The Nintendo NFC Reader

 Back in October 2017 I found quite a few Animal Crossing amiibo cards at the Goodwill outlet store. What started off as a few quickly turned into just over 100 cards, less than a dozen being doubles. I spent nearly half an hour meticulously digging through the bin to find them all, but I'm sure I still missed a few. Up to this point I had no real interest in the amiibo craze, but I figured if I picked any up from the outlet store, of course I'm going to keep them and possibly use them.

Since I only had a 2DS at the time I didn't have a console that read/wrote to them natively, meaning I had to track down the Nintendo NFC reader. What I originally thought would be an easy trip to Target or Walmart quickly turned into a hunt. I held out hope I would find one at the outlet store for a few weeks, but I let that dream die and just decided to go the simple route of checking Gamestop.

This too proved to be a challenge as the NFC reader was in one of those weird peripheral transition periods where nobody carried them brand new anymore and nobody was willing to let their's go because of it, even though they most likely never used it. I called a few Gamestops and was directed to one store, who said they had one in stock, but upon arrival it was nowhere to be found. The nearest store from there that had one was an hour away.

After sitting on the idea for a while I finally decided to get my ass down to the Gamestop, making sure to call and have them hold it for me before leaving, because I didn't know just how much longer I would need to search to actually find one. After the long drive I finally was in possession of the Nintendo NFC reader. So what did I do with it? Once I got home I gained a new villager in Animal Crossing New Leaf, packed everything away and haven't really touched it much since.

To be honest the Amiibo craze is still foreign to me. I just don't get it. Sure, I think it's neat to have collectibles that unlock things in games or add special bonuses such as with Kirby Battle Royale, but I grew up in the generation where you got what you bought. You bought an NES game and everything was there; at most you would just need a cheat code to unlock some extra lives or something.

Also, I didn't realize just how much these amiibo cards were worth. Depending on which Animal Crossing character you have, and condition obviously matters, some of these cards can be worth a few bucks. But at the very least the original retail price was about $6 for a pack of 6 cards, making them $1 each, so I had just picked up over $100 worth of amiibo cards for about 30 cents!

There aren't as many games as I thought there would be for the 3DS that support amiibo, and very few of them do I really want or care to own. Now that the newer consoles natively support amiibo reading and writing the NFC reader has become redundant. Am I glad I tracked one down? Sure, now that I own one. It's a neat little peripheral, it's just not as useful as my imagination had originally lead me to believe.

The Audacity of Animal Crossing Villagers

When I first started playing Animal Crossing, maybe 10 years ago, I never really let one simple, yet boldly blatant, fact settle in to my mind. That I, myself, was the sole bearer of responsibility in my town. No one but myself was responsible for the maintaining of a whole village, packed to the brim with completely able-bodied animals.

Seemingly no one else had to do chores for Tom Nook to earn their plot of land within the town. No one else took care of the weeds, especially immediately surrounding their homestead, while I was gone for months or even years. No one else took the time to check in with the town's condition and plant trees or flowers where there needed to be, for the overall greater good of the village in question. No one else donated to the museum to fill out the displays. Instead they just complain that the town is terrible and simply move away, without lifting a single finger in it's aid.

Throughout the first game, which I still haven't really managed to perfect as I don't play it enough to be bothered, I noticed I was the only one who had to take care of the weeds, trees and various other things to beautify the village. At least after all was said and done I had a golden statue of myself places just outside of the train station to commemorate all my hard work, at paying off my home. It also seems Tom Nook never really hassled any of the other villagers about the size of their homes, so they just bought the basic and never really bothered to upgrade. As where Tom Nook constantly hounded me to keep upgrading and forever be indebted to him.

Although I haven't delved too deeply into maintaining my Wild World village, because my DS Lite is slowly decaying into a hunk of shit (Good job Nintendo!), I have noticed the theme of blaming the town for being junk and just moving away has carried over. Not much to say other than adios! If this were real life and someone just bought a home, never did anything to keep it maintained, then complained to neighbors about how terrible it was before simply packing up and leaving, this person would be labeled mentally insane.

Again the theme carried over to City Folk. I still enjoy working on City Folk, but this time things are bit more complex. This time the town asks for donations to build additions, such as an additional bridge, a water fountain and finally a lighthouse or windmill. Funds are paid directly to Pelly or Phyllis in the civic center, but I am the only one who ever bothers to put any bells toward such projects.

As I toil away, day after day, and slowly earn 1,000 bells here and 10,000 bells there, what do the other villagers do? They bide their time by walking around, holding one of their favorite tools. Almost every villager will eventually be seen carrying a fishing rod, an axe, a shovel or a bug net, proving that they too earn bells, somehow. Since we know they've bought these homes and have enough bells left over to pay me for misc. items I have on my person, or for doing random tasks, as well as tools to keep them busy, why don't they donate to the town fund? Or better yet, use those tools to donate to the museum?

