Blog #10 Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer Review

It was midsummer when I made a decision to change my life. I was sitting at home on one quiet day a special announcement from Nintendo came out regarding a new title in the Animal Crossing series. I've been an obsessive fan ever since my first introduction to the series, Animal Crossing New Leaf. It wasn't long before I became a power mad mayor and greedily hoarded millions of bells. I was sucked in, at least until school happened. I no longer had the time to devote myself to one of my favorite games.

Upon hearing the announcement and preorder date for the next new game, Happy Home Designer, I saved my money until I had enough and preordered it instantly. I had no idea what I was getting into. I thought it would be a game I play every once in a while, how I was wrong. I was so very wrong.

Happy Home Designer, like all games in the Animal Crossing series is a cutesy, fun simulation game where you meet the requests of many small, cute, totally dumb animals. Previous games focus on being part of a village or a town, otherwise having very little control over your villagers' lives. Happy Home Designer focuses specifically on just that: controlling every aspect of these animals' lives as you possibly can. The game is an interior and exterior design game. Your character has just begun work for Nook's Homes, the game's real estate business. Through this, you get one request per day to design and build a villager's house. Every villager unlocks new furniture, and every villager comes with a theme you must match and favorite items that have to be included or else the house won't be complete.

As you play, you'll have chances to build the town center for these villagers and create hospitals, schools, restaurants, hotels, shops, and offices. Your town will grow through these and you get to watch your villagers spend their lives in an entirely new way never seen in the Animal Crossing franchise. You can designate roles for each villager, give them tiny hats, and even force them to communicate with each other. Here are a few photos from some of my own attempts at this game.

My overall experiences with the game have been fun. Graphically, the game is slightly improved from New Leaf, but the graphics aren't that important in a game like this. It's the beauty. Being able to create a beautiful house is awarding in it's own way. The game makes you feel pride in your creations. You get excited for new customers because you can't wait to unlock more. 

My only gripe with this game is that there is no real incentive to continue playing. You don't get played any money, the animals are happy even if you turn their house into the pit of hell (which I did once) as long as it has the fruit bowl they wanted. The only grading you can get is by uploading your designs online and having other players rate them. You don't get money, you don't get anything for yourself. In a way, that one missing part of the game almost makes the game feel as if it's not quite a feel game despite being massive and having over 300 villagers available, a long list of public facilities, and even special npcs to design for. The game is incredible, but this own flaw hurts it deeply. 

I am obsessed with this game despite this flaw, I haven't closed out of it since I got it, and it eats up all of my free time. I never knew I could be so addicted to a design game, but Happy Home Designer is so far one of the most efficient designing games to date. The system flows, the layout is beautiful, there is true freedom for how you design a house. The amiibo cards that are usable add a fresh, new feel to the game and an interesting new game mechanic that more games need to take note from. The game is inspired and one of my favorite games in the Animal Crossing franchise for sheer fun and addictiveness. Overall, I give this game a solid 8.5/10. 

that Animal Crossing swag