Nice impressions, GG.
Let me know when you want to play AC online.
A few Things I wish were in ACCF that were in the Gamecube AC
In the GC version of Animal Crossing, you arrived in your town from a train. You could also visit other peoples towns with the train as well. There was something very charming about that train. Sometimes when you where just doing your thing in town, you could hear the train whistle blow off in the distance. It was a nice touch, and was far, far better than the taxi cab or school bus in the DS and Wii versions.
The lighthouse didn't really do anything, but is was another nice asthetic which added to the town. At night, the lighthouse would flash the shore, warning any approaching ships.
You could travel to a small island if you had the GBA attached to your GC game. On the island, you had a hut and the ablitiy to grow certain fruit and stuff. The island didn't add all that much, but it was a cool extra.
I missed out on this since I got my GC Animal Crossing a couple years late, but I always thought it was a neat idea. Basically, Nintendo sold a package of trading cards in toy stores and video game shops for a couple dollars per pack. There were four series with I believe around 70 cards in each. The cards had pics of every animal in the game, and also had a bar code on the back. The bar code, when swiped through the GBA E-Reader, would give you a special item in the game. Some cards even gave free, playable NES games that couldn't be found in the game otherwise.
I really like this idea. While I'm not a big fan of collecting trading cards, I think Nintendo could've included a virtual version in ACCF. Imagine collecting/trading cards with friends online and with your town's animal residents. Showing these cards to Nook could unlock additional items that otherwise wouldn't be in the game. It would've been fun collecting them all.
Dvader said:Sweet impressions GG. So for someone that is totally new to this game it would be perfect.
Well I would have to attach a warning to a reccomendation. I love it, it was my GOTY 2005 I think. But it's just not your typical game, there is no story, no progression, nothing to beat, or fight. It's a really strange game to drop into. I suppose if you like the Harvest Moon games then I could more easily say that someone would like it. But it's a slow burn game and because of the real time calender the experience changes realtime depending on what date it is.
It's december now, so you will experience Christmas and new year, but unless you trick the internal clock, you will have to wait till October 2009 to experience Halloween, Fall 2009 to see the acorn festival and so on.
Like a review I read once, it's more like keeping a diary, checking in for half an hour every day or a few times a week to see what's happening. It's really a game for obsessive collectors. There is an inbuilt economy where you sell things, collect fruit, pay off mortgages, gamble on the stock (turnip) market. And the main thrust of the game is upgrading, acquiring money to get a bigger better house with more rooms, multiple houses and collecting the hundreds and hundreds of in game furnishings and tunes and items and decking out your pad the way you want.
The game lives and dies by its charm and there is a lot of repitition and sometimes you will play for 45 minutes and have nothing to do. But you check each day to see what's new in the shops, how you make more money etc.
I wouldn't want anyone to get a game like this and then be disappointed with it. You have to know what you are in for before stepping in. As I said, my first experience with the DS game was "WTF is this?" and because of the real time calender new stuff happened over days, weeks and months, but otherwise the actual pace of the game (if you play for a couple of hours for instance) can be perilously slow.
It's definetely for my money, super polished, intuitive, clever and charming. Definetely the best version. But it's just not something that you can say that your average Gears of War gamer would neccesarily get into. I love it though.
Okay, the only complaints I have so far are pretty minor. Firstly I am not used to having a town with hills and ridges. I want to be able to jump off a ridge or climb up a ladder to get to a level. The town is randomly generated and my town seems to have clustered some shops in awkward places in relation to where I sat my house. I could reset the town, but I don't want to lose my progress.
The Mii use is great, it really suits the game and feels like you are actually in the game running about. The virtual keyboard is bunk, it seems to use the Wii system keyboard and yet has NO predictive text wording like the real version does and seems to be a third smaller which makes it harder to write. Really it's the same as the DS version but should be better. A wireless keyboard is needed really.
Otherwise I would complain about the online features, the game is so concerned with maintaining the gameworld that it intergrates online features into the game, rather than having a simple clear menu section, you have to walk to the town hall and chat to a character, or go to the gate and interact with an NPC and go through chit chat to activate an online feature.
When you have your gate open you can't go to the city and it doesn't tell you that, just says that the bus wont be there for a while.
Lastly, this has nothing to do with the game and everything to do with my previous AC experience... I built up a massive house and a huge stash of cash and items in the DS game. I sold that game and didn't want to transfer stuff, I wanted a motive to play the game fresh.
