Nintendo Switch: The best games and my favorite moments from 2021

1. Animal Crossing’s 2.0 Update and Happy Home Academy DLC

Okay, honestly, if you’ve looked through the majority of my articles this shouldn’t have been a shock to ANYONE. Just when I started to feel like I’ve completely gone through everything I had to do in the game, Nintendo just goes and drops the biggest Animal Crossing New Horizons update ever on my lap AND gives us an entirely new game to play within it.

Unlike seasonal events which just give you a small task to do, they added a slew of things that allow for a slew of new things to do in the game. Suddenly you could actually farm and cook. Fan-favorite characters came back in force. Brewster brought his Roost coffee shop to the island museum. Kapp’n started taking people to and from new islands that included new items like glowing moss and vines you could use to climb cliff walls. Harv opened up a new area of his island in which characters that were already in the game like Kicks, Leif and Redd could set up shop with returning characters like Tortimer and Katrina. They even brought back the Gyroids.

It made up for the fact that they also added an event based on the worst day of the year; Black Friday.

On top of all the free stuff, they also added Animal Crossing New Horizon’s first-ever paid DLC, the Happy Home Paradise. While a lot of people scoffed over the idea of this DLC costing money, I bought it immediately as it was based on the 3DS game Happy Home Academy which had way less features and cost $60. So paying $25 for a way bigger version of the game that actually tied into New Horizons was a no-brainer for me.

Happy Home Paradise allowed us to go to an entirely new island where we had a massive amount of tools allowing us to design vacation homes for the hundreds of villagers within the game’s code. Over time you unlock new tools that haven’t been in Animal Crossing before. Polishing allows you to add new visual effects to any piece of furniture from sparkles to dry ice steam. Partition walls, countertops, ceiling fixtures, and the ability to add soundscapes like city noises or creepy floorboard sounds allowed us to make pretty much anything we could think of. Good for everyone including the new Sanrio characters or your occasional toilet creep.

But it not only breathed new life in the game, it, essentially gave us a new game unto itself. Plus, once you get to a certain point in Happy Home Paradise, Tom Nook takes notice and allows you to redesign all the villager houses on your island which I love. And yes, of course, he charges a fee.

So this was my top five. As always, if you have moments you’d like to mention let me know and, as always, feel free to drop vulgar insults in the comments telling me how my opinion was wrong. Happy almost 2022, y’all!