Video Game Review - Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the newest of the, now five, main Animal Crossing games, having just come out in March. If you’ve never played one of these games before, you’re missing out! It’s suitable for kids of all ages, me being a kid in my twenties, I thoroughly enjoy these games as well and have more hours invested into it than I'd like to admit.

The Animal Crossing games have a lot of realistic qualities to them. You have a house, that starts out as a tiny one-room home, which you must pay off by selling sea shells, bugs, fish, clothing, you name it. You acquire these items by fishing, catching bugs, searching the beach for shells, etc. Although, you don’t have to pay off your house if you do not want it to be expanded. You can focus on decorating your town with different types of trees, planting and watering flowers, or you may want to focus on donating all of the different fossils you find to the museum and having a completed museum. You can spend your time in these games however you like.

Now, more specifically, New Horizons has a few new features the other ones do not. To start, you take a trip to an uninhabited island, and decide to stay there and start your new island life with a couple other villagers, as they’re called (they’re basically your neighbors but they happen to be animals). You work to improve your island by pulling weeds, fishing, and catching bugs to earn bells (money). You use your bells to pay off your home and to keep expanding your home, to buy furniture for your home or furniture to sit outside all over your island. You also use bells to pay for bridges and inclines which you need to explore other parts of the island. As you beautify your island, other villagers will begin to move to your island, and you will keep unlocking abilities like being able to change where rivers flow and adding paths/roads wherever you like.

This game can be very educational for little ones. It may teach them to be friendly to their neighbors, to be responsible with their money, it teaches them about each and every fossil, bug, and fish you donate to the museum, all while they’re having fun!
 
Rating: E
Price: $59.99