BUT, damn, it's not great being poor again and working your way up
I put a massive Christmas tree in my house and can't fit much else in the single room and paying off the mortgage seems like a pipedream. I am doing what's best to make cash right now:1. Collecting and selling or planting fruit trees.
2. Hording cash for Sunday morning to buy some shares (turnips)
3. Monitoring the stock market each day to sell high and make big bucks.
But it's slow.
I recieved my 2nd upgrade to my house today, and it makes the room a LOT bigger!
I believe the next upgrade is a 2nd floor. Only 248,000 Bells to go!
I noticed GG had his gates open, so I dropped in unannounced (that's just the way I roll, people 
). Here's some pics:
Here's us debating whether Vader will like Animal Crossing
Here's GG and me listening to KK Slider. GG lives in the future because it was only noon in my town, but nightime in his.
GG came over to my town for a visit too:
While he was there, I caught my 1st tuna!
Here's GG on my toilet. You wouldn't believe what he left in there! 
Then GG defaced my Message Board. The jerk!
Here's the Reggae shirt and tumble weed that GG gave me.
That was fun, GG. Thanks for having me over to your town. 
Don't reveal my name Mike!
MIKE MIKE MIKE
LOL, that was my first animal crossing online experience. First I wanted to go out but Raven wasn't online so I opened my gate in case he came on later. And behold, a few minutes later he was
At first I was stupefied, AC isn't a game with tasks or where you compete so I was like..... so..... what should we do?
When someone comes to your town, it's not as fun for you because you know the town like the back of your hand. So I asked to go see RVs town. Then I suddenly realised.
The whole place was different, sure it wasn't like going from spain to africa, but the geography was different, the gate was different, the fruit tress were different, the characters and house design was even different. As were all the items in the shops. And because of world times, it was day in his place and night in mine. It really is like visiting another town with a different spin on things. I checked out his pad and had massive penis envy. Took a dump on his living room toilet, went upstairs and saw the stains on his bedsheets.
Introduced him to the local whore, Bettina who started messaging him. I went to the clothes shop and got a new T-Shirt. We swapped items. I chatted with his characters. It was great
And even though I dont have wiispeak, I could hear him talking through his. Cool. I need a wireless keyboard or something though as using the virtual keyboard induced hand cramp.
Things I noticed were that you can't go to the city via multiplayer. That KK actually plays more than one tune a night if you ask, but you can't type during a performance even though Raven could talk via wiispeak. KK only gives you one tape per saturday evening.
This morning, finding Joan the turnip seller was a pain because the world is multi-levelled and 4X bigger than Wild World.
Anyhow, this game is great and I would even consider getting Wii Speak if more people here got the game.
Ravenprose said:A few Things I wish were in ACCF that were in the Gamecube AC
In the GC version of Animal Crossing, you arrived in your town from a train. You could also visit other peoples towns with the train as well. There was something very charming about that train. Sometimes when you where just doing your thing in town, you could hear the train whistle blow off in the distance. It was a nice touch, and was far, far better than the taxi cab or school bus in the DS and Wii versions.
The lighthouse didn't really do anything, but is was another nice asthetic which added to the town. At night, the lighthouse would flash the shore, warning any approaching ships.
You could travel to a small island if you had the GBA attached to your GC game. On the island, you had a hut and the ablitiy to grow certain fruit and stuff. The island didn't add all that much, but it was a cool extra.
I missed out on this since I got my GC Animal Crossing a couple years late, but I always thought it was a neat idea. Basically, Nintendo sold a package of trading cards in toy stores and video game shops for a couple dollars per pack. There were four series with I believe around 70 cards in each. The cards had pics of every animal in the game, and also had a bar code on the back. The bar code, when swiped through the GBA E-Reader, would give you a special item in the game. Some cards even gave free, playable NES games that couldn't be found in the game otherwise.
I really like this idea. While I'm not a big fan of collecting trading cards, I think Nintendo could've included a virtual version in ACCF. Imagine collecting/trading cards with friends online and with your town's animal residents. Showing these cards to Nook could unlock additional items that otherwise wouldn't be in the game. It would've been fun collecting them all.
