And well, a little bit of Day 2. Now that I’ve played the game for nearly a full day, I really wanted to expand more on everything, talk about what I’ve done so far, and just other random thoughts. I do still think the balancing is the game’s biggest issue right now, but that doesn’t really make it less fun. You can find a playlist of a bunch of my playtime over on Youtube (though, you can watch straight from the site too).
So, for starters, let’s go over what I HAVE done. I’m currently level 19 and I have 11 Campers hosted thus far. And unsurprisingly, my character should look pretty familiar:
Now if I could… just get an outfit I really liked. To start, I had this cute sweater:
But I’m wearing this dress now:
Which works, but I want something cuter. And with long sleeves.
Unfortunately, the only things you can sell to other players/friends are items you can gather–fish, bugs, fruit, and seashells. You can’t help eachother with crafting supplies, clothing, or furniture which seems like a huge miss. Not to mention, anything you put up for your market is gone forever. If it doesn’t sell, your only option is to destroy it so don’t use it for storage when you get low on space which will happen a lot.
Honestly, I absolutely hate the limit on gatherables due to how many requests use them up and you will run out of them very quickly. Some are also rarer to even get and it’s just a huge pain to have to run into limits and then toss things which you are very likely to need again soon.
Anyway, going back to my own playthrough, I decided to pick the Cute theme–I was stuck between that and Natural, but Cute was pink sooooo :P This meant my first friend would be Rosie:
During some requests, you’ll get cute scenes like this similar to Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival. They also make adorable gifs:
I’m definitely hoping to make more gifs of some of them, but here’s a collection of some I haven’t done gifs of:
But yes, this was my original camp layout due to picking Cute:
And there’s just so many cute tidbits in this game such as calling up characters and just getting a box out of nowhere:
And the new fishing nets and honey things are amazing and need to be in a main game:
Anyway, after Rosie I managed to unlock several other characters too:
Also your pose when you level-up is adorable:
Unfortunately, despite all the emotions and interactions you can see your villagers doing, your own character doesn’t really interact as much nor can they emote outside of cutscenes.
You can also run into other people’s characters as well–both friends and random people:
One thing I wished I did sooner was head over to OK Motors as you actually can customize your RV for free:
Of course, I ended up switching to a fancier special design that I saved up quite a bit for:
I kind of wish I could combine the two somehow… One nice thing as well is once you buy a design, you can ALWAYS switch back to it for free which is great. Your RV even has some furniture to start, though, I ended up emptying it for now. I’m not sure what I want to go for just yet with it, but because I will need to make extra of some pieces of furniture, I want to unlock as much as I can first.
I also love the climbing ladder animation when you get the second floor. I can’t wait to upgrade my RV again… but I need to pay off 30K for the second floor first.
The game also features special items which allow certain special Villagers to show up. They cost Leaf Tickets and are only around for a limited time (though, they might return in the future). Right now, items for Tom Nook and K.K. Slider are available:
Focusing back on the campsite itself, I managed to finally get the Cute Tent:
And this actually leads into a bit of one of my most frustrating things with this game: Requiring buildings people may not want. You can only build one amenity at a time and they cost *a lot* to build and take quite a bit of time. The tent takes 12 hours for level 1, instant for level 2, but 12 more hours for level 3 (the max level). And you need a Level 3 Tent of each Essence type (Cute, Sporty, Natural, and Cool) in order to unlock more amenities (which continues for each tier–you then need to max out the level of whatever Amenity you made to get the next tier of that essence’s amenity). The Tree Swing, which is the Tier 2 Cute item, takes 48 hours to make. The Merry-go-Round is the next cute item which requires that Tree Swing to get to level 5.
So far, I have the Level 3 Cute Tent:
The Natural Tent at level 1:
And I’m currently building the Tree Swing which has over 45 hours to go… The thing is, even if maybe you don’t want those items, the Villager’s friendship levels are locked to them. You can only get a villager to level 7 without building their tent. And only to level 10 after building the tent until you build the next tier item which allows them to get to level 15. I’m assuming there will be one more item that allows them to get to 20 which is max level. And all villagers have “friendship” prizes–one at level 7, one at level 9, one at level 10, and one at level 20. Level 7 is always a shirt, either the one they are wearing or one similar/matching their style, level 9’s is always a Sparkle Stone which are used in some of the rarer crafting recipes, level 10’s is a crafting recipe, and level 20 is their photo.
Right now, I have Cherry maxed out at level 7 and because I can only make one Amenity at a time, I can’t work on it right now (I’m also out of cotton after making the Natural Tent…) because I’m still waiting for my Tree Swing to finish :/ On top of that, I’ve found Cute Essence to be the hardest for me to earn, partially as you get less requests from those at your camp site which means less opportunities to essentially level them up for more chances. I also swear there’s less quests that give some and it shows up less at the Quarry, but maybe that’s just me.
Overall, it’s not only just a massive brick wall, but also frustrating to get things I’ll never really use. I get why it’s like this–especially as it’s one of the biggest features, but it is a bit disappointing regardless.
I’m definitely still having fun, but that does put a damper on things and it’s the first time I’ve been super tempted to just buy a bunch of Leaf Tickets or something because this just really sucks. I also can’t decide what to put my bells towards–loans, more furniture for hosting characters, the amenities, or clothing and things. Bells are such a pain to earn–mostly coming just from requests and the Quarry, and you really don’t earn much from selling things you get which makes it just kind of disappointing and I’m much more… nervous about them. Right now, I mainly want to get these tents done because I don’t want to hit more friendship caps so that’s my current goal, but the long amenity wait is just… absolutely awful.
On a brighter note, here’s a cute screenshot to finish this off:
