Chances are, we’ll end up seeing the next Animal Crossing for the Wii U. I don’t expect it to be too far off (unless they’d be saving it for the new 3DS or another portable) and after random chatter during one of my streams, we started talking about what we would want to see in the next installment of the game. While there are games that I feel need new installments and others that I feel can do much better with just new DLC (Disney Magical World is a good example of the latter), Animal Crossing is a game where I feel it could use a new installment, but with a transfer feature.
In a similar note, if Pokemon keeps the customizeable trainers (something I am STILL hoping or in ORAS so so so so much), I think a transfer option would be good for it too. Your trainer goes to a new region, keeps said Pokedex progress and badges and essentially can earn more–kind of like Ash in the Anime. Obviously, this would have some dialogue changes (or maybe just from the Professor anyway) which would probably be the biggest issue, but I think it’d still be a neat feature. Regardless, this article isn’t about Pokemon so I’ll end that train of thought there for now.
Going back to Animal Crossing, Wild World had a bit of a transfer feature, but your character just moved on so you only kept your appearance. Considering you’re the Mayor of this game, transferring would be hard unless you ditched your mayoral duties. I think it’d be neat if transferring meant your town became a bigger version of itself and more or less was a giant expansion versus a new game.
That said, onto the list:
- A Bigger town. As mentioned above, I’d love to be able to increase my town. I worked really hard on it and really adore it, but the limits (30 Public Works for example) can be really frustrating. I really wish bridges didn’t count. Plus the option to have more villagers.
- An actual land editor. That’s one of the main things I really feel Animal Crossing doesn’t have right now (The others being able to design skirts, pants, socks, and shoes). I think it’d be great if we could apply patterns and place things in an overview and move stuff around. Maybe even set ramps and how cliffs are, change the beach around… Just in general, make our towns even more unique.
- Being able to actually place our villager’s houses. Even if the above never happens, I’d love if when a new villager popped up, Nook would show up at your door and be like “Hey, NAME is moving in. Do you want to place their house?” and you can be like “Yeah, sure!” Or “Let them choose” and if you pick the latter, it’s random, but if you pick the former it’s like when you place your house. I don’t feel it’d be too hard to implement.
- Choose how many villagers you can have in your village. I’m sure there will still be a minimum and a max (5 or 6 as a minimum and 12-15 as a max seems like a good number to me?), but I know some people like smaller towns.
- The campsite can also be used by our villagers. I think it’d be neat if they decided they randomly felt like camping out. I mean, your villagers could randomly do an Igloo in the first game, so why not?
- Have some options when it comes to moving. I wish you could either turn moving off altogether or set it individually (more so the latter than the former) so that if you really like a villager and want them to stay forever, THEY CAN. You don’t have to worry about your ultra favorite villager leaving. Many of the villagers I have in my game are villagers I’ve had in every game they’ve been in. And I’ve never had the amount of moving prompts before this game. Most people feel the increased amount is due to the fact that the main way to get pictures is through them leaving even though you can get them through tasks as well, but whatever the reasoning is… it’s really frustrating.
- Be able to have multiple laws/ordinances. I would think the price would go up for each you add, but I feel being able to add more (and having more to choose from in general) could really help make towns more unique.
- A bigger item limit. I always loved how the Gamecube game didn’t have an item limit. New Leaf thankfully increased from the 20 item limit of Wild World and City Folk, but if you went and put up a lot of Wall items, that item limit suddenly doesn’t feel so big anymore.
- Beautiful Town ordinance also includes flower immunity from running through flowers. Sometimes people get carried away–I’m guilty of it too. This would just save so many issues and considering flowers aren’t supposed to wilt with this ordinance, it’d be nice if it also made them immune to being destroyed from running like on the island minigame.
- The ability to go back and forth between the 3DS. This isn’t too unusual–there are other games that have done it and I think it’d be neat if you could play the game normally at home and then switch when going out. Maybe you wouldn’t be able to do everything or it’d be a more comprised version of your town, but I just think it’d be a lot of fun and give the best of both worlds.
- If Badges return (and I hope they do), I’d love to see a counter built into them or a counter somewhere to keep track. A large reason I am having so much trouble with what I have left is there’s no real way to know how close I am or how much I have left. I think this would help a lot in not just knowing how close you are, but knowing when to expect Phineas as well.
And that’s it for now :) If I think of more, I’ll add them, but I think that’s good enough for now.