I missed this post before. Sorry. That train has a nice atmosphere, but it would eventually annoy me as it seems to take forever. WTF? That cat has no face 
Damn the GC version looks really good. They should have just cleaned up the cube version, added online bits and then made the city totally new and comparable size to the town area. Have you travel between the two. Instant awesomeness.
gamingeek said:Don't reveal my name Mike!
MIKE MIKE MIKE
LOL
What are you talking about, GG? I don't see your real name in any of those pics.
gamingeek said:I missed this post before. Sorry. That train has a nice atmosphere, but it would eventually annoy me as it seems to take forever. WTF? That cat has no face
Damn the GC version looks really good. They should have just cleaned up the cube version, added online bits and then made the city totally new and comparable size to the town area. Have you travel between the two. Instant awesomeness.
You never met Blanca in Wild World? I had that damn cat showed up in my town at least twice per month. She's so annoying that there was an option to disable her. 
Ravenprose said:gamingeek said:Don't reveal my name Mike!
MIKE MIKE MIKE
LOL
What are you talking about, GG? I don't see your real name in any of those pics.
You never met Blanca in Wild World? I had that damn cat showed up in my town at least twice per month. She's so annoying that there was an option to disable her
I see it on the notice board! Quick, vote down Darthomers post so it's hidden. I must remain ninjalike.
Blanca? I thought you mean Streetfighter Blanker for a minute.
gamingeek said:Ravenprose said:gamingeek said:Don't reveal my name Mike!
MIKE MIKE MIKE
LOL
What are you talking about, GG? I don't see your real name in any of those pics.
I see it on the notice board! Quick, vote down Darthomers post so it's hidden. I must remain ninjalike.
Blanca? I thought you mean Streetfighter Blanker for a minute.
I don't see it on the message board. Are you sure you aren't imagining things, GG?
LOL.
I went to the city today and it was snowing!
I finally had the cash to join Redds, I bought an ornamental tiger.
What does the auction house do? Is it only for online sales between friends? I can never see any objects in there and never seem able to put anything up.
Do the items in gracies ever change? And what days is she actually in there?
I saw a whole bunch of characters from the very beggining of Wild World in the city. They all seemed to be there at the same time, all my old buddies. Can you throw money in the fountain BTW?
So I go home and turn it on and 3 hours later I'm still playing. It has to be said for newcomers this will be a great experience from the start, for old hands you have a mixture of things. Firstly there is repition, in some ways this is like a special extended edition, super polished, the best Animal Crossing yet, without a doubt.
It's controls are perfected, everything is intuitive and easier and more accurate. All the interfaces and menus are designed intelligently. I play with just the wii remote and the has that easy, breezy vibe that Endless Ocean has for instance, even more so than the DS version where you had to hold both DS and stylus. Visually I only played the DS game so this is like next generation AC visuals to me. Everything is clear, crisp, smooth, colourful and runs well. There are a couple of indoor areas which look like they could be improved but on the whole this is glossy and works perfectly well with the rigid art style that AC has.
The main town is 4X larger than the DS game, the gradients are weird for me, DS was a flat world. You can own 4 houses in this game oppossed to 1 on DS. This is instant awesomeness as that means you can decorate 4 houses with multiple rooms. I have also seen new items in other peoples houses, so that promise is there. Lastly the City is fun and new. Too small perhaps but its a nice addition.
So far I haven't had time to check out most of the online modes, but its not as clear cut as Mario kart, everything is hidden, almost embedded into the game through text chat from 3rd party characters. It seems fiddly and restrictive where mario kart was clear, intelligent and useful. A wireless keyboard or wiispeak is essential for online play I think.
But in spite of being a great game, the best AC to date, extremely polished etc. For those who have played an AC game before there is ALOT that is familiar. For me, replacing the DS game and having this game which is 70% old 30% new with revamped visuals is a boon. But what I wanted most of all was just new stuff. It didn't have to have mario galaxy visuals or PS3 HOME connectivity. But what it could have given us was just new stuff. Instead of having it set in the same old town/gate/sea/cliff area, just set the whole game in the city, make it about city life. Have all new music, all new characters, all new items.
It just seems bizaare to me that nintendo would go to the effort of remaking everything using such familiar elements. When you do go to the city it's exciting as its all new, the music the stores, the setting. It's a huge missed opportunity to expand upon and mix up what Animal Crossing can be.
But despite missing that oppportunity in a big way, it's still a great, charming game that will have you playing everyday for months (once/if you get into it). Once I got past the boring initial tom nook trials, I was home.