I just wish the villager dialogue in New Horizons was more engaging. I remember New Leaf had tons and tons of dialogue and different responses to them, like a real back and forward conversation.
Yes, I agree with this comment very much, I found the New Horizons villager dialogue to be bland and boring, they just repeat the same thing. Just talk about something else already.
I agree. The Normal villagers definetly need more stuff to talk about, I swear i've heard them say "i could've sworn i was smelling my dad's [insert food here] so i gave him a call" more than 30 times.
I definitely agree however I remember a lot of people complaining about NL’s dialog as well. I think we need to go back to WW dialog to get great conversations back.
New Leaf will always be my favourite, nostalgia definitely plays a big part in it and the music is top tier, but I also enjoy the quaint village feel more than an entire island.
I like how customizable New Horizons is. That being said, I feel like New Horizons is lacking in variety. All the new fruit in New Leaf? Gone. The exterior customization for your home? Much more limited. Half the furniture? Gone. I love new horizons of course for the ability to make my town look how I want, but I feel like the game play beyond that is a bit more shallow.
In my opinion, I feel like New Leaf has more goals to do. New Horizons has so much freedom it can feel overwhelming and sometimes boring bc you don’t know what to do with all that freedom, but New Leaf has set goals that you can just follow. I find myself playing New Leaf when I’m bored of New Horizons. I don’t think either game is better than the other but instead they’re better in different categories. NH is better for being creative and NL is better for keeping busy.
New horizons has a major goal to it it is to find out what happened between New leaf and New horizons and the lore and if New horizons is in a different universe than the older games
I love New Leaf better because of the little things about it, that make it feel different. The background forest behind the HHA made it feel like there was a mysterious world to be explored. The cliff on the side of the town added to the fantasy that there was really a world to explore, even if you couldn't touch it. The New Leaf soundtrack is a million times better in my opinion, because its so cheery, and matches everything perfectly, from the hours the music plays, to each building you enter, you feel like your meant to be there. Ironically, I enjoyed feeling limited to a small space in the world, without being able to control everything. Its really nice to be able to terraform and play god, and explore a much larger area, but its adds to the idea that new horizons is so much more of a fantasy and nothing about it is as real as before. That also with the villagers feeling flatter. (I was personally harmed by my favorite villagers sounding more like robots) The colors of the games are also drastically different, even if its hard to tell. New Leaf is like a Solid color based scheme, with hard greens, bright pinks, rich blues, and powerful reds dotted everywhere. Unattractive to some, it felt like a coloring book to me, and its beautiful to me. New Horizons is also beautiful, but is more pastel with light blue oceans, softer greens, "fluffy" looking reds and yellows, and overall a plastic and cotton candy look. Its very attractive, but feels more fake and predetermined to me. This is a preference in art style on a personal level, but I hope I elaborated my idea well here. I also really really loved the difficulty of the game. It was not a hard game by any means, but for a child (like i was), it was impossible to find every wallpaper, every bug, every region locked item. It felt like i was looking at just a small part of the game, and i was already so satisfied with what i had, and knowing that there was much more to look for, it felt like there was endless greatness to experience. With new horizons, being older, and having access to a DLC that pretty much unlocks the entire catalog for you over time, it has less of that unknown factor to it. All the greatness of it is clear to be found, and there isn't much to explore or appreciate when you see it. TL;DR I love New Leaf more, because it feels like there a real world in it. It makes me feel more like a human than a god, its visually and soundly pleasing, and there was actually stuff to discover. All of that is in new horizons, but it has less of those feelings in every aspect in my opinion.
i completely agree! new leaf definitely feels like a cosy world. nh is praised for its graphics being better but they feel way less comfy to me, being a bit too shiny and pastel.
I’ve always preferred NL over NH. While I adore the sheer *amount* of features we were given in the newest game, it almost feels like..too much, strangely? And somehow, not enough, all at the same time. New Leaf always felt so cozy to me when I was younger, like you really *were* a mayor of a new town. You could only control so much of it, but that was okay. It wasn’t really about being in full control of the world around you, it was about being there for your townsfolk, planting flowers, playing games, fishing- it was the average Animal Crossing experience, with the perfect touch of newly gained control over the world around you. While the villagers may not have had as much personality as some of the earlier games, they still had a TON of it. Enough to make me cry for a whole day when my favorite villager up and left. And sure, while it may have lacked a few of those classic quality of life features (such as moving houses and whatnot), those were adaptable enough to make the game still playable. ACNL had a massive spread of engaging, in game events, amazing event characters, and tons of things to look forward to. And while New Horizons has..a *lot* of features, it feels like it lost sight at times of what an animal crossing game *is*. The decorator in me adores how much you can do and make, but the AC fan in me realizes how much was missed. It’s now more of a town builder than a life simulator, imo. The villagers have lost personality, you engage with them less, the in-game events are more..empty, and the amount of Special Characters they failed to include is quite literally more than every single other game has ever *dared* to do. NH focuses more on beautification than socialization, making your in-game interactions far less satisfying than older releases. I completely understand why they put out content in updates the way they do, but keeping *so much* content like that feels..odd. Now, this isn’t to say ACNH is a bad game, not by *any* means. It was wonderfully made, the features are fantastic, and I’m so glad they listened to the fans what with the addition of so many wanted features. Being able to put things outside is a *godsend*, and the grid feature for indoor decoration was an amazing take from HHD. The graphics are beautiful, the museum is fantastically designed, and the character customization is amazing. There’s just a very noticeable disconnect from its predecessors, and while they have been adding updates to improve on many features, it’s simply not the same, I feel. Also, removing characters like Cyrus, Harriet, and the whole Post Office Cast and replacing them with menus (letter rack, crafting table, that kind of thing), feels so empty to me. I appreciate that they’re trying to circle them back in, however. I will admit that this is all in part to mass nostalgia, but even after having played every game in the franchise, it’s my personal lowest ranked overall when it comes to immersion and personality. Both games are fantastic (although one does contain *superior* music, looking at you, New Leaf), and while I still have a clear favorite over the two, that won’t stop me from continuing to play New Horizons. It’s a wonderful game when I’m looking to decorate and build, but New Leaf will always hold a very, very special place in my heart.
The thing is you don't look at acnh like a game on its own , you look at it like the successor of ACNL and you don't want to be disappointed , but if you look at acnh without thinking of ACNL you'll see how good it is , and that's the problem of a lot of people like you , you can't be disappointed if you're waiting nothing , i started playing ACNL After playing acnh and i didn't have expectations , i wad just like "i Hope its good" and its good , but i prefer acnh because i looked at the game Like a game not like "the best AC according to other's opinion". No nostalgia, no biased opinion.
@@ok-6732 I never played New Leaf and New Horizons until a few years ago. So there's no nostalgia telling me New Leaf is better. There is simply much more to do. New Horizons is obviously better graphically as is personalizing your island. New Leaf is like a cozy village to live in, and New Horizons is like a dollhouse to observe and build.
New Horizons suffers from focusing way to much on designing, bland characters, and not including simple quality of life features. However that doesn’t mean the game wasn’t innovative and started to steer the series in a good direction. I have a feeling the next game will fix all of these issues just like how the AC team saw how people used custom designs in New Leaf and then leaned into decorating for New Horizons. We’ll get bulk crafting, shorter wait times for public work projects, easier terraforming, cataloging indicators, interesting dialogue, and more!
Both games have their place, but New Leaf had more life, dialogue, the minigames, there was much more to do. The lack of decorating outside was compensated by a fun gameplay while. New horizons is clearly focused on decoarting, expending your creative and the community loves customising, making designs and redecorating their island for each season, but it can get overwhelming or boring if all you do is fish and rearrange furniture.
