Nintendo Wii Review: Animal Crossing: City Folk - Page 2

The Wii remote’s pointing capabilities are actually used well, as you can move your character by pointing to a spot on the screen and holding down the run button. It doesn’t really work as well as the nunchuk’s analog stick, though. However, the pointer works great for menu selections, which have been vastly improved over past Animal Crossing games. Now, moving things around is just an easy point and click away, making item management a bit easier. It’s a bit disappointing, though, that this is really the highlight of the controls for City Folk, because it’s all otherwise the exact same as it was in Animal Crossing on the Gamecube.

The newest and biggest addition is the game’s namesake, the city. Several of Wild World’s functions have moved over here, including Harriett’s hair stylings, Dr. Shrunk’s emotion-learning lessons and Crazy Redd’s black market. Other new features, like Kicks and his shoe-shine booth or Gracie’s super-expensive shop filled with rare items, add in a bit of flair and fun. The bad news about the city, though, is that it’s a bit too small and often, you won’t be going here unless you have a specific reason for doing so. It’s definitely something that can be built off of for a future game in the series, though.

The cartoonish, cel-shaded art style from the past two games returns, and while it fits well on the Wii, the game still feels like a Gamecube title in need of a graphical polish. While animations are as fluid as ever, there are still some instances where edges could be smoothed, for example, or where static images, like the flowers, could be made into full-fledged 3-D models. Then again, if you are playing City Folk, graphics are probably not high on your priority list.

The game’s soundtrack should be very familiar to people who have played previous Animal Crossing games, though it has been somewhat updated. It does feel nice to hear a slight tweak here and there on a classic Animal Crossing tune. The characters still all speak in the same, semi-muffled style they always have, with text replacing actual voice. What’s good is that this really doesn’t need to change, since adding something like full voice acting would probably ruin the whole experience of living in a world with animals.

Article Author: Brian Szabelski

Brian Szabelski is the Assistant Gaming Editor at Blogcritics.org as well as Associate Editor at Tomopop. He also maintains his own blog on IGN, "The Minus World".

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