Animal Crossing Wild World (DS)

Gamecow’s Price	RRP $69.95     Save $6.95 $63.00
Availability
Genre	Role Playing Game
Platform	Nintendo DS
Release Date	08/12/2007
Rated

Animal Crossing Wild World (DS) Product Information

Move into a living, breathing world inside the Nintendo DS...and then invite your friends to visit from anywhere on earth using the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.

Make your own stories. You and up to three friends move into a village and just live life, extend a home, interact with your neighbours, go shopping and explore the village.

Move into a town, buy a house and then do whatever you want. Time and seasons pass as they do in the real world, so there will always be something unpredictable happening. Collect or buy more than 1,500 items, talk to neighbours, go fishing, catch bugs, dig up treasure or hang out with human friends.

In this sequel to the wildly popular Nintendo GameCube game, you and up to three friends can hang out in the same village and interact in real time - either through wireless LAN or over Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. Now you can visit a friend's village from thousands of miles away.

The touch screen makes item management and world navigation a breeze. Typing letters and designing patterns are now just stylus strokes away.
Days and seasons pass in real time, so whether players want to decorate their homes, catch bugs or fish, collect brand-new items like hats and sunglasses or just chat with the wild and wacky characters in their villages, there's always something to do.

Much of the cast of the original Animal Crossing returns, including animals of all shapes and personality types: K.K. Slider, Tom Nook, Blathers, Mr. Resetti and more. There are also a number of new characters.  New to this game is the fact that all the neighbours have hobbies, so helping them collect fish, bugs or other things will become a fun pastime.

 Tap the touch screen to type letters, use items, draw designs for clothing or wallpaper, drag clothing or items onto characters, interact with characters or objects or just lead them around the world. You can hang out in real time with up to three friends by connecting locally or by using Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. You can also can put your DS into Sleep Mode and it will trade messages with nearby Animal Crossing: Wild World players.

Animal Crossing Wild World (DS) Review

Much like the original, the premise of Animal Crossing: Wild World is that you, a young adventurous human, is moving to a new town. Once arriving to your new town you're greeted by who seems to be a nice fellow, Tom Nook. The little raccoon is nice enough to set-up a new house for you to stay in, despite having no funds. But it isn't that easy, you soon become Tom Nook's little slave and are indebted to him until you pay off your debts. This is where Animal Crossing: Wild World begins, and pretty much introduces you into what you'll be doing for most of the game. You'll begin by doing a few errands for Tom, such as planting trees and flowers, as well as getting to know your local community by delivering items to them, which are often exchanged for money or other useful goodies. And these are the basics of Animal Crossing.

You'll enter your virtual world everyday running around doing all sorts of little tasks to earn money, items or even respect from your townspeople. While this may seem like a very narrow concept, and one to grow tiresome quickly, you couldn't be more wrong. Like the GameCube version, Animal Crossing: Wild World allows gamers to do a lot more activities through the day outside of collecting money. You can catch bugs, fish, listen to K.K. Slider play some tunes, and participate in local events such as Fishing Tournaments, or other festive events such as Christmas and New Years. And that's where the fun begins.

Outside of the Animal Crossing events are the game's seasons. Although these are, unfortunately, done to correspond with the American seasons, it is great to have an ever-changing climate in the world you live in. Your town will be sweep over in snow, while in other seasons the leaves of your trees will begin to fall. There are certain events and items that can only be unlocked during these seasons also. For example, there are often snowballs on the ground during winter that you can roll-up to form a snowman. In doing so will result in the snowman sending you a rare snowman item of furniture that you can put in your home. These are great items to acquire and allow you to set-up your home in the festive spirit.

One of the original's most charming features was that its humour was irresistible, and much of the same can be said about Animal Crossing: Wild World. The townspeople have their own personalities, which differed each of the characters in the town greatly. There may be some characters who absolutely adore catching bugs and will always ask you if you would like to race to catch a certain bug, or perhaps another will be obsessed with fashion and will try anything on at least once. The community within your world is one of the strong points of the games appeal. There are a number of fascinating creatures that you'll come across throughout the game and this is what makes coming back to form bonds with these townspeople that much more rewarding.

What's there not to love about Animal Crossing: Wild World? The game still maintains its excellent presentation and gameplay, the game is still insanely addictive, and let's face it, who doesn't want Animal Crossing portable? The main issues with the game, though, is that the game fails to optimise on the features it had available to it. No real strong use of the DS hardware (only a few neat ideas here and there), no more NES games to unlock, and it's disappointing that the interaction with some of the items you acquire is somewhat lacking.

The multiplayer is done exceptionally well, and makes the game that much more fun. The game has a lot of appeal for life simulator fans, and will no doubt make the fans of the GameCube version very happy.

Full review PALGN