It’s kind of crazy that we’re finally at the launch. I’ve been so excited to play and it’s nice for it to be happening finally. I will be streaming Twitch every day barring any issues and then uploading to Youtube after. This page will also continuously be updated to keep a general track of my progress.
Twitch Collection | Youtube Playlist
It’s hard to believe that the game is finally here after so long. It’s such a nice break from everything going on, honestly, and I’m really happy that I’ve been enjoying it despite my apprehensions with the crafting system. I will say there are still some issues, but none of it changes how much fun I had– I do think it’s going to test a lot of people’s patience though.
It started off meeting Timmy and Tommy at the airport to check in, picking our map, and creating my character. I’ve said it before, but while it has grown on me, I was a bit disappointed by how limited the starting options were.
Considering some of the big features were having so many options and being able to change whenever, I really expected it to be more like Pocket Camp or Happy Home Designer and not through unlocking a handful of things. The ponytail especially is used on a handful of things and yet it wasn’t even a starter one either T~T
Though, honestly, I think my least favorite part of this was the outfit. Normally, the outfit I got with the eyes I usually ended up getting (which I have kept even now out of habit) I really liked and this was just… not my style in the slightest.
Regardless, despite my issues with character creation, I feel like I got pretty lucky with nearly everything else. I ended up getting a map I really like:
The red airport along with Mira and Teddy as my villagers:
And cherries for my fruit:
Red was one of the ones I wanted most, Cherries were one of the 3 options I was hoping for (AND it’s pink on my passport which was the only reason I was hoping for Peaches more), and Teddy is actually one of the only Jock villagers I really like (though, the new sheep, Dom, seems cool too). Mira is also one of the few Uchi I’m fond of. I don’t know if they will stick around or not just yet, but I will admit the opening sure made me attached to them.
After setting up my own tent, I made sure to help them with theirs.
I sadly didn’t have any waterfalls in sight, but it works for now and to be honest, I’ll probably have to move every single building at some point.
Despite that, the bonfire party was a really sweet bonding experience and really warmed my heart, honestly.
It was a group effort to name and all of us shouted out different ideas.
Pink Sea was voted in unanimously in the end though.
And thus, my villager got to add “Resident Representative” to her long resume of things she has done.
We then toasted some fresh cherry smoothies to celebrate. (Why… have I never had a cherry smoothie?? I need to.)
With some final chatter and last gifts from Nook, it was time to head to bed.
And that finished up the tutorial day– aka Day 0. After a very odd dream of K.K. Slider talking to us, we finally hit the next day.
Tom Nook ends up waking us up to give us our Nook Phone and tell us about what we owe him.
Of course, I have no bells to my name and thus, Nook comes up with a solution with the Nook Mileage Program.
With that, we’re free to finally get moving and one thing I was surprised about was I already had Mail. Three letters from Nintendo, apparently.
I also updated my Passport. I love that Cherries are a pink stamp, as is my zodiac sign.
We then got a DIY Crash Course directly from Nook so we could finally craft stuff (also I ditched my blue plaid shirt).
Mira and Teddy were quite nice. Mira gave me a new recipe to make an umbrella while Teddy ended up giving me a new hat.
I then started bugging Tom Nook for some tasks while working towards the 5,000 Nook Miles I had to reach to pay off my current loan and get an upgrade to a house. There were a handful of Nook Miles items I wanted outside of the 5,000 needed and I needed to earn 98,000 bells for the next house upgrade so I began a routine that had me almost constantly going around the perimeter of the small area of my Island I was on.
Once I had paid off my initial 5,000 bells and gave Nook 5 creatures to convince Blathers to come, there was really nothing to do except wait until tomorrow… but I like preparing so I went kind of hard on it.
And that was all I really needed to prepare even more. Just because the museum didn’t exist yet didn’t mean I should sell all my stuff. Now that we were able to put items outside, I used that to my advantage and put the first item of each outside my tent.
