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Animal Crossing: New Horizons is perhaps one of my most anticipated games of 2020 and I know I’m not alone. Ever since the Switch came out, fans of the series have been begging Nintendo for a new game. New Leaf was a fantastic game with hits depth of complexity and extreme customization options for both personal homes and the town at large.

New Horizon’s departure from the traditional Animal Crossing formula will definitely be a new, interesting way to experience it. The crafting system does have me a little bit tentative personally My first experience with crafting in games was in Stardew Valley. It was something I hated at first since it was something very foreign to me. In time, though, I did come to accept and enjoy it. I’ve still put over 150 hours into vanilla Stardew Valley on Switch despite my initial feelings. 

Other than that, I am pretty excited for the game. I’ve personally put over four hundred hours across nearly six hundred individual play sessions into New Leaf. I even own the special edition 3DS that came with the game pre-installed on it. I’m a huge fan of the series, stretching back to the original Gamecube version. I didn’t play City Folk since I didn’t have a Wii, but I’ve played every other mainline game.

One of the things I enjoyed most about New Leaf was being able to customize the town which was the main draw for it. Despite my leeriness of the new crafting system, it does seem like it’ll offer even further customization than New Leaf. 

One of my main hopes for the game is that they get rid of the stupid grass wear down. Yes, it’s a life simulator and it’s realistic for grass to wear down as people walk over it. Just because it’s a life simulator, doesn’t mean it has to be realistic. A lot of people that played New Leaf will understand the struggle of pathing to cover the grass wear. 

I seriously had to make three mule accounts just to contain all of the necessary parts to create all of the needed pathways.

Hopefully they’ll also keep the town plans in some shape, way, or form. I know a lot of players including myself really appreciated the environmental plan which keeps flowers from dying. Even after getting New Leaf, my flowers are still alive because of it.

I know there are several quality-of-life improvements that I’m really looking forward to. I’m not one to really want to change my facial features or skin tone, but there are other things that I’ll definitely enjoy.

Perhaps the biggest one will be the fact you can dictate where a new villager can move in. Any Animal Crossing veteran knows the anguish and despair that happens when an animal moves in a space you were using for some reason. This was especially bad in New Leaf where you may have things laid out perfectly but then some jerk decided it would be a great idea to move in over your hybrid garden or a foreign fruit orchard. Or they just moved into the middle of one of your pathways so you now have to spend the next twenty minutes redoing your pathing.

This jerk moved into the middle of my pear orchard.

And this one decided the middle of my pathing would be a fantastic place to move so now I have to go around his house.

The fact that they’re actually listening to the feedback of their players is so good. Animal Crossing is supposed to be a game where you sit back, relax, and not have to worry about a thing other than if you caught that fish or bug. Yeah, you have a lot of debt to pay off, but you can do it at your own pace. It’s not so much about the destination but the journey.

Even though the information is still somewhat limited at the time of writing, we have the Direct upcoming tomorrow. Hopefully it’ll give us an even better look at the game. I know I’m definitely gonna be up at nine to watch it.