How incredibly lazy and audacious these villagers are to move in, never lift a finger to aid in the beautification of the town and just complain about how terrible it is and move back out! Villagers come and go and it never changes, with the exception of a few, whom still let the occasional critique slip every so often. Even after all my hard work, they will always find something to complain about, as if my sole purpose in Animal Crossing is groundskeeper and fund raiser for things to keep them busy.

Animal Crossing: Revisiting Hell

Given a week in the City (Animal Crossing: City Folk), I decided to head back to my roots and see what was going on in my original Hell. The last time I played was shortly after I acquired an Action Replay to cheat in a ton of things I knew I could never get otherwise. Since the Nintendo Wii is backwards compatible it was just an easy disc swap, and away I went!

Instantly I saw the major difference in textures, although everything else seems to be pretty much the same. I do have to say I don't miss the Zelda-esque map grid they did with the towns, but it did help quite a bit when it comes to figuring out how to keep your town clean and happy. Needless to say my town was once more overgrown with weeds, everywhere! I'm going to have to find the spirit who will do me a favor the next time I'm on there and get that sorted out.

After a quick jaunt around the town, at 1am, I realized there wasn't much I could do. My inventory was nearly overloaded with gifts sent to me by the villagers from my birthday earlier in the year, which I obviously missed. With only a handful of slots I found the money rock and gained a bit of cash, after which I ran across the golden statue of myself, which reminded me that I had no loan to pay off!

I went around and visited some of my favorite neighbors and said hello, most of them were upset at me for being gone 19 months, which I think is impossible, but who am I to argue? After seeing some of my favorite villagers I wondered around the town and the layout came rushing back to me, all the bridges and hills, lakes and trees. Everything came back as if it had been just a few days, instead of 19 months.

So why do I doubt the all knowing and all powerful villagers of my town called Hell? Simple, I only acquired the Action Replay a few weeks before my birthday in March, to the best of my knowledge; even before that I did the Halloween event, but I do remember not saving that night and having to deal with Mr. Resetti the time I booted up to use the Action Replay. With that mystery set aside I do have to say that now my house is filled to the brim with the neat Nintendo items they packed into this game.

Is Animal Crossing on the Game Cube still my favorite of the series? Yes! Without a doubt! City Folk has come into its own; I've learned a lot about the game and there are a lot of redeeming qualities that took a few days of consistent playing to discover. One major feature from the original Animal Crossing that I miss is that the villager dialog options offered you the chance to do a task for them, and if they didn't have anything they would simply say no, in Wild World and City Folk you have to wait for them to come to you. I want to feel more helpful, not USED!

Despite everything feeling too similar, at least to me, between the original and City Folk, they're still both their own game, and more diverse than I originally thought. I've had a ton of fun with the original throughout the years and I plan to have even more fun with City Folk.

But perhaps Animal Crossing's downfall, if anything, is that it took never ending to a completely new level; the constant need to upkeep everything. Its ok for a game like GTA (namely San Andreas) to just never end and leave the ending up to the player, post story. Animal Crossing, however, feels like a chore, a never ending task of pulling weeds, tending to personalities to keep them pasified, and even if you want to take a break you know there is the dread of having those chores compounded by the length of time you've been away.

Regardless of the chore factor, I still like checking in on the personalities I grew to enjoy, and I can already feel myself growing attached to animals in City Folk. I just wish my DS would straighten up so maybe I could give Wild World another crack, there are a few personalities I miss on there already. Even so, I still prefer to play Animal Crossing on a console, instead of on the go.

Animal Crossing City Folk: The trinity of DOOM!

Since I first saw the game played, at a friend's house I believe, I knew I had to try Animal Crossing on the Gamecube. The problem, at the time, was that I didn't own a Gamecube, and I didn't want to pay the price for the system, nor did I want to pay the price for the game. I'm primarily a vintage gamer, so I bide my time with the good, old classic and wait for today's craze to fade away and turn up for pennies in thrift stores, flea markets, etc. before I give it a go.

When I finally got my hands on Animal Crossing I was blown away by the amount of things you could do; all the animals to talk to, tasks you could do, fishing, collect, etc. But over time the game eventually ground itself into a giant repetitive hole and just became something I never wanted to play again. Years later, as I previous posted here, I did come back to my old Animal Crossing city of Hell and the residents were all to happy to let me know exactly how long it had been since they saw me last, and to be honest I missed them!

But as had happened before, with the help from Mr. Resetti due to a series of unforeseen power failures, I decided this game was too demanding and it was time to pack it away yet again. This only lasted until I found a copy of Animal Crossing Wild World at the outlet store. At first Wild World seemed much the same with a few added bonuses here and there, but it too quickly got on my nerves as it just felt like deja vu!

Throughout the past 6 months I've visited my Wild World town a handful of times, saw that its overrun with weeds and promptly turned off my DS, as the top screen no longer works anyway. But recently I was given a copy of Animal Crossing City Folk for the Nintendo Wii, and my views on the series haven't changed at all. I love the initial feeling of starting anew and exploring something new, but in reality its all the same.

