Animal Crossing needs a mode for adults
It’s time for Animal Crossing to get an ‘Adult’ mode. No, no, no, not like that — a mode that caters to people with busy schedules.
I love Animal Crossing and I’m very much drawn to the games. At first, they’re super relaxing and calming. That is, they are until they very much are not.
A little about me. I have two jobs. I have two kids. I have a busy life. Because of this, my schedule is a hot mess. Also, because of this, Animal Crossing becomes harder than Dark Souls.
When I played New Leaf, if I didn’t actually put alarms in my phone reminding me to hop into my virtual town, I’d worry that I’d come back to find that Nook has taken over the land and that the people have turned to eating each other. My Villager would be forced to fight in the Thunderdome for his betrayal to the community.
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That never happened, of course, but the anxiety of neglecting your game was always there. In fact, I have a memory card with the save data from the Gamecube Animal Crossing on it and it scares me to no end just looking at it.
But since Animal Crossing first released, games like Stardew Valley, My Time in Portia and other life sims have come and gone. They brought with them their own clocks. If I save in My Time in Portia, I pick up where I left off. Same goes for Stardew. It’s the same with pretty much any other game, except Animal Crossing. If you can’t make it, Tom Nook runs a “right to fire” state and you have hell to pay.
I know Nintendo is taking this seriously, especially with their one save per system setup to avoid cheating and all that other stuff, but give me a casual setting. I’ll even opt to lose all online functionality if I can just click something that says “I’m an adult with a life,” and it’ll give me a more traditional in-game clock.
Come on Nintendo. It wouldn’t just make it easier on us adults, think about Resetti. Poor, poor Resetti. Do it for him.