the rustling wind to thunder, birds singing, running water, and much more.

Towns, ranches, buildings, and other certain areas have background music playing…and it’s generally quite pleasant. But the audio isn’t perfect. When you’re out running around in the overworld, sound effects are typically all you’ll hear. Unlike virtually every other Zelda game ever made, there is no overworld theme. The lack of music for much of the game is quite a disappointment, especially when Zelda games normally have such great soundtracks.

Best of the Wild?

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is clearly not a traditional Zelda game. While I miss some of those traditional Zelda elements, Breath of the Wild is an incredible game even without them. It’s an amazingly fun game that will keep you exploring for hundreds of hours. I can confidently say that it is the best Zelda game to date, and it’s also one of the best video games ever made.

I rate The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild a strong…

10/10

Buy BOTW for Switch – Buy BOTW for Wii U

And just for fun: