Things may have ended on a sad note last week with my favorite villager Frill moving out, but this week saw some new excitement in the form of a new villager and some multiplayer antics with a friend! And so, my Animal Crossing: New Leaf saga continues…
Whoever this new guy is, he sure has a lot of nerve to build his house so close to the station…
I’m always happy to get different species of animals in my village, so Bunjirou (aka Lobo) came as a pleasant surprise! It’s nice to see a familiar Animal Crossing villager face, too, and a cranky one at that! There’s something charming about the cranky personality.
I finally saved up enough money to open up the dream center/massage parlor! Let’s take a look inside…
Yumemi (which is actually the Japanese word for “to dream” or “dreaming”) the aardvark has the ability to take you to visit other people’s towns or have others come to your town through your dreams. I didn’t get around to setting up the new feature yet (lazy, I know), but look forward to next week when I’ll report back on my findings after visiting a couple of villages! The difference between this and normal online play is that you can visit anyone’s town, even if you’re not friends, as long as you have the code for their village. People are sharing codes for spiffy towns all over the internet, so I should be able to find a couple of good ones! Maybe I’ll even go to the official
Nintendo town!
Did you know that if a villager invites you over to their house and you talk to them enough times, they’ll ask if you want to buy any of their items? Well, Arthur wanted to pawn off his Chinese table on me… The very one I gave him as a present! And for 1,920 bells? That’s highway robbery!
Low and behold, I go to the recycle shop the next day and find Arthur’s put his Chinese table up for sale! Talk about rude!
Moving on from that drama, I met up with my friend Nel and visited her town over local wireless! It was a lot of fun, and I definitely got tons of inspiration for my own town (it’s quite evident that she plays much more than I do…). The above image is one of her, er, most disconcerting rooms, as its covered in her favorite character Manbe-kun‘s likeness.
She’s got the full mermaid series…
And the full snowman series! How adorable!
She also has a number of themed rooms, such as this Japanese one…
And this creepy basement room! Eek!
Sumi lives in both our towns, so I wondered what it would be like to have a conversation with another town’s Sumi… She just acted like she didn’t know me!
Nel’s even unlocked the cafe! Here I am drinking the Penguin (her town’s name) original blend.
I didn’t even know there was bamboo in Animal Crossing: New Leaf! Clearly I need to read more up on this game, or I’m going to miss out. I love how she fashioned this area into a little hot spring getaway. Too bad you can’t jump in the water!
Finally, we sat and watched the “end credits” together by her town’s tree… For some reason it lost all its leaves! I don’t even think I’ve played enough to see the credits in my game… It’s fun to see all the names of the villagers who’ve lived there scroll by. The music that plays is quite soothing, as well!
I must say, visiting Nel’s town has really rekindled my interest in the game… There very well may be another reason for that, but I’m going to save that for an upcoming post! Thanks for reading, and remember that you can ask any questions you may have in the comments!
Ah, my Friday has been made 🙂 I’m sure that sounds kind of weird, but it’s true. This game simply looks too adorable–I can’t wait to play it myself! I’ve had to stop myself from buying the digital version of the Japanese release quite a few times now 😐
Anyway, your friend’s town looks awesome! Well, except for that first creepy room you showed us in this post. Yikes! Uh, does she think it’s creepy, or does she find it cute?
Also, I want those ‘Metroids in tubes’! How cool are they?
Finally, I have a question for you: are some of the animal neighbors in the Japanese versions of Animal Crossing as snarky as they can be in the North American versions? Someone recently asked me that on blog (or on Twitter), and I had no idea how to answer!
Bryan knows I have mixed feelings about the later Animal Crossing games, but this little post has basically rekindled my interest in the 3DS title. Thanks 🙂
Well, I’m happy to hear it! Glad someone is enjoying these posts 🙂
Hm, I’d have to ask her, but she’s generally not big on scary movies and that sort of thing. I think she was inspired by some of the weird/creepy Animal Crossing houses that are floating around the internet!
Funnily enough, I haven’t gotten one of those Metriods from the lottery yet. I’m surprised she has so many!
As for your question, I’m not sure I can give you a definitive answer, but they definitely don’t seem quite as snarky in Japanese as they do in English, at least to me. I wonder if it feels just feels more subtle to me because I’m not a native Japanese speaker and perhaps “snarkiness” isn’t something that comes across in the same way in Japanese as it does in English. If that is the case, a lesser amount of it would leave just as big an impression on a native Japanese speaker, if that makes any sense!
Then again, it could just be differences in the style of who’s in charge of localizing the game – for example, I find Aksys likes to make things sound a lot “stronger” in English than they did in Japanese, at least from my experience (Hakuoki being a good example). I wish I could see the character dialogue side by side in both languages so I could make a better comparison, though! Either way, I think the English localization team does a superb job, even if the English villagers come off as being a tad sassier!