I'm not a huge fan of New Horizons. The decorating is basically all there is to this game and that's always been a part that I've kinda glossed over for doing almost anything else. New Horizons barely held onto my attention, and it didn't help that there were no consequences for time travelling and not playing for a long time like in any other game in the series. My favorite is City Folk because I played that game first, but I think the best is New Leaf. I probably played it the most, even though I play it the least now
I agree. I've never been too interested in the decorating aspect of the games, it was always spending time with my animal friends that I played the game for, decorating my house was just a fun little minigame. Until New Horizons came out and the whole thing is about decorating literally every square meter of the entire map. Oof. Not the direction I wanted the series to go, and I'm worried that it will never go back to being about us and the friendships with our neighbours.
I'm gonna be honest. I've spent a year playing both and what lacks in content for new leaf it makes up for in character. Im still finding new dialogue the villagers will say while every villager in new horizons feels very robotic and lifeless. Now I wish the villagers would do more besides walk around and do the occasional shaking of trees or watering of plants but frankly talking to them yields a lot more than in new horizons.
I just started New Leaf, so I’m not nostalgia blinded. So far, I vastly prefer it to New Horizons. If for no other reason than the village feels more alive. New Horizons went all in on the customization aspect. Which is nice but it came at the detriment of other things. Specifically the “feel” of the villagers. I’m a casual player (2 hours a day is more than enough for me, by far) so I play the game differently than you do.
I feel like decorating and terraforming shouldn't be the 'meat and potatoes' of animal crossing, and villager hunting isn't really playing. New leaf is better
Tip: When Isabelle suggests fishing or bug catching, choose whatever the twins don't have (IE if they have the net, choose fishing). Then talk to Isabelle, tell her "I need a fishing rod", and she'll offer to sell you one.
I remember going back into my new leaf world not too long ago, and when I looked at my play time I was shocked to find it was 350h+ compared to my ~400h in new horizons. I didn’t realize how much I actually played new leaf, with only 1 room in my house, no Katrina building, and more to do. I probably finished new horizons at about 150 hours. New Leaf definitely had more to do overtime.
I think it's almost undeniable that New Leaf - and honestly all the prior games in the series - are better Animal Crossing titles, purely because they stick to the core of what Katsuya Eguchi intended with the games until he stepped down and the development teams switched for New Horizons; aside from Wild World, they all have, objectively, more content than New Horizons, too. New Horizons is honestly so detached from what Animal Crossing was - and should be - that it's hard to even compare it to previous titles; it's not a mainline game, to me, and feels just as much of a spin-off as Happy Home Designer or Pocket Camp, only more glorified and substantive - with an emphasis on creativity and total, capitalist control over your villages and even town structure. As Tama Hero perfectly stated, New Horizons isn't an Animal Crossing game which appeals to or is built for old or core fans that waited 8 years for the game - instead, it appeals to the new, Tumblr/Twitter crowd of VSCO aesthetic girls that came out of the franchise's fanbase near the end of New Leaf's lifespan, combined with Nintendo's newfound business strategies of releasing unfinished games and slowly, painfully finishing them with free updates overtime. It's important to state that there isn't anything inhernently wrong with the first direction Nintendo took, generally, but from a veteran fan's perspective, this is definitely something which feels wrong. As for the second direction, this is a blatant problem that Nintendo now has, and it's ruining their games and their image - I'd be able to accept New Horizons more if the game was at least finished upon released, but it wasn't, and that led to many of us veteran fans being fed up of the game by the time the massive 2.0 update released. It's extremely disappointing that many of us loyalists waited 7 - 8 years for this game to release, and when we did, we realised the game didn't target our demographic remotely; the fact the villagers are mindless, evidently pre-coded happy-go-lucky robots who have no personality, is all you need to show that New Horizons lacks Eguchi's primary vision for what the franchise was supposed to be in the first place: a game where one can live another life, distracted from the social worries of the real world, and form new relationships with animals that feel authentic and real, in a setting which also feels lived-in, special, unique, and somerhing you feel apart of, not something you have unnatural control of. Animal Crossing is no longer a life simulator game, it's a sandbox game. The simple, conclusive fact of the matter is, New Horizons wasn't built for us veteran fans, and it doesn't seem like that is going to change anytime soon: Animal Crossing is no longer built for us at all, and that's a hard pill to swallow.
You grind far more in NH than NL. The difference is that in NH you are grinding for materials, money and miles, while in NL you mostly grind for bells. The thing about New Leaf is that it motivates the player to play things slowly. There aren't a lack of things to do, you just have to be patient in order to unlock them. You can watch the comedy show to complete the book of jokes, you can work at the Café, you can play games with your villagere and complete their requests (which are far more frequent and diverse than in NH), you can have fun meeting new people at Club Tortimer, you can play minigames not only for the mermaid/cabana furniture but also other stuff like the Club Tortimer exclusive items and shrubs which are hard to come by, you can fish/catch bugs without worrying that your tools will break, you can through conversations that feel a lot more real and funny than NH, you can listen to a much better OST, you can make a house more beautiful than any in NH (especially with those amazing exterior options) and if you are creative enough you can decorate the outdoors with PWP, paths, dropped items, clovers, mushrooms, shrubs, a far more diverse array of fruit trees... When it comes to outdoor customization, all you have to do is be a little creative to deal with it's limitations. It can be less time consuming but it doesn't mean it is any less fun, in fact it is a lot less stressful.
ACNH advantages: -Bigger island -Better graphics -More critters -More villiagers -Villiager hunts -New tools -Crafting your own tools, furniture and etc -Villiagers have hobbies -Decorating the island (you can put things outside) -Changing the layout of the island (Terraforming) -Player's appearance is now fully customizable with more options -More space in pockets -More storage -Nook Miles -Wasps/Bees are easier to catch -Changes to the island based on hemisphere -Resident Services has more to it than the Town Hall in NL -Giving gifts to villiagers -Mystery/Boat island tours -K.K. Slider concerts -Relocating shops and houses -Campsites ACNL advantages: -Better soundtrack (all hail ACNL and its colourful variation in its hourly music!) -No tool durability (except axes) -More tasks to complete -More flowers -More fruit -More furniture -Main shop upgrades four times -Villiagers have more variety in their dialogues (although still a bit bland but nothing compared to NH) -Golden tools are actually worth it -Public Works projects -Tree at the center plaza -Main Street -Island tours at Tortimer's Island Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. They're both excellent games and super engaging, but they both have high and lows. So I don't know which of them I actually like more.
I personally don’t think the two games are comparable, sure they’re part of the same series but both games go for a different style of play. New Leaf is more focused around playing daily and getting to know your animals and building up your town, while New Horizons is focused around decorating and is a lot more open because of that, it really is dependant on which one suits your play style.
I have to agree, Mini games and cross over items are the only things I really crave from New Leaf. I prefer ACNH in every other way. That said if they wanted to really push the decoration envelope, give us the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe treatment, and 3 years down the line as the switch's lifecycle is finally ending give us a selection of Pocket Camp items for $25 or something and I'm sure folks would go wild... world.
I really miss the cross over items in New Leaf. There just was not enough in New Horizons. We got the Super Mario items, Sanrio items and villagers, plus a few Switch items, but that was about it. New Leaf had so much more cross over items from updates and the fortune cookies.
I played New Horizons for 40 hours total and haven't touched it since. I've put 600+ hours on New Leaf and the memories I have growing up with the franchise in general from Gamecube are undeniably some of my favorite. All of the games were spectacular...yet, in New Horizons. It just never felt right. The focus was on the terrain building when new leaf was about making the best of what you had. It was truly such a good game that no new AC game could ever compare.
There's advantages and disadvantages in both. Customization is insanely good in new horizons, while new leaf gives you tons to do like play with your villagers which makes it feel like a real community. New horizons don't give villagers personality where as new leaf has some variety. New leaf still looks beautiful but you can't alter your town or do morning aerobics. I still play new leaf daily and I enjoy it still.
@Ethan R Eh you still have to be connected to the internet either way that and for me at least the last time I tried doing so nobody showed up and I left.
