Many Pokemon fans are currently returning to the Galar Region thanks to the recent release of Pokemon Sword and Shield's Isle of Armor DLC expansion. However, one Reddit user by the name of jetwei has instead been living back in 1999, as they've spent the last month or so recreating the National Park from Pokemon Gold and Silver in the sandbox world of Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
The Redditor uploaded their creation to the r/AnimalCrossing subreddit yesterday having sewn together a collage of screenshots to create as accurate a comparison image to the original locale as possible. They received such a positive response to their creation, which has been in development since May 29, that earlier today they posted a video of themselves walking through their New Horizons version of the National Park set to the original game's music.
In the comments of their post, jetwei says the hardest parts about their project was elevating the entire second level and getting the fountain island to be properly centered. From here they hope to exchange the red-and-white flowers with more of a rainbow garden of hybrid flowers, change out the colors of the two extra Pokeballs in each corner to correspond with different seasons, and possibly even invite other players over for mock bug-catching contests.
Walkthrough of my almost to-scale Pokemon Gold/Silver Johto National Park (Bug-Catching Contest) (turn on volume for some nostalgia, I set it to the original soundtrack) from AnimalCrossing
The bug catching contests are arguably what helped the original National Park in Gold and Silver stand out in the first place, as they were one of the ways the Pokemon series first experimented with hosting events on different calendar dates, and it allowed players to find rare Bug-types like Scyther. Bug catching is a common and lucrative activity in Animal Crossing as well, and the first official Bug-Off in New Horizons will be held on Saturday, June 27.
While the original Pokemon Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow are typically the games milked for nostalgic purposes, lots of long-time Pokemon fans love the Johto Region from Generation 2 as well. In fact, another Animal Crossing player has recreated the entirety of Pokemon Gold and Silver using special design tiles in the past.
That's not the least of the Pokemon-related content being produced in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Designs have been pulled from all over the series' history, with some players going much further than just one locale like the National Park through massive builds such as terraforming the entire Sinnoh map from Pokemon Diamond and Pearl.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available now on Nintendo Switch.