I’m so very glad to hear that, Simon! It’s a great game 🙂
Sorry to nudge in here, but I just have to say that I think it’s great that you’re at least considering picking this up, Simon 🙂
Also, I thought you might like to know that my latest experience with the original AC has me agreeing with you that it’s the best of the bunch so far (that’s w/o me having experienced the 3DS version, of course).
I’m actually going to talk about why that is in my upcoming ‘Great Gaymathon’ review of City Folk 🙂
Hello, Anne!
Oh, I’m definitely enjoying these posts. Have they not been all that popular for you, though? If so, don’t feel too bad–mine don’t seem to be that big of a draw either. (Justin seems to be the only one who gets a kick out of them.) Oh, well … that’s life, eh?
You don’t have to ask your friend about her creepy room. I was just curious 🙂
Thanks for trying to answer my question, BTW. Based on what little I know of Japanese culture, I’m guessing you’re right in thinking that the Japanese games are less snarky than the English-language ones.
I have a feeling the sassiness is a result, in part, of when the first game was released on the GameCube. What I mean is that I think the powers that be at NOA thought they couldn’t get away with releasing a game for the GC that was so cute/innocent and so they snarked it up a bit to appeal to a more ‘hardcore’ crowd.
I have no proof of that, of course, but I do think it’s at least somewhat supported by their North American marketing efforts for the game.
hahahaha my manbe-kun room is so popular
I just got inspired by this movie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU5aQT8S1CI&list=UUceCA0czDfMSUPkthBmQx2w&index=9
and at 22:37 is what I tried to do… but with manbe-kun face…
This choice was the turning point／(^o^)＼ I didn’t expect it to be creepy when I started.
Yes I wanna make a lot of creepy room. The room with metroids, I wanna make it as a human-experiment room. I’m also thinking about building another house which I decorate with halloween-ish furniture so that it looks like a witch lives there.
*Sorry about my poor English.
Thanks for commenting and sharing your inspiration ^^ By the way, I hope you don’t mind me calling you “Nel” in my post – I wasn’t sure what your nickname should be in English! Let me know if you’d like me to change it.
Yeah, unfortunately I’m not getting very good pageviews for these pieces, but even if it’s just you and one other person who likes reading them, I’ll keep posting! Funny how some things are popular and others aren’t (speaking of which, my post about the DS version of Ni no Kuni has exploded since Ni no Kuni came out in English, haha)
Oh, in case you didn’t see, Nel wrote a comment talking about why she decided to do the creepy room, so hopefully that answers your question.
And I think you make a really great point about a cute/innocent game like Animal Crossing maybe not going over well with the hardcore western crowd, especially at the time it was first localized! I never even thought of that, but I think it’s a great explanation for why the English version might seem sassier. I kind of like it, though, actually! They say great things in the Japanese version, but I like the almost hostile edge the things they say sometimes have in English (that makes me sound really weird, haha!)
Interesting! I’ll wait for it instead of asking you why 🙂
It’s the same NoA localization team as other titles like Paper Mario, right? I always thought it was just their style, not that they deliberately sassed up Animal Crossing. I really do think they strike the right tone for a Western audience, though it would be nice if I understood Japanese to compare 🙂
Oh, it’s because of pretty typical things, really. The biggest one, I think, is that I like how simple/streamlined the original is when compared to the sequels. Also, I like how many animal neighbors you can get in the original–15 compared to just 10 or even 8 in New Leaf, City Folk and Wild World. There are some other reasons, but those are the main ones 🙂
Yeah, I’d like to compare, too, Simon. Maybe someday…
Well, don’t ever feel the need to keep these going if you don’t want to, OK?
I’m glad to hear your Ni no Kuni DS post has gotten popular. Are you going to buy the PS3 version, BTW?
I’m curious about it myself, but of course I don’t yet have a PS3…
Oh, and, yes, I like the ‘kind of hostile’ edge that’s present in the English AC games, too. Really, some of the character’s comments surprise me sometimes. Like, ‘Nintendo really OK’d that?’ Ha ha!
Oh, I’m not sure, Simon! If it is, I can definitely understand it just being part of their style, then. I personally like that the translated version has its own vibe, though I know some people might take that as not being as “faithful” to the original.
Maybe I’ll have to get the English version of Animal Crossing so I can compare them 😉
Nah, I like doing them! I need to justify all of the screenshots I’m taking, haha.
And yeah, I got the PS3 version on launch (here it was the 31st…). Haven’t had any time to play yet, though! >_<
Oh, speaking of which, would you believe that my No, Thank You!! post already has more pageviews than this one? I guess that’s due to my catchy title, haha
Wait, so you weren’t planning on getting the English version of New Leaf, Anne? Or are you saying you want to pick up the English version of the GameCube game?