With New Leaf, I’m still learning new features about the game and I did not know Katrina gets a shop on Main Street. Like I’ve had the game since release in November 2012
New Leaf was my first AC game (Chuggaaconroy's LP inspired me big time) and I got 3-4 fun years out of it. Then NH came out- it was super intimidating the first few weeks not really knowing what to do, but once I got the hang of that, yeah, it feels like there's always something to do. Plus all the UA-cam channels keep me on my toes and make me strive to make my island a little bit better
One thing that I noticed when it comes to videogames is that people, VERY often, will say that older games were way better than the current one. This is what happens a lot in Zelda, Pokémon, but Animal Crossing is no exception to that. Like a lot of people, I got into Animal Crossing with New Horizons, since I was in lockdown and it just magically dropped and my friends who knew the franchise were so excited about it. But as soon as I started, I saw people complaining about how it lacked a lot of things compared to New Leaf and that New Leaf was so much better. Technically, I could've played ACNL during my childhood because I was like... 9 or 10 when it was released and I just got my 3DS, but I didn't. I think that the reason it has so many people saying it's the best game out of the two is because a lot of them have started playing with New Leaf... And nostalgia is a very serious thing. Videogames makers often make a lot of money profiting from that nostalgia. So while I get that New Leaf was probably a better game according to many, I will still cherish ACNH in my heart as the best Animal Crossing game because I started with it. Who knows, maybe when the next AC game drops, I'll find it worse that NH even if it's objectively better. But that won't stop me from trying New Leaf because I still got my 3ds and it looks like a fun game to try. (And sorry for that huuuge paragraph for saying nothing lmao)
Animal Crossing is a series that is extremely iterative, just like your other examples of Pokémon and Zelda (maybe less so than Zelda depending on which games you look at). Because of that, the relatively small amount of differences between each game makes them easy to compare. An unfortunate side effect of a series running for so long is that eventually the people working on it start to misunderstand their own creation, or stop working on it altogether. It's well documented that the original Animal Crossing on the N64 was inspired by how lonely the creator felt after having to move far away from home. The game was made to simulate a community that felt real by including dynamic characters that continued to exist even when the console was powered off. The villagers were very important to the Animal Crossing experience. Since ACNH was your first game, I wouldn't be surprised if this came as a shock to you, because the villagers in ACNH are completely inconsequential to the gameplay experience. They almost never provide interesting interactions or make their presence felt through gameplay. Even New Leaf was guilty of this. But back in the earlier games this was absolutely not the case. The fact is that the newer Animal Crossing games are not interested in providing a complex town simulation. While the new games offer many of the same features as the old games, their focus is different, and this might not be obvious by simply comparing two lists of features. Because the shift in priority was a gradual one, I absolutely agree with you when you say that people prefer their first game in a series over the other ones, but I don't think it's always nostalgia. If someone's first game in the series was New Horizons, they would probably be frustrated with the limited customization options for the island, and maybe annoyed by how often they have to interact with the villagers. Personally, I started with Wild World, which had arguably the most complex villager system and very little in the way of outdoor customization. My initial experience with Animal Crossing was one that was villager centric, so I was disappointed by New Horizons' lifeless villagers. And as cool as the customization options are, I barely touched them because that's not what I come to Animal Crossing for. Some might say this is a product of nostalgia, but I think it has more to do with how the games have changed since I was initially exposed to them. Animal Crossing likely isn't going anywhere any time soon. We'll probably continue to see new AC games for decades to come. And in that time, we'll probably see another shift. When that happens, people who played New Horizons first will likely be disappointed as the things they like about the series are deprioritized in favor of something they care less about. And they'll be right to feel that way. Nostalgia is a real thing, but I also think that it's often true that older games really were objectively better for people with certain tastes. (Now I'M sorry for the huge paragraph lol.) Oh, and old Pokémon was better :P
I don’t think it’s the nostalgia factor when people are saying New Leaf is better than New Horizons. I feel like it’s really because some of the best features of New Leaf were removed for New Horizons, and also mostly because the dialogues with the villagers had way more depth in Wild World/New Leaf compared to New Horizons. Also, you have many things to do over time in New Leaf compared to New Horizons, which is why a lot of people often start new islands in New Horizons. When your island is done, there’s not that much left for you to do, which is not the case in New Leaf
I wouldn't say New Leaf is better per se, but nostalgia is a big reason for why I started playing it again after I was done with the main story of New Horizons. Or at least during the break I'm having from it. Its been so long, that the story feels new to me again, despite now realizing how little freedom we were given with designing and terraforming our town compared to New Horizons.
I actually completely disagree with this 😅 The major thing NH has missing for me is actually the long game elements that NL has, it takes like a year to fully upgrade T&T and unlocking the other shops takes longer too. I restarted my NL village recently and I love the slower pace, I like that I have a reason to play every day because it will make the shops unlock faster or it means I won't miss Katrina 😝. Where as in NH everything is spoon fed to you so fast that you can have almost everything, other than the tedious things like completing the art or fossils, done in about 2 months and then there's nothing else to work towards. They could have done so much more for the game, like released a summer dlc for like $5-10 where you could access tortimers island and the mini games. Or a shop keeper dlc where you could choose for some of the cart shops to actually have their own shop on your island, if you want, t&t actually upgrades more than once and an actual separate Cafe again that you can work at. Or even like a stuff pack that gives you more clothing and furniture. I love some of the quality of life things NH has done like the terraforming, but the lack of brick and mortar shops, the fact that the villagers are just pawns that can be forced to live wherever you want and the lack of anything to do other than decorating after 2-3 months, really just makes NH so much more hollow, it's like animal crossing sims with less fire and drowning in pools.
Honestly, yes. I remember the first 2-3 months that Animal Crossing was out, EVERYONE was talking about it. But then, suddenly, anyone who wasn't a diehard AC fan started to drop off. Why? Because that's when the content to work towards ends.
There’s so many additions I adore about new horizons. I don’t know how paths or outdoor furniture ever weren’t in the games. It looks amazing. But my problem with it is that I don’t really feel like I’m a person living in a town. The island doesn’t really feel “real”. I think a big reason is the lack of shops. I genuinely don’t understand why they removed almost all of them. I think this is also just a me thing but I don’t really like the setting of a deserted island that I founded? And with the villagers not having a ton of personality (not really exclusive to NH) and the entire being completely at my mercy, the island feels more like a place to exert my cute aesthetic will on instead of a… real community to exert my will on but also be part of. There’s so many personality-filled special characters that were removed or seen much less. It kind of feels like how stardew valley would feel without all the town. If the best parts of new leaf and new horizons are combined it will easily be the best game in the series (and steal hundreds of hours of my life).
Animal crossing new horizons is perfect because you can play whatever way you want, the classical way, or the new way (terraforming and island themes) but tbh the only thing that bothers me is the fact villagers say the same dialogue over, and over again. An example is a villager like Raymond a smug villager saying the same dialogue as any other smug villager making all smug villagers say the same dialogue, (same for other types of villagers too).
The truth about Animal Crossing is that there's really only one character for each of the 9 personalities, but with their names and appearances changed so it seems like there's "over 400" of them. It kind of makes sense when you realize there's so many, it's not realistic to expect them to have written unique dialogue for over 400 characters that you're only going to see a handful of. But if they could have at least had 2 sets of dialogue for each personality type, that would have been nice...
Don't get me wrong New Horizons is a great step up in customization of the island. They did a great job bringing it to the Switch. HOWEVER, Nintendo being Nintendo loves to give you something and then take away a lot of a game. Especially parts that make it great. This game removed the music. A core part of what makes Animal Crossing...Animal Crossing! They removed certain characters, Rover, Resetti. Removed a lot of features. You can't upgrade the stores?...The fruits? I know they wanted to make it "grindy" and make it harder to get bells and stuff but the Tortimer's island in the nighttime was a vibe! NH is a fun game but when it came to the Switch I expected a lot more. Also the graphics...as cute as they are I expected Mario Kart 8's AC course level graphics. Or a higher quality Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival...But nope we got what we got. And still till this day we don't have many features from previous games that even the DS had.
