With the game less than 2 weeks away now, I’ve had a few people asking me how I can be so excited and while I’ve made a couple of articles talking about features that excited me, I really wanted to talk more about what makes Happy Home Designer special specially to me and why I feel it could be my favorite Animal Crossing game ever.
Now, if this isn’t your first time here, you probably know I adore Animal Crossing. I even a full blog for it. The game has been very special to me for many reasons, from fun experiences with family and friends to just such a fun customization experience with adorable characters and seeing the games continue to improve. While I wasn’t always happy with every installment (City Folk having the same item limit as Wild World with a smaller house will always baffle me and we’ve spoken enough about how New Leaf’s moving mechanic was beyond broken), I still had fun with them. The thing about Happy Home Designer though is most of my favorite features of the game are still in it without the “stress” component.
I don’t play too many real time games. In fact, off the top of my head I can only think of two–Animal Crossing and the first Style Savvy (and the third will be included in this if it ever comes over). Disney Magical World is also included in this to an extent, but with how long events lasted and how few things really were time dependent, I find it closer to what Style Savvy 2 had with months changing. I like putting a lot of time into my games, but I’ve never been fond of time traveling and despite what some people think, checking in every day actually isn’t that easy sometimes.
Customization is generally my favorite part of any game. I love decorating and designing and making things and it’s something that I just am not able to do much in real life so whenever I get so much creative freedom and can actually do something with things that I really enjoy makes me incredibly happy. It’s that exact reason why when stats are paired with customization (Such as in Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon), I get so upset because I can’t continue to play and have a good time because it’s just continued failure unless I don’t choose the customizations I really enjoy.
Happy Home Designer focuses so incredibly much on the idea of customization and while I do miss some staple Animal Crossing features (such as the museum–I really did enjoy collecting all the fish and bugs) and all the other NPCs (thank you, Amiibo cards), the fact that it focuses exactly on my favorite part of the game is just incredibly exciting. I do wish there were a few more exterior appearances for buildings (afterall, three buildings share the same selection and there is really only one I like best for each–it’d have been neat if they just had the styles and you could pick the colors separately) and am still worried about the item limitations, but it’s hard not to just think of how much you can do.
And even if customization isn’t so much your thing, seeing the Animals interact with everything so much more is great. It’ll also be nice having all my favorite villagers and being able to visit them in their house whenever I’d like without worrying that they will go away forever.
I really hope so many of the features in Happy Home Designer do find a way into New Leaf. Maybe we’ll even be able to alter our island/town itself–decide where the ponds and waterfalls are, make cliffs, have a full customized town. But if anything, Happy Home Designer shows me just how much customization the series can have and while I already loved the Animal Crossing series, Happy Home Designer has managed to make that love go to new heights.
I can’t wait until I can start playing and open up Amiibo Cards. I hope to see many of you all playing too!