Every game starts out with you moving to a new town, buying a home from Tom Nook and being his lacky for a few measly coins to help pay off his initial fee for housing. Although there is a mayor, Tortimer, Tom Nook seemingly owns everything else in the town! But there is a small feeling of justice knowing Tom Nook buys everything from you, thus paying himself back for the home you eventually own.

The main draw to Animal Crossing has been the interactions such as Halloween, and other holidays that not many other games have the ability or care to include. Apparently many holidays were left out in Wild World, so that coupled with the broke DS screen have really made me not even want to play it anymore. I did however use it to move my character to City Folk.

One fear that I had for Wild World has come up in City Folk, gimmicking! Nintendo and their stupid need to toss in the gimmick of the console and mess up the whole game. In Wild World I'm not forced to use the touch screen, it just aids heavily in the speed of doing a few tasks. In City Folk there are bits of game you can't do without having to use the motion controls.

Most people won't even notice because they have a normal Wii sensor bar, but since I have the makeshift sensor from another game, which chews through batteries, I have to constantly turn it off and on when I need to use the motion controls. Where in Wild World you can use the D-pad and buttons to move things throughout your inventory and select them to be sold, City Folk forces you to use the motion controls to click and/or drag. Even though there is absolutely no need for this, it seems everything else in the game can easily be done without the need for motion controls, except anything that requires selecting something (items, typing out letters, etc.)

So far City Folk seems to be much the same as the two previous games, but even with the frustration of the motion controls it still keeps me busy, for now. Hopefully after a little while this game will start to shine bright and I'll take more interest in it than I already do, which is blunted by Wild World. But as of right now I have to say the first is still my favorite for its simplicity, yet complexity all at the same time.

Moving into the Wild World!

Back in March 2012 I found out I had been gone from my game of Animal Crossing for over 77 months. Sadly since then not much has changed, I've often found myself shutting the game off and forgetting about Mr. Resetti, oops! But I haven't really made much progress in the game and I've watched villagers come and villagers go.

With my, somewhat, recent acquisition of a working Nintendo DS Lite I wondered if they had any sequels for this system, in fact they do! Animal Crossing Wild World its called, but as with everything I want to own it was overpriced almost everywhere I went, so I sat the desire to buy this game on the sidelines and just kept on about my way. Until one day I was digging through a media bin at the outlet store, when lo and behold there it was, sitting under an NES game (Kung Fu).

I can see how the cartridge alone could easily be discarded with CDs and the lone NES game. Needless to say I snatched it up and got to stepping toward the registers to make my purchase. However much a Nintendo DS cartridge weighs, times .79 cents, so I got it super cheap.

A few weeks later I happened across the case, empty short of the outside insert but it was more than I had before, so I picked it up. Now all I'll need is to find the stupid warning stuffers they put in every DS game and a copy of the manual and I'll have a complete copy for around $1-2. But now that I've spent so much time explaining how it came into my collection, let me tell you how I feel about the game and how it differs from the Gamecube version.

With all sequels there will obviously be changes, some for the better and some for the worse, all depending on your selective point of view. What I originally thought were bad moves in Wild World, after time, turned into things I could live with. But there were still a few things I just simply couldn't grasp.

Firstly, and most frustratingly to myself, is the almost completely impossible to find digging spots. Now given there is a massive difference in screen size between the Gamecube and the DS, I still believe they could have done something to make digging spots a tad more easy to spot. After a while I can find them easier, yet I still find them unnecessarily hard to find.

Secondly is the weird way the world is as if it were a tiny Earth, an orb in space, as you freely walk from one end to the next as the horizon ever changes. Its a minor complaint, but its not as bad as fishing seems to be in this version, these fish have ADHD and couldn't care less than to starve to death, apparently. Again, over time I've learned where to cast and wait for the fish to, painfully, eventually turn around and chase down my baited hook.

But my biggest, and I would dare say almost game ruining, complaint comes with the main mechanic of the game, socialization. In the Gamecube version of Animal Crossing I felt as if I were building relationships with fellow villagers moving in and out of my town (named Hell). But in this version I simply can't make those connections feel genuine; I've had villagers move away and I had totally forgotten they even lived in my Wild World town (also named Hell).

In the Gamecube version I often went on tasks to return something borrowed or borrow something, etc. As where in Wild World, no matter how much I bore another villager with my constant desire to talk, the best I can get is a few lines of dialog before scuttling off because they seem irritated by me being around them. Isn't the whole idea to be social and help other villagers?

Regardless of my personal opinions I'm glad to have it, although I rarely play it just the same as the Gamecube version. I got it so damn cheap that it really isn't a bad piece to just add to the collection, but sadly it isn't nearly half as fun as I thought it would be. One thing that may save this game for me is the Wi-fi connectivity and visiting people throughout the (real) World, so here is my friend code: (3998-7521-3061)!