My only experience with AC is NL and NH. There are things I love about both games. In NL, the variety of items, mini-games and soundtrack are what make it stand out. While I do enjoy these things that NH has to offer, NL was just better in these aspects, plus the only mini-games that NH offers is the occasional little game the villagers will engage in. On the other hand, NH is more customizable, atmospheric and adds a lot of quality-of-life changes that I never want to see another AC game without. I hope the next AC game combines the best of both games. TL:DR New Leaf=character and content; New Horizons = Customizable and quality-of-life.
i still really wish they would have added the old furniture sets back in and had a fancier final shop upgrade u_u the addition of gyroids back in was a huuuge plus for me though, i was really butthurt about no gyroids during the initial release of the game but their revamp made them so much better and more enjoyable for me.
I always wanted to play nh, but I don't own a switch :( so a couple days ago, after 5 years, I played new leaf and I'm in love (again). something I noticed is that the game is a lot better if you play with friends, because yeah it's cool to talk with villagers, water the plants etc... But years ago I had so much fun going to the island to meet new people. I spent afternoons playing with my friends, but now there is no one left sadly. Nowadays the people you meet in the island just look for cheaters lol,
Really the only thing I can think of new horizons got better was character designs (different skin tones, etc), but other than that new leaf takes the cake for me
I've just started playing New Leaf because my only Animal Crossing game before New Horizons was Wild World when it first came out back in 2005. Having lots of fun getting to experience a brand new (to me) Animal Crossing game!
i feel like horizons is better decor wise as we can decorate outside and terraform. but the crafting was hard to understand at first and it threw me off (i bought the game and didn’t play it for 2 years because i was spooked by crafting) new leaf…is a masterpiece. we have the camping ground with cool furniture from npcs. public works projects, many store upgrades, the classic gyroids, the nostalgic furniture sets (ik we have them in horizons also) and all the flowers look way cuter on new leaf. AND new leaf has violets, carnations, dandelions and dandelion puffs which NH doesn’t have horizons.
I've thought about getting a used DS just to get NL. But then I remember how I'm a chronic time traveler and get max bells on every new island I make. And I'm just like ehhhh I dunno.
Very difficult to compare because what Horizons has in terraforming & outside decorating it lacks in all other content and character relationships. HHP saves it somewhat more than HHD ever did. I’ve started playing New Leaf again so it will be interesting to compare.
In my opinion, NH is a good game or can be if you enjoy it (I personally found NH boring when I first played it lol) The problem for me doesn’t really come from if NH is good or not. It’s more like NH doesn’t really feel like an animal crossing game. It does have a lot of features and freedom to do a lot, but those features mostly revolve around building or designing. I think NH is a building/decorating game. Which doesn’t make it bad, it just lost the things that made animal crossing, animal crossing. The reason why I personally couldn’t get into it is because when I played there was basically nothing to do in the beginning. I also felt very overwhelmed with the idea of making the best island with the best theme and it had to look absolutely perfect etc. There’s a lot more I could say, like the villagers were very bland in comparison to the villagers in the previous games. They had all these cute interactions, like exercising or eating food but that to me was just aesthetic. The villagers themselves didn’t really feel real, if that makes sense. There’s also the fact that the game wasn’t complete upon release (despite costing the same as what a full game would cost) so there were a lot of things missing, which I think contributed to it feeling bland. Though if I’m being honest, NL isn’t perfect either. My problem with NL or what I don’t like about it despite loving the game is that after you sort of achieve everything, have all the money you could possibly want, unlock everything, expand your house etc. There isn’t really much else to do? So i usually just start a new town when that happens. The good thing is that you don’t get to that point overnight so I at least get a couple of years in playing the game lol. Both games have flaws and good things about them, I think it all depends on people’s preferences and what they enjoy in a game.
4:53 whilst newleaf doesn't have a post game, it does have mini games you can unlock through special items. One of my favourites is the puzzle swipe game where you can climb the ranks by competing against your villagers. This mini game is accessible through the Nintendo 3DS XL in game.
i just bought new horizons being a newbie and i hope i dont regret it.. i feel like im a little late to the party and everyone already seems bored of it. at the same time, im sure itll be a while longer before any new animal crossing game so i feel like its fine that i got it now
new horizons has a few mini games. I played one with my villager hamlet once where he buried tresure and I had to find it in under 3 mins. It did come randomly, but its still there.
Why I prefer new leaf is because animal crossing is that one game I just put 1 to 2 hours in ever second day to wind down and relax and for some reason the fact that every rock and tree drops materials and I can craft and stuff just stresses me out, if I wanted to craft and built stuff I'd play Minecraft, terraria or heck stardew valley but all I want is to fish catch up with my virtual villagers and buy new drip and lastly grind some bells, I don't want to feel like I have to hit every rock 6 times, i want to hit every rock once without feeling like I lose resources until I find the money or diamond rock. But I totally get people who like horizon it just doesn't feel like animal crossing to me when I feel like I should do things a certain way while the feeling from the last once was that I could just do everything in my own time and way whenever no pressure
You don't mention anything about multiplayer or how nook's shop has less upgrades in NH. No Nintendo items or villagers. Villagers are the most one dimensional and repetitive than they've ever been. There's so much more to do with other people in new leaf. So many more locations all connected to your town. It's more than just the mini games. NL isn't perfect, but it doesn't feel nearly as soulless.
I've been a long time AC fan. My first game was Wild World which is so nostalgic for me and I do miss things from that game that we had and don't get now like the animals personalities, flea markets, judging animals Xmas lights etc. However each time the AC games have improved in some way. I absolutely love New Leaf and New Horizons I've spent countless hours on both. For me though, I think New Leaf ultimately wins out as the better game because not only does it feel there is more to explore and do but the animal dialogue is a huge thing for me and it's just too repetitive in New Horizons. That's not to say in New Leaf it was perfect because the older games seemed to get it better but it's not as bad as NH. I really hope if there's another installment they work on the dialogue. It's called Animal Crossing for a reason and the animals are the heart of the game.
I recently started a new town in New Leaf. I'm only about 5 days into the game but I'm starting to wonder if I should have started New Horizons back up instead. I love NL but I'm really feeling the lack of quality of life features that NH added. The inventory is so small and the trick of carrying things in letters is cumbersome. Everyone always says the dialogue is better in NL but so far it doesn't really feel that different from NH's dialogue. And especially after the 2.0 update and HHP, there's no question NH has more variety of things to do. The one thing NL has over NH for me is a sense of coziness. Maybe it's NL's better hourly music (I guess that makes two things it has over NH) or the fact you're in a little town rather than an island. I still think the perfect Animal Crossing game would be a combination of both games.
I prefer new horizons new leaf I don’t feel the urge to play every day. But new horizons I actually have the desire to play for at least an hour or 2 each day.
I always used to say that New Leaf is better than New Horizons. But, I got to playing New Leaf again and the pacing was soooo slow that I got bored super quickly. It’s much more fun to restart an island in New Horizons than having a new town in New Leaf. IMO, btw. I still love New Leaf to this day tho, I just got used to playing fast paced games, like New Horizons. Unlike back then when I was younger and had a lot of free time, now with College and stuff, playing fast paced games is the way to go, for me at least. New Leaf will always be there for the Nostalgia, but New Horizons is staying for longevity.
