Animal Crossing City Folk is just as addictive as the last 2 games even if it's more of the same.
Not much has changed for the series. It's still the basic Sim game; you move into a village inhabited by animals work for the raccoon shop keeper, Tom Nook, and then continue to pay off your house debt to him throughout the course of the game. You can also donate money to your town (for rewards), plant trees, and flowers, collect bugs, fish, & fossils for your museum, and also buy clothes furniture and other accessories for your house and personal being. The game is basically a collect-a-thon. Seems boring, and sometimes it can be, but there's something ingenious about this formula and you may see hours pass before you know. It's a very addictive experience, and you can get to the point where you'll be worrying about how your town looks and go into a pulling weed, planting flowers frenzy. All this takes place in real time using the systems clock your game will progress on a 24/7 clock, even when you're not playing the game will continue to change your village. Weeds will grow if uncared for, villagers will move out, etc.
So what is new with this latest addition of City Folk? Well there may not be as much as some people hoped for but additions are there. Along with the addition of new clothes/furniture/bugs/fish/fossils the Holidays which were absent in the DS version make a return! This got me very excited when I first heard about this. Holidays such as Halloween, Easter (one of the new holidays), and Chrismtas all have special characters that upon talking to them or doing a special event will give you special items for your collection of things.
This is just one of the things that Nintendo added into the game; however the two biggest features that Nintendo is marketing this game are the city, and wii speak, which comes bundled with the game; although at a higher price.
I did not get the wii speak bundle so I cannot comment on this; however if you plan to go online and visit other people's towns I would recommend the purchase. I myself might go out and get one later. Wi-Fi is great by the way, I've used it a couple of times now to sell items in different towns and I'm happy with my experience using it.
The city however I can comment on, and must say I find it underwhelming, it was a good idea but poorly played out. You can go to the city anytime and it's composed of about 12 buildings which allow you more options of customizing your character, giving him facial expressions, buying more expensive clothes, getting your hair styled. So what's wrong with this you ask? Well in the last two installments all the characters that now have buildings in the city came to your town frequently. It would have been nice if they had totally new ideas for the city instead of something that use to be in my town in older versions and just got moved to a different area in this game.
The next thing that I have to comment on is the feature called Animal tracks, this was suppose to wear your grass down to make a trail to show where you went frequently. However this is not the case because the grass wears away too fast with little chance to grow back, so your town can turn into a desert if you don't catch this problem early. How do you prevent this? Plant as many flowers and trees as you can, don't run, and don't load the game more than once a day. This problem is a real pain and a lot of long time players have complained about this.
City Folk took the Wild World view for its artistic style in the original it was a top down perspective; Wild World changed it to have a rounded world look to it. The visuals are very simple and so is the sound. The visuals are an improvement but not a major one which will make you gaze at its beauty; this isn't that kind of game. If you're looking for a fun addictive game, and have plenty of time on your hands I would recommend Animal Crossing City Folk. It is very similar to the DS and GameCube version but I have all 3 games and still became very addicted to City Folk; however the game does have some problems, the city is underutilized, and the new Animal Tracks feature is faulty. But all in all it's a very charming game.