Boros gets lost in yet another fantasy world where there is only living another life.
Well, what to start with. The first thing that's different is that this one actually has a slight semblance of story. It starts off just the same, being that you're on a mass transport vehicle of some kind, wether it's a train, bus, or taxi, you know. Then, it takes a rather odd turn when everybody in the new town you go to suddenly throws a massive party for their new mayor which is you. Plus, all of the paperwork they have mentions you by name as being the new mayor. It's actually played up as being surreal to your Animal Crossing character, as well as to you in general. It's like a double dollup of surrealness right from the get go. Even though, that's as surreal as it gets with this being a life simulator like the Sims.
However, this is where the big change in gameplay comes in, as now you have to micro manage the whole town. The weird thing is that you can't do any of that until your approval rating as mayor gets to 100%. 100% isn't as hard as it sounds, but just the thought occurs to me that you're playing a politician's wet dream. In the world of politics, 100% approval ratings live in a nether realm of impossability. This part doesn't make too much sense to me, because of the fact that you HAVE to have 100% approval rating before you can do anything mayoral wise. Good god! If the real world worked like that, we'd still be a backwoods slavery country with an inability to get anything done. There will always be loons in countries so 100% approval is simply impossible. Strangely, all it amounts to in this game is just playing it for a day or two. It'll go up on it's own, then poof, you've got it. I wonder again if this isn't work of the political wet dream, because not only are we making the impossible possible, but we're making it incredibly easy to accomplish.
However, this is simply me being a prick for comedic effect, this is actually a good thing, because of the snails pace that this game runs with it being a life sim. Anything actually difficult or frustrating to accomplish would actually take away from the expierience.
Once the feet of 100% approval rating is accomplished, then you can micro manage almost however you feel. There are still some limits, like you can't build a solid gold statue of your penis and put it up right in front of town hall. However, you can put thing wherever you want to from a selection of things to put up. It may seem like a token thrown in thing, but considering the bulk of the other games simply consisted of fishing, bugging, and fossil hunting, it's a nice addition due to simplicity.
"Simplicity" really is the key word here. The simpler things are, the more fun the game is. The controls are very easy to use, and it really helps to be able to quick select tools. They also made it easier to 100% the game due to the improved appearence rate of rare fish and bugs. Which is also one of the only ways to make money, and certaintly is the best.
The game has real time progression in it as well, which seems like a good idea. However, there is a couple of problems with this. First of all, if you stop playing for a month or so, then come back to this game, then you'll find a town that is a shadow of it's former self, along with people murdering each other for food. It's actually quite sad. Second, everything seems to be based on tommorow. This shop will open tommorow. The project will be done tommorow. Then, just a few tommorows later, you'll find you've grown a gray beard, and your parents are dead. That's always nice.
By the way, for longtime fans of the series worried if Tom Nook sells you a house or not. Don't fret! The Racoon Mafia is still loaning you money for houses, apparently the folks haven't arranged for you to have a place to live yet, even though you're supposed to be the mayor. Apparently having a place to live is too much to ask for their new mayor. Oddly enough, this time, after a few upgrades to the house, Nook won't pester you into upgrading further unless you ask him putting YOURSELF in more debt than originally intended. You did it to yourself, sort of like the entire games industry, but I digress.
The townsfolk are all animals, and no. That's not talking about a dorm college, but bipedal humanoid animals which have the personalities of number generators. Their personalities actually range from jocks to nerds to fatties, and there's no middle ground. That's pretty much all you get, with maybe a tiny bit of variance. It'd be nice to have more variety, like having a goth in the town or something. Granted maybe there can be one, but these are all I've seen. Maybe having a town dominated by flowers doesn't help goths move to a town if there are any.
Speaking of which, there's really only one person I enjoy in my town and that's Skye. She's a typical book nerd who has a shyness to her I like. However, the rest of my town is either selfish sluts who only want for themselves or jocks that only want to work out every hour of every day. Oh, yeah, and then there's McDonald's girl... I am not kidding when I say that there is a ram, who where's fries as a dress, and has a hamburger hat. Guess what her thing is. Gee, it must be working out... DERP!
Anyway, if you like simple life sims, then New Leaf is almost perfect for you. See, Nintendo, this is the kind of fun things that you can make when you get your fingers out of your asses. I'm just glad that it seems as though they're on an uptrack. This is the second new game I've played from them that was good and the first new game from them in a while that I've unconditionally enjoyed. I find the game very refreshing from the usual dross I review, so it gets a good grade from me. Give it a try. You may find the expeirience refreshing as well.