Huh- 14 minutes ago- I never got to play New Leaf or any of the other animal crossing installments, I got a 5 star island within about a month and my final house rent is fully paid off, but I don’t have much furniture to decorate with, I’ve found ways to have fun but I just don’t have much to do anymore
I've played since I was 11 years old on the Gamecube and all of the games suffer from no post game. I played over 1,000 hours of New Horizons on just one island. I don't know why I played it so much looking back. There is no post game in NH either. I'm not sure what you do in the post game, but, once I decorated my town a little, the game was done for me. The core of the game is absolutely gutted and I think they realized this when they shoehorned in shops on Photopia. I don't think those were originally planned like that which is why 2.0 took 2 years to come out. There is zero sense of progression in this game beyond upgrading your home. Nook's Cranny doesn't even change, it upgrades after 30 days no matter what and it's the same kind of store with an additional item. Why aren't there additional Nook's Cranny upgrades with new names? We should have a massive department store. Why can't we place a Cafe where we want? Why doesn't the campsite upgrade to a lodge or a hotel? Why can't we place a Reset Center and a Police Station? Why is there no actual Post Office, Salon, or Museum Shop? Why is there no Observatory, this was the game to do mini-games and a Tortimer island, but where is it? Where the heck is Gracie and Wendell? Why is Label just a visitor with luggage? The worst offenders here are the total lack of customization options. You cant customize your airport. You cant customize your Town Hall. You cant customize your cliffs or beaches. Lots of fruit, including perfect fruit, are missing. Villager dialogue was totally gutted as well, even New Leaf has better dialogue. My villagers are sock puppets in NH, I don't even talk to them anymore. I've gone back to New Leaf recently and I find myself much more engaged with the game, Tortimer Island adds a whole level that New Horizons doesn't have, Main Street is so much more dynamic and alive, and collecting publics works projects instead of just throwing furniture everywhere feels way more satisfying. I think they took things a step in the wrong direction with NH. It turned into the Nintendo version of The Sims or a dollhouse.
I miss new leaf a little because now their is new updates and in new leaf there was 1 so I knew what to get but now I need to get all the new things in the updates not knowing what to do.
New Horizons only has more personalized customization but New Leaf had so much charm and more meaningful content, I loved villagers & multiplayer in NL but I love decorating/designing in NH
I grew up of City Folk so im pretty biased. I do like ACNH though i do get burnt out a LOT except when i do builds. A dream of mine is that Nintendo would update the soundtrack to past games.
I hate that they got rid of that because I was constantly reacting to other players. Now since New Horizons don't even have that, I find the game mildly boring 😔
New horizons gives you more freedom but has less things to to do with that freedom. All the shops that you could unlock/upgrade and potentially place anywhere is trimmed down. Expanding your home and choosing the specific rooms you want added is no longer your choice. Having goals to complete the encyclopedia for golden tools is pointless because they all break anyways.
Agreed. New Horizons is the better game. I admit though that i do miss some things from new leaf like April Fools event, Holloween event, Hide and Seek, frequency of villager quests, awarding ceremony of Bug Off amd Fishing Tourney, PWP, and the music I also got back to new leaf while playing New Horizons and it was then that I realize I like playing New Horizons more
Villager hide and seek and April fool's is the only things I miss from new leaf. Even though new horizons was my first game. Then I picked new leaf up because I saw many claiming it was better than new horizons and for only 20 dollars at Walmart (yes, my Walmart still has 3ds games) I said why not and bought it. New leaf isn't as fun but it's still a great game. I'll play some tonight before I go to bed
So New Horizons is my first Animal Crossing game. I enjoyed it, it's fun collecting the funiture and villager hunting. I also like the freedom of putting items outside without raising the money for one. I just started playing New Leaf resently and I find it refreashing and fun. Yeah, you can't do much at the beginning but I love getting the fish and planting tons of flowers. I don't feel like rushing the game like I did with New Horizons. I like both games. They both have their strenghts and weaknesses.
I like playing new leaf and wild world but if I put them down for a bit (months) I feel like playing them but don’t because I don’t won’t to play and find one of my favourite villagers gone that’s what make new horizons easier to play after not playing it for a long time, the villagers never leave with out asking you
I wasn't a fan till New Horizons. Now it's my most played game like ever. First time I ever hit 900 hours in anything and now I'm just about to hit 1100. I also like that I can actually pick a skintone and hair types closer to my own. Before you could only just tan.
I played both and I like new horizons more than new leaf. I ran out of things to do in new leaf but not in new horizons. But maybe that's because NH was my first game and NL was my 2nd. Don't worry though, I love new leaf too and I have to play that game again and have a reason to collect play coins because of the game. Right now in new leaf, I'm trying to get rid of chops and in new horizons, I'm making a golden friendship garden and trying to get Ione. I love decorating too so I guess that's why I love NH more Update to those who care: I got Ione for Christmas and she's happily living on my island. Chops is gone in new leaf and now I sadly have to deal with rococo.
Hey i just wanna share this haha. Chops is the first villager to leave in my island (i let him leave because i dont care for him) but he's back for revenge in my New Leaf town lmao. I also got Ione recently. She's one pf my dreamies
@@alds6566 I'm glad You got her. I'm thinking about seeing if target has the card packs or buying her card off of eBay. And the game keeps forcing me to like chops in new leaf. Like I had a hide and seek thing. I found him 2nd but I made the effort of making sure I talked to him last. And now he thinks we are friends.
Lets see what New Leaf has that New Horizons does not. - Better store upgrades - Simpler town making - Free online (As now that it is still up) - Main street for stores - Minigames - Unbreakable tools (Best one) - More furnature slots in nooks cranny - Many beloved characters (Main NPCS) - Perfect Fruit - Different Town hall styles - The main tree (A cool narrative) - Better designed events Yeah New Horizons added so much more but even the smallest of details of the previous game glued it together so my personal pick is New Leaf.
I’ve played AC (a lot) since the nintendo DS game. My favorite one is City Folk because I liked the city so much. I wish New Horizons had a city themed island with a GracieGrace shop 😭 Tbh what I miss the most in New Horizons are the classics sets of furnitures. Why are there so few furniture sets on this AC game ??
I’ve put thousands of hours into NH and love it. However, I don’t love the decorating and customizing aspect of it. I love everything else about it more. I just ordered a DS and NL hoping to get a more campy AC experience.
I want to get Animal Crossing New Leaf on a game emulator since I can't find my 3DSes. But I'm not looking forward to having random villagers mess up my paths.
I was always running out of things to do with New Leaf and constantly time travelling in order to have more tasks. I haven't time travelled once in New Horizons 🤷 But everyone has preferences.
Same for me too. I time travel alot and all I basically do is collect the fossils (gyroids or pitfall seeds too) get them looked at, sell them and then go to the shops for villager gifts. My main characters house is almost complete (I have 4 charcters in total) so I go midnight bug hunting when I feel like it
I love New Horizons with all my heart, but New Leaf has an extremely special place in my heart because not only was the first Animal Crossing game I ever played, but that and Tomodachi Life were the first 3Ds games I ever played on Christmas of 2015. I personally find New Leaf a lot more better than NH in my opinion, because of all the stuff you could do. Not only could you play mini games, but you could do it with complete strangers if you wanted to! I played NH for at least 5 minutes and just got bored with it. But I played NL for at least an hour and just enjoyed everything. The music (especially 5PM) is so beautiful compared to NH. Also, New Leaf was a completed game with an add-on Amiibo update. NH was, in my opinion, super bland and boring playing it the day it came out before all the updates. This doesn’t mean I hate NH, because I don’t. I can sometimes find something to do. I just think my preference is NL because of all the features that weren’t in NH. And nostalgia.
Not to be that person but. I'd say the way you play New Leaf is well...wrong? I mean there's no real wrong way to play but old animal crossing titles were meant to be played a bit per day. Not like half the day or more. Its a long term game where you did a little every day. Or you'd burn yourself out or find less things to do.
I just wish the villager dialogue in New Horizons was more engaging. I remember New Leaf had tons and tons of dialogue and different responses to them, like a real back and forward conversation.
Yes, I agree with this comment very much, I found the New Horizons villager dialogue to be bland and boring, they just repeat the same thing. Just talk about something else already.
Nintendo didn’t focus on dialogues in New Horizons they focused on getting you engaged.
I agree. The Normal villagers definetly need more stuff to talk about, I swear i've heard them say "i could've sworn i was smelling my dad's [insert food here] so i gave him a call" more than 30 times.