I also bought the Pro Designer planner for a nicer dress until I could actually get some official clothing and the Pocket Organizer for more inventory space. I know there has to be another one (probably when the tent upgrades into Town Hall), but it really can’t come soon enough.
I also got the Tool Ring, which I’m still having trouble fully getting used to (also why can’t it keep our tools in it versus taking up inventory space??), the Pop Hairstyle Pack for my ponytail, and a few random accessories. I bought a Nook Miles Ticket as well, even though I couldn’t use it yet as all Airport functions were closed down for the first day. It still looked pretty nice despite being “closed” though.
I played somewhere between 10-11 hours on Day 1 doing all these goals. My tools broke over 50 times. If I had to say my biggest complaints with the game, it’s the breaking of tools (for Flimsy, fine, whatever, but anything beyond that is unneeded and even then, not all materials can constantly be gotten), some of the excessive rarity for certain materials for recipes, and most of all, the brick walls.
Animal Crossing has always been a game that you played to relax and go at your own pace. But you run out of things to do within an hour or two of Day 1 at MOST. You can’t visit friends. You can only wander around in circles in the same starting area you have until things have progressed further. It feels really slow and while I could more or less deal with it because I enjoy having moments to prepare, I know that isn’t the common idea. To make matters worse, the regular versions of the crafting items barely feel worth it with how annoying iron ore is to get versus shaking trees for some branched to repeatedly make the Flimsy tools.
I never time traveled to get ahead, but there’s a lot of reasons people did and making it so things need to be patched in (I generally fell out of interest with Splatoon to the point where I stopped checking in relatively quickly– I don’t want that to happen here and I don’t MIND finishing a game. One big update is fine, but constant little ones that are anything beyond a monthly free item get annoying to me) just feels like furthering that waiting progress.
I think what frustrates me the most is that you’re locked to such a small amount of your island at first. My first part is already so cluttered and even once I can jump across, I’d be too worried about it breaking to WANT to put things over there. I will have to move every single facility already, I can’t even try to imagine what I want to do because I have so little to work with right now and it’ll be a long while before I get to that point.
There’s still a lot I want to do and I think right now my big goal, besides trying to keep up with loans to pay them off the next day immediately, is trying to get all the bugs and fish that will be leaving when this month ends. Unfortunately, not everything matches up with New Leaf so I feel a bit overwhelmed when it comes down to it.
Among all the craziness, I ended up getting stung by a wasp twice and fainting… But it unlocked a new Nook Mile card so it wasn’t all bad. Teddy, meanwhile, seeing my face ended up teaching me how to make medicine with my DIY staton and thus, I was healed back up very quickly.
The Villagers are kind of weird in this game. I’ve never really gotten a task to help them out and everything feels so quiet in a way. They also react a lot more personally to things, but at the same time, Teddy had no reaction to my character appearing back after his suggestion. It’s honestly a bit crazy how random it can be.
I still haven’t fully figured out how DIY stuff unlocks. I actually ended up unlocking more trash recipes after finding so much. Sadly forgot to screenshot it though.
I will say I don’t feel all the controls are always explained well. I still haven’t figured out a better way to organize my inventory as an example beyond dropping and picking things back up. And how long it ended up taking me to get a Sling slot because I missed the R second page and thus, missed out on so many of them. I did, however, get a pretty cute closet and some nice boots from recycling the ones I fished up.
While I did miss out on so many, the ones I have gotten have been all over the place, having become a lot more random. I did, however, get these super cute boots which went nicely with my recolored pattern dress.
I think my only complaint with the dress is I wish it could have the poofed shoulders with some long sleeves like the Lolita dresses have.
Regardless, all that was left was the hair and while I had gotten the mirror from a DIY Recipe in a bottle, I was an Iron Ore short :( Thankfully, due to the lovely balloon gifts, I got dropped off a package of ore and thus, had my ponytail hair.
I REALLY hope more hairstyles get added in updates. I would love to see a ponytail version of the wavy hairstyles so much.