Since importing the American GameCube version back in 2003, I haven't touched Animal Crossing after I did not understood the goals of the game, nor it's replayability. Anno 2014, my approach and perspective have changed, and I have seen the highlights of New Leaf.
Players take control of a villager who is moving into a new, randomized town. There, your character assumes the role of mayor, thus creating responsibilities for the town, it's citizens and the projects you shall be working together on.
Public Work Projects are constructions as chosen by the other villagers in order to be implemented while using donations to manipulate the time cost. These can range from camps and bridges, to fountains and stop signs.
Ordinances are basically game laws that you can customize for your town, so that your personality will work smoother with what you find to be effective, such as changing the opening hours of shops, or letting citizens be more aware of their flora activities.
New Leaf offers a lot more customization than previous entries, including the above mentioned, deciding your own clothes, deciding which villagers are staying and being able to hang furniture on walls now inside your house.
The core gameplay aside from the social aspect of connecting with the villagers but also with players from others towns is to gather resources in order to obtain enough value so that money oriented goals can be reached.
Using your shovel, rod, axe, can and net, you are able to collect lots of stuff such as bugs, fossils and sea creatures. You can either admire and keep them, or primarily, you can start selling them at the various shops in town, which usually offer special actions in accordance to what you bring.
There is also Tortimer Island which you will unlock a bit later once you get the hang of what is required from you as a mayor looking out for the town. The island is basically a mini game location which has more valuable resources to collect, and it was featured in the original Animal Crossing too.
After playing on a daily basis of 15 minutes for about a month, I think that I have seen the majority of the main features, excluding collecting all those furnitures, fossils and such plus seeing special events happen.
New Leaf is perhaps the best entry in the series yet, as each title seems to improve. This time, being able to connect to Miiverse, share snapshots and write letters to each other, Animal Crossing seems to be more social than ever, which coincidentally happens to be it's main success.
I am not sure if I would buy a new title for Wii U. I understand what Animal Crossing is all about now, and I acknowledge it's positives, but I don't see myself returning unless Nintendo innovates, like they always do.
Rating: 7.5
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