@@-Tia- I'd argue New Horizons tries way less to get you engaged
I definitely agree however I remember a lot of people complaining about NL’s dialog as well. I think we need to go back to WW dialog to get great conversations back.
New Leaf will always be my favourite, nostalgia definitely plays a big part in it and the music is top tier, but I also enjoy the quaint village feel more than an entire island.
Facts
I agree 👍
The music was so good!!!
Totally agree. Just made a comment about it
It's not just the nostalgia, the game is still very much enjoyable to this day. Compare it to Wild World which is a game that did not age well.
I like how customizable New Horizons is. That being said, I feel like New Horizons is lacking in variety. All the new fruit in New Leaf? Gone. The exterior customization for your home? Much more limited. Half the furniture? Gone. I love new horizons of course for the ability to make my town look how I want, but I feel like the game play beyond that is a bit more shallow.
In my opinion, I feel like New Leaf has more goals to do. New Horizons has so much freedom it can feel overwhelming and sometimes boring bc you don’t know what to do with all that freedom, but New Leaf has set goals that you can just follow. I find myself playing New Leaf when I’m bored of New Horizons. I don’t think either game is better than the other but instead they’re better in different categories. NH is better for being creative and NL is better for keeping busy.
New horizons has a major goal to it it is to find out what happened between New leaf and New horizons and the lore and if New horizons is in a different universe than the older games
@@Ochoisawesome not that deep
@@Ochoisawesome ohh i didn’t know that
I love New Leaf better because of the little things about it, that make it feel different. The background forest behind the HHA made it feel like there was a mysterious world to be explored. The cliff on the side of the town added to the fantasy that there was really a world to explore, even if you couldn't touch it.
The New Leaf soundtrack is a million times better in my opinion, because its so cheery, and matches everything perfectly, from the hours the music plays, to each building you enter, you feel like your meant to be there.
Ironically, I enjoyed feeling limited to a small space in the world, without being able to control everything. Its really nice to be able to terraform and play god, and explore a much larger area, but its adds to the idea that new horizons is so much more of a fantasy and nothing about it is as real as before. That also with the villagers feeling flatter. (I was personally harmed by my favorite villagers sounding more like robots)
The colors of the games are also drastically different, even if its hard to tell. New Leaf is like a Solid color based scheme, with hard greens, bright pinks, rich blues, and powerful reds dotted everywhere. Unattractive to some, it felt like a coloring book to me, and its beautiful to me. New Horizons is also beautiful, but is more pastel with light blue oceans, softer greens, "fluffy" looking reds and yellows, and overall a plastic and cotton candy look. Its very attractive, but feels more fake and predetermined to me. This is a preference in art style on a personal level, but I hope I elaborated my idea well here.
I also really really loved the difficulty of the game. It was not a hard game by any means, but for a child (like i was), it was impossible to find every wallpaper, every bug, every region locked item. It felt like i was looking at just a small part of the game, and i was already so satisfied with what i had, and knowing that there was much more to look for, it felt like there was endless greatness to experience. With new horizons, being older, and having access to a DLC that pretty much unlocks the entire catalog for you over time, it has less of that unknown factor to it. All the greatness of it is clear to be found, and there isn't much to explore or appreciate when you see it.
TL;DR I love New Leaf more, because it feels like there a real world in it. It makes me feel more like a human than a god, its visually and soundly pleasing, and there was actually stuff to discover. All of that is in new horizons, but it has less of those feelings in every aspect in my opinion.
completely agree with you
i completely agree! new leaf definitely feels like a cosy world. nh is praised for its graphics being better but they feel way less comfy to me, being a bit too shiny and pastel.
Agree wish nh was like nl:/
I agree with you wholeheartedly and completely. Thank you for this comment.
New Leaf’s soundtrack is wayyyy better but ACNH is the clear winner (atleast for me) 🧡
Hi NintenTalk!
Gotta agree there
Nintenshill
I'm biased for Wild World's soundtrack above all. But what I REALLY want is the ability to shut off the music entirely.
new horizons soundtrack is trash
I’ve always preferred NL over NH. While I adore the sheer *amount* of features we were given in the newest game, it almost feels like..too much, strangely? And somehow, not enough, all at the same time.
New Leaf always felt so cozy to me when I was younger, like you really *were* a mayor of a new town. You could only control so much of it, but that was okay. It wasn’t really about being in full control of the world around you, it was about being there for your townsfolk, planting flowers, playing games, fishing- it was the average Animal Crossing experience, with the perfect touch of newly gained control over the world around you. While the villagers may not have had as much personality as some of the earlier games, they still had a TON of it. Enough to make me cry for a whole day when my favorite villager up and left. And sure, while it may have lacked a few of those classic quality of life features (such as moving houses and whatnot), those were adaptable enough to make the game still playable. ACNL had a massive spread of engaging, in game events, amazing event characters, and tons of things to look forward to. And while New Horizons has..a *lot* of features, it feels like it lost sight at times of what an animal crossing game *is*.
The decorator in me adores how much you can do and make, but the AC fan in me realizes how much was missed. It’s now more of a town builder than a life simulator, imo. The villagers have lost personality, you engage with them less, the in-game events are more..empty, and the amount of Special Characters they failed to include is quite literally more than every single other game has ever *dared* to do. NH focuses more on beautification than socialization, making your in-game interactions far less satisfying than older releases. I completely understand why they put out content in updates the way they do, but keeping *so much* content like that feels..odd. Now, this isn’t to say ACNH is a bad game, not by *any* means. It was wonderfully made, the features are fantastic, and I’m so glad they listened to the fans what with the addition of so many wanted features. Being able to put things outside is a *godsend*, and the grid feature for indoor decoration was an amazing take from HHD. The graphics are beautiful, the museum is fantastically designed, and the character customization is amazing. There’s just a very noticeable disconnect from its predecessors, and while they have been adding updates to improve on many features, it’s simply not the same, I feel. Also, removing characters like Cyrus, Harriet, and the whole Post Office Cast and replacing them with menus (letter rack, crafting table, that kind of thing), feels so empty to me. I appreciate that they’re trying to circle them back in, however.
I will admit that this is all in part to mass nostalgia, but even after having played every game in the franchise, it’s my personal lowest ranked overall when it comes to immersion and personality. Both games are fantastic (although one does contain *superior* music, looking at you, New Leaf), and while I still have a clear favorite over the two, that won’t stop me from continuing to play New Horizons. It’s a wonderful game when I’m looking to decorate and build, but New Leaf will always hold a very, very special place in my heart.
The thing is you don't look at acnh like a game on its own , you look at it like the successor of ACNL and you don't want to be disappointed , but if you look at acnh without thinking of ACNL you'll see how good it is , and that's the problem of a lot of people like you , you can't be disappointed if you're waiting nothing , i started playing ACNL After playing acnh and i didn't have expectations , i wad just like "i Hope its good" and its good , but i prefer acnh because i looked at the game Like a game not like "the best AC according to other's opinion". No nostalgia, no biased opinion.
@@ok-6732 I never played New Leaf and New Horizons until a few years ago. So there's no nostalgia telling me New Leaf is better. There is simply much more to do. New Horizons is obviously better graphically as is personalizing your island. New Leaf is like a cozy village to live in, and New Horizons is like a dollhouse to observe and build.
@@Booderot i didn't Say everyone are nostalgic about NL they just prefer it and im ok with it
YES YES YES This is everything I wanted to say and more
You sure ima read it all?
I wish they did a switch reboot of new leaf where they add the possibility to decorate the town, it would be such a good game too!
They should have. Merge New Leaf with New Horizons and if would have been the ultimate game.
New Horizons suffers from focusing way to much on designing, bland characters, and not including simple quality of life features. However that doesn’t mean the game wasn’t innovative and started to steer the series in a good direction. I have a feeling the next game will fix all of these issues just like how the AC team saw how people used custom designs in New Leaf and then leaned into decorating for New Horizons. We’ll get bulk crafting, shorter wait times for public work projects, easier terraforming, cataloging indicators, interesting dialogue, and more!
