Animal Crossing: Wild World, a second look

Back in July, I did a sort of roundup of my Nintendo DS collection and said this of a game titled Animal Crossing: Wild World:

I can't even figure out why I bought this. I think, possibly, maybe, who really knows, that I thought I was buying a Harvest Moon game. You know, the farming simulation thingy. Instead, I got the Sims with all the fun ripped out of it only to be replaced by animals with enormous heads, a town more dry than a patch of sand, and tasks that would bore a dead guy.

Time I owned up.

I was wrong about game. Complete and utterly wrong. You see, while preparing for my Christmas vacation and trip to Arizona, I looked through my stack of DS games trying to decide which ones would be most excellent to bring along. Certainly Zelda (of which I played very little) New Super Mario Bros, and Puzzle Quest were immediate duhs. Spying the box for Animal Crossing: Wild World, I paused. This was an impulse purchase that I had played maybe once or twice, didn't really get (by that I mean understand), and abandoned for nearly six months or so.

I popped the game back in, found my town infested with weeds, and that just about every villager hated me and suspected I'd been in jail since we last talked. Ugh. So I got to work, caught up on my letters, sent out presents, paid off some of my loan, and slowly--and I guess inevitably--understood what I was to do. Anything I cared to.

Animal Crossing: Wild World is unique in that really, truthfully, do what you want. Unlike the Sims where if you do not feed your person they will die an agonizingly slow yet assumable death, here you never have to worry one minute about your little dude's tummy, bladder, or heart. You can spend your time fishing and selling said fish to make money. You can dig all day long, looking for bugs or dinosaur bones. Not your thing? Plant a garden. Chop down some trees. Write letters and form friendships.

Simply put, the game gives you a ton of things to do, and every new day is just another great reason to turn it on, whether you are looking for that magical money-giving rock or interested in what new pieces of furniture can be bought at Tom Nook's place. The tasks are not boring, especially when you realize that there's a present at the end. I will complete all the catalogs and museum exhibits though some things won't be possible till I can visit Bitsy's town.

But really, I hope this is a lesson for me. I generally do give everything a sporting chance, but some times I'm quicker to give up than others.