These changes were facilitated by your delightful doggy assistant Isabelle, a tireless public servant on hand to take care of the day-to-day office tasks while you go about your important mayoral duties like beach-combing, fishing, shaking trees and bothering bees. Rather than start you off under the yoke of Tom Nook, New Leaf made you mayor of the town and gave you municipal power to mould the place to your liking like never before. Release Date: 9th Jun 2013 ( USA) / 14th Jun 2013 ( UK/EU)Īnimal Crossing: New Leaf took everything from its handheld predecessor and polished it to the Nth degree. Shocking, then, that there's another entry (two, in fact) we'd rather play.
Subsequent entries might have polished its systems and sanded off Wild World's rough edges, but the magic of the series shone brightly on DS and when someone mentions Animal Crossing, it's the title theme of this game which pops into our mind. With intuitive use of the touch screen and the day-night cycle reflected in the sky permanently visible on the top screen, this is where many people began their love affair with the series. Portability made the world accessible in a whole new way and opened up its joys to the masses who embraced the Nintendo DS. Having your village with you on-the-go made a world of difference to many players and enabled you to check turnip prices in bed, water your plants on your way to work, or make sure your favourite animal friend wasn't packing their bags on your lunch break. Taking the base foundation and adding sweet, sweet portability, Animal Crossing: Wild World was the perfect game on the perfect platform. Release Date: 5th Dec 2005 ( USA) / 31st Mar 2006 ( UK/EU)
We've added spin-offs in the list below but haven't included apps like Wii U's Animal Crossing Plaza or DSi's clock and calculator, nor have we included the delightful Animal Crossing content in games like Nintendo Land, Super Smash Bros. We understand that, but we still want to celebrate the series with one of our All Time lists. Therefore, you can appreciate that putting together a ranked list of Animal Crossing games is tough and, perhaps more than any other, your personal ranking may be vastly different to the one below. You don't play Animal Crossing like you do other games - you live with it, almost like a person.Īnd just like people, the newer ones might be quicker off the mark or more attractive, but that doesn't overwrite our treasured memories with the old 'uns. Each entry invariably brings quality of life improvements over the previous one, but the basic premise of starting a new life surrounded by friendly animal citizens remains unchanged since Dōbutsu no Mori (or 'Animal Forest') on Nintendo 64 in Japan nearly 20 years ago. Which Animal Crossing game is the best, then? The fact that these games embed themselves in your life makes that a very tough question indeed. Consequently, it etches itself into your brain remembering your first Animal Crossing will likely bring to mind non-gaming memories and milestones, too. Nintendo's serene life sim series has a habit of becoming a part of your daily routine like doing your teeth or walking the dog. Since launching back in March, it seems like half the planet has been enjoying Animal Crossing: New Horizons at some time or other.