Is it confirmed
Both games have their place, but New Leaf had more life, dialogue, the minigames, there was much more to do. The lack of decorating outside was compensated by a fun gameplay while. New horizons is clearly focused on decoarting, expending your creative and the community loves customising, making designs and redecorating their island for each season, but it can get overwhelming or boring if all you do is fish and rearrange furniture.
(imo) nl dialogues are a lot but too bland rather the the nh dialogues is more scope, specific, smart, self aware...
I'm not a huge fan of New Horizons. The decorating is basically all there is to this game and that's always been a part that I've kinda glossed over for doing almost anything else. New Horizons barely held onto my attention, and it didn't help that there were no consequences for time travelling and not playing for a long time like in any other game in the series. My favorite is City Folk because I played that game first, but I think the best is New Leaf. I probably played it the most, even though I play it the least now
I agree. I've never been too interested in the decorating aspect of the games, it was always spending time with my animal friends that I played the game for, decorating my house was just a fun little minigame. Until New Horizons came out and the whole thing is about decorating literally every square meter of the entire map. Oof. Not the direction I wanted the series to go, and I'm worried that it will never go back to being about us and the friendships with our neighbours.
I'm gonna be honest. I've spent a year playing both and what lacks in content for new leaf it makes up for in character. Im still finding new dialogue the villagers will say while every villager in new horizons feels very robotic and lifeless. Now I wish the villagers would do more besides walk around and do the occasional shaking of trees or watering of plants but frankly talking to them yields a lot more than in new horizons.
I just started New Leaf, so I’m not nostalgia blinded.
So far, I vastly prefer it to New Horizons. If for no other reason than the village feels more alive.
New Horizons went all in on the customization aspect. Which is nice but it came at the detriment of other things.
Specifically the “feel” of the villagers. I’m a casual player (2 hours a day is more than enough for me, by far) so I play the game differently than you do.
I feel like decorating and terraforming shouldn't be the 'meat and potatoes' of animal crossing, and villager hunting isn't really playing. New leaf is better
Tip: When Isabelle suggests fishing or bug catching, choose whatever the twins don't have (IE if they have the net, choose fishing). Then talk to Isabelle, tell her "I need a fishing rod", and she'll offer to sell you one.
I remember going back into my new leaf world not too long ago, and when I looked at my play time I was shocked to find it was 350h+ compared to my ~400h in new horizons. I didn’t realize how much I actually played new leaf, with only 1 room in my house, no Katrina building, and more to do. I probably finished new horizons at about 150 hours. New Leaf definitely had more to do overtime.
I wish the villagers in new horizons were like how they were in new leaf.
New leaf villagers were boring but just less boring
The villagers in the OG game would lowkey bully the player. It felt more real. I miss those days. 😂
I think it's almost undeniable that New Leaf - and honestly all the prior games in the series - are better Animal Crossing titles, purely because they stick to the core of what Katsuya Eguchi intended with the games until he stepped down and the development teams switched for New Horizons; aside from Wild World, they all have, objectively, more content than New Horizons, too.
New Horizons is honestly so detached from what Animal Crossing was - and should be - that it's hard to even compare it to previous titles; it's not a mainline game, to me, and feels just as much of a spin-off as Happy Home Designer or Pocket Camp, only more glorified and substantive - with an emphasis on creativity and total, capitalist control over your villages and even town structure. As Tama Hero perfectly stated, New Horizons isn't an Animal Crossing game which appeals to or is built for old or core fans that waited 8 years for the game - instead, it appeals to the new, Tumblr/Twitter crowd of VSCO aesthetic girls that came out of the franchise's fanbase near the end of New Leaf's lifespan, combined with Nintendo's newfound business strategies of releasing unfinished games and slowly, painfully finishing them with free updates overtime. It's important to state that there isn't anything inhernently wrong with the first direction Nintendo took, generally, but from a veteran fan's perspective, this is definitely something which feels wrong. As for the second direction, this is a blatant problem that Nintendo now has, and it's ruining their games and their image - I'd be able to accept New Horizons more if the game was at least finished upon released, but it wasn't, and that led to many of us veteran fans being fed up of the game by the time the massive 2.0 update released.
It's extremely disappointing that many of us loyalists waited 7 - 8 years for this game to release, and when we did, we realised the game didn't target our demographic remotely; the fact the villagers are mindless, evidently pre-coded happy-go-lucky robots who have no personality, is all you need to show that New Horizons lacks Eguchi's primary vision for what the franchise was supposed to be in the first place: a game where one can live another life, distracted from the social worries of the real world, and form new relationships with animals that feel authentic and real, in a setting which also feels lived-in, special, unique, and somerhing you feel apart of, not something you have unnatural control of. Animal Crossing is no longer a life simulator game, it's a sandbox game.
The simple, conclusive fact of the matter is, New Horizons wasn't built for us veteran fans, and it doesn't seem like that is going to change anytime soon: Animal Crossing is no longer built for us at all, and that's a hard pill to swallow.
@@Lunar_Pendragon True
@@Lunar_Pendragon Bro why u literally wrote an ESSAY DO IT FOR SCHOOL
You grind far more in NH than NL. The difference is that in NH you are grinding for materials, money and miles, while in NL you mostly grind for bells.
The thing about New Leaf is that it motivates the player to play things slowly. There aren't a lack of things to do, you just have to be patient in order to unlock them. You can watch the comedy show to complete the book of jokes, you can work at the Café, you can play games with your villagere and complete their requests (which are far more frequent and diverse than in NH), you can have fun meeting new people at Club Tortimer, you can play minigames not only for the mermaid/cabana furniture but also other stuff like the Club Tortimer exclusive items and shrubs which are hard to come by, you can fish/catch bugs without worrying that your tools will break, you can through conversations that feel a lot more real and funny than NH, you can listen to a much better OST, you can make a house more beautiful than any in NH (especially with those amazing exterior options) and if you are creative enough you can decorate the outdoors with PWP, paths, dropped items, clovers, mushrooms, shrubs, a far more diverse array of fruit trees... When it comes to outdoor customization, all you have to do is be a little creative to deal with it's limitations. It can be less time consuming but it doesn't mean it is any less fun, in fact it is a lot less stressful.
ACNH advantages:
-Bigger island
-Better graphics
-More critters
-More villiagers
-Villiager hunts
-New tools
-Crafting your own tools, furniture and etc
-Villiagers have hobbies
-Decorating the island (you can put things outside)
-Changing the layout of the island (Terraforming)
-Player's appearance is now fully customizable with more options
-More space in pockets
-More storage
-Nook Miles
-Wasps/Bees are easier to catch
-Changes to the island based on hemisphere
-Resident Services has more to it than the Town Hall in NL
-Giving gifts to villiagers
-Mystery/Boat island tours
-K.K. Slider concerts
-Relocating shops and houses
-Campsites
ACNL advantages:
-Better soundtrack (all hail ACNL and its colourful variation in its hourly music!)
-No tool durability (except axes)
-More tasks to complete
-More flowers
-More fruit
-More furniture
-Main shop upgrades four times
-Villiagers have more variety in their dialogues (although still a bit bland but nothing compared to NH)
-Golden tools are actually worth it
-Public Works projects
-Tree at the center plaza
-Main Street
-Island tours at Tortimer's Island
Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. They're both excellent games and super engaging, but they both have high and lows. So I don't know which of them I actually like more.
ACNL had campsites too.
I think crafting tools is a disadvantage, i hate it.
I personally don’t think the two games are comparable, sure they’re part of the same series but both games go for a different style of play. New Leaf is more focused around playing daily and getting to know your animals and building up your town, while New Horizons is focused around decorating and is a lot more open because of that, it really is dependant on which one suits your play style.
I have to agree, Mini games and cross over items are the only things I really crave from New Leaf. I prefer ACNH in every other way. That said if they wanted to really push the decoration envelope, give us the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe treatment, and 3 years down the line as the switch's lifecycle is finally ending give us a selection of Pocket Camp items for $25 or something and I'm sure folks would go wild... world.
