It’s almost difficult to be critical of a franchise like Animal Crossing. After all, this is a series specifically designed to help you decompress. Animal Crossing is a palette cleanser not just to the violence ingrained in the medium, but for more involved gameplay loops. All the same, wholesome premises are not exempt for criticism and New Horizons has some glaring flaws.
For as much good as New Horizons brings to the franchise– a decent crafting system, more customization than ever, a deeper gameplay loop– Nintendo have gone out of their way to remove content that’s been staple to the series– arguably even iconic– for years now. While New Horizons is without a doubt one of the best games in the franchise, Animal Crossing’s latest getaway can be an exercise in irritation.
10 Even The Best Tools Break
On paper, New Horizons’ durability system isn’t a particularly bad idea, nor is it new for the franchise. Keep in mind that Animal Crossing has had durability tied to axes in the past. The difference here, however, is of course the fact that tools break constantly in New Horizons, flimsy ones especially.
While upgrading to the next tier does lengthen tool durability quite a bit, they still break. There are even reports of gold tools breaking (although there has yet to be any explicit confirmation.) Either way, the fact even good tools can break is something that ends up rather frustrating when it’s time to craft yet another fishing rod.
9 Long Loading Screens
There was a time where loading screens were getting shorter and shorter, but now they’re longer than ever. Granted, that’s mainly because loading is so infrequent these days– with a good chunk of said loading front loaded– but New Horizons manages to strike that unfortunate balance of long load times with a fair bit of loading.
This is especially the game for anyone with poor internet connection, but even stable online play can result in quite a bit of lag and some stalled loading times. For a game that’s meant to be relaxing, New Horizons should be a smooth playthrough at all times. As is, something as simple as redeeming a Nook Miles Ticket eats up too much time.
8 The Time Travel Glitch – ‘S New Home
This is a recently observed glitch that seems to be tied directly to time travel, specifically in regards to new villagers moving into your town. Some players online have reported seeing new homes in construction with their resident’s name on the front of the plot, (i.e. Villager’s New Home,) only to time travel and find the sign replaced with “ ‘s New Home.”
Allegedly, no other villagers can move in if this glitch occurs. As New Horizons presented itself as one of the most time travel friendly games in the series (with seemingly next to no penalties,) this glitch might end up catching a few players off guard if Nintendo doesn’t patch the issue soon.
7 The Shop Isn’t Actually Open 24/7
Arguably one of the biggest contributions worth getting excited about in the lead-in to New Horizons’ release was the fact that the shop was now seemingly open 24/7. Upon starting the game, this is indeed the case. Players are allowed to visit the shop whenever they want, with it adjusting to their schedule instead of the other way around.
But then it stops. Once the shop has been upgraded a single time, Nook’s Cranny will now start closing at 10 p.m. It can be argued that the 24/7 shop was only for tutorial purposes, but the fact it’s given to players and then removed is downright foolish. Why let someone get accustomed to a set schedule only to potentially pull the rug from under them? It’s worse than bad game design, it’s dumb game design.
6 How Long It Takes To Unlock Everything
On one hand, it’s important to consider the carefully gameplay loop Animal Crossing creates for itself– one dictated around the philosophy of taking one’s time and living in the moment. With that in mind, it’s only fair that New Horizons pace itself as slowly as its predecessors. Unfortunately, not only can it be quite slow if you don’t know what you’re doing, most of the best content is locked a few hours in.
The better crafting system, deeper house customization, player customization– these are all features unlocked only after sinking some real time into New Horizons. And we do mean real time. Anyone playing blind better be patient.
5 The Fact Music Is Withheld
On the subject of withholding gameplay features until later into the game, what in the world is the deal with New Horizons with holding back the franchise’s staple music system until you’ve upgraded your island considerably? Instead of hourly music, players will be stuck with the exact same tune for hours.
The only way to actually access music the way it was intended to be listened to is to play through the game and keep filling out the island. It’s a nice idea in theory, but this really cripples the atmosphere in the opening hours. While the novelty of unlocking music is cool, the fact of the matter is that it shouldn’t be an unlockable in the first place.
4 The Painful Lack Of Series Furniture
Beyond a day to day social/life simulator, Animal Crossing is an excellent home decorating simulator. This is arguably the draw to the franchise for many fans, and it’s not hard to see why. For as long as Animal Crossing has been around, the games have featured sets of furniture to collect all themes around one another.
Series furniture gave Animal Crossing heart, and allows decorators to theme their homes accordingly while also striving for something to collect or own. Tragically, series furniture has been entirely removed from New Horizons for seemingly no reason whatsoever. One step forward, three steps back.
3 How Is Diving Not A Mechanic?
Despite the fact that New Horizons positions itself as something of the “ultimate” Animal Crossing game– taking at least one staple or unique mechanics from each of its predecessors– it picks and chooses which mechanics to incorporate at random as evidenced by the fact diving of all things does not return.
Introduced in New Leaf, diving allowed players to swim and– as one might expect– dive into the water. This added a nice layer of depth to the gameplay loop, encouraging actual exploration. Mystery Island Tours arguably embody this concept outright, but there’s no good reason why diving couldn’t have also been implemented.
2 The Final House Upgrade Is Smaller Than New Leaf’s
New Horizons might seem like the next best thing for Animal Crossing– the biggest, best entry to date– but it debatably drops the balls where it counts most: your house. In New Leaf, players could not just expand the size of their rooms, but end up with the largest home in the franchise. You’d think New Horizons would one up its predecessor, but that’s not quite the case.
Not only can rooms not be upgraded in size this time around (making decorating in New Horizons physically tighter than in New Leaf,) there aren’t as many room upgrades, ultimately resulting in players ending up with a smaller home than they would on the 3DS. That said, NH’s final home is cheaper by a good deal as an accommodation.
1 Same System Multiplayer Is An Absolute Joke
It’s always been difficult for two players to share the same Animal Crossing file, but it’s never been impossible or outright terrible. The GameCube, the DS, and the Wii all made it simple enough for more than one person to inhabit the same town and co-exist in peace. For the most part. New Horizons decides this is no good, however, and more or less butchers the same system multiplayer.
Whoever’s the island representative essentially gets to do everything important. Not just that, it’s impossible to make your own island on the same Switch console even if you use a different profile. It is as infuriating as it is moronic, a business practice blatantly rooted in a greed meant to push more Switch sales.