I really miss the cross over items in New Leaf. There just was not enough in New Horizons. We got the Super Mario items, Sanrio items and villagers, plus a few Switch items, but that was about it. New Leaf had so much more cross over items from updates and the fortune cookies.
Me reading the title: no, no it is not.
I played New Horizons for 40 hours total and haven't touched it since. I've put 600+ hours on New Leaf and the memories I have growing up with the franchise in general from Gamecube are undeniably some of my favorite. All of the games were spectacular...yet, in New Horizons. It just never felt right. The focus was on the terrain building when new leaf was about making the best of what you had. It was truly such a good game that no new AC game could ever compare.
There's advantages and disadvantages in both. Customization is insanely good in new horizons, while new leaf gives you tons to do like play with your villagers which makes it feel like a real community. New horizons don't give villagers personality where as new leaf has some variety. New leaf still looks beautiful but you can't alter your town or do morning aerobics. I still play new leaf daily and I enjoy it still.
New Horizons feels completely empty compared to New Leaf
new horizons lets me be black, therefore it is the better game. I don't have to have my character standing in the sun for hours or use a mii head.
Yeah. That was a stupid mechanic.
Both are great, but new horizons has better graphics, and new leaf has that simple nostalgia factor and has more interactive npc activities
@Ethan R New horizons has multiplayer you just have to pay for Nintendo switch online to do so
@Ethan R Eh you still have to be connected to the internet either way that and for me at least the last time I tried doing so nobody showed up and I left.
@Ethan R it's 2022 There might be people still playing Online on 3ds
New Horizons has better graphics but New Leaf is a better game overall.
i think objectively new leaf is better, but it’s definitely hard to go back to bc the graphics n lack of outdoor customisation
Nah, the graphics are fine but then again, I'm not a graphic snob lol
The graphics still look great. Compare it to Wild World which did not age well.
With New Leaf, I’m still learning new features about the game and I did not know Katrina gets a shop on Main Street. Like I’ve had the game since release in November 2012
New Leaf was my first AC game (Chuggaaconroy's LP inspired me big time) and I got 3-4 fun years out of it. Then NH came out- it was super intimidating the first few weeks not really knowing what to do, but once I got the hang of that, yeah, it feels like there's always something to do. Plus all the UA-cam channels keep me on my toes and make me strive to make my island a little bit better
One thing that I noticed when it comes to videogames is that people, VERY often, will say that older games were way better than the current one. This is what happens a lot in Zelda, Pokémon, but Animal Crossing is no exception to that. Like a lot of people, I got into Animal Crossing with New Horizons, since I was in lockdown and it just magically dropped and my friends who knew the franchise were so excited about it. But as soon as I started, I saw people complaining about how it lacked a lot of things compared to New Leaf and that New Leaf was so much better. Technically, I could've played ACNL during my childhood because I was like... 9 or 10 when it was released and I just got my 3DS, but I didn't. I think that the reason it has so many people saying it's the best game out of the two is because a lot of them have started playing with New Leaf... And nostalgia is a very serious thing. Videogames makers often make a lot of money profiting from that nostalgia. So while I get that New Leaf was probably a better game according to many, I will still cherish ACNH in my heart as the best Animal Crossing game because I started with it. Who knows, maybe when the next AC game drops, I'll find it worse that NH even if it's objectively better. But that won't stop me from trying New Leaf because I still got my 3ds and it looks like a fun game to try.
(And sorry for that huuuge paragraph for saying nothing lmao)
honestly i genuinely think that new leaf is better and i started with wild world. acnl is just more relaxing and easier to sink hours into for me
Animal Crossing is a series that is extremely iterative, just like your other examples of Pokémon and Zelda (maybe less so than Zelda depending on which games you look at). Because of that, the relatively small amount of differences between each game makes them easy to compare. An unfortunate side effect of a series running for so long is that eventually the people working on it start to misunderstand their own creation, or stop working on it altogether. It's well documented that the original Animal Crossing on the N64 was inspired by how lonely the creator felt after having to move far away from home. The game was made to simulate a community that felt real by including dynamic characters that continued to exist even when the console was powered off. The villagers were very important to the Animal Crossing experience. Since ACNH was your first game, I wouldn't be surprised if this came as a shock to you, because the villagers in ACNH are completely inconsequential to the gameplay experience. They almost never provide interesting interactions or make their presence felt through gameplay. Even New Leaf was guilty of this. But back in the earlier games this was absolutely not the case. The fact is that the newer Animal Crossing games are not interested in providing a complex town simulation. While the new games offer many of the same features as the old games, their focus is different, and this might not be obvious by simply comparing two lists of features.
Because the shift in priority was a gradual one, I absolutely agree with you when you say that people prefer their first game in a series over the other ones, but I don't think it's always nostalgia. If someone's first game in the series was New Horizons, they would probably be frustrated with the limited customization options for the island, and maybe annoyed by how often they have to interact with the villagers. Personally, I started with Wild World, which had arguably the most complex villager system and very little in the way of outdoor customization. My initial experience with Animal Crossing was one that was villager centric, so I was disappointed by New Horizons' lifeless villagers. And as cool as the customization options are, I barely touched them because that's not what I come to Animal Crossing for. Some might say this is a product of nostalgia, but I think it has more to do with how the games have changed since I was initially exposed to them.
Animal Crossing likely isn't going anywhere any time soon. We'll probably continue to see new AC games for decades to come. And in that time, we'll probably see another shift. When that happens, people who played New Horizons first will likely be disappointed as the things they like about the series are deprioritized in favor of something they care less about. And they'll be right to feel that way. Nostalgia is a real thing, but I also think that it's often true that older games really were objectively better for people with certain tastes.
(Now I'M sorry for the huge paragraph lol.)
Oh, and old Pokémon was better :P
I don’t think it’s the nostalgia factor when people are saying New Leaf is better than New Horizons. I feel like it’s really because some of the best features of New Leaf were removed for New Horizons, and also mostly because the dialogues with the villagers had way more depth in Wild World/New Leaf compared to New Horizons. Also, you have many things to do over time in New Leaf compared to New Horizons, which is why a lot of people often start new islands in New Horizons. When your island is done, there’s not that much left for you to do, which is not the case in New Leaf
I wouldn't say New Leaf is better per se, but nostalgia is a big reason for why I started playing it again after I was done with the main story of New Horizons. Or at least during the break I'm having from it. Its been so long, that the story feels new to me again, despite now realizing how little freedom we were given with designing and terraforming our town compared to New Horizons.
I actually completely disagree with this 😅 The major thing NH has missing for me is actually the long game elements that NL has, it takes like a year to fully upgrade T&T and unlocking the other shops takes longer too. I restarted my NL village recently and I love the slower pace, I like that I have a reason to play every day because it will make the shops unlock faster or it means I won't miss Katrina 😝.
Where as in NH everything is spoon fed to you so fast that you can have almost everything, other than the tedious things like completing the art or fossils, done in about 2 months and then there's nothing else to work towards. They could have done so much more for the game, like released a summer dlc for like $5-10 where you could access tortimers island and the mini games. Or a shop keeper dlc where you could choose for some of the cart shops to actually have their own shop on your island, if you want, t&t actually upgrades more than once and an actual separate Cafe again that you can work at. Or even like a stuff pack that gives you more clothing and furniture.
I love some of the quality of life things NH has done like the terraforming, but the lack of brick and mortar shops, the fact that the villagers are just pawns that can be forced to live wherever you want and the lack of anything to do other than decorating after 2-3 months, really just makes NH so much more hollow, it's like animal crossing sims with less fire and drowning in pools.
Honestly, yes. I remember the first 2-3 months that Animal Crossing was out, EVERYONE was talking about it. But then, suddenly, anyone who wasn't a diehard AC fan started to drop off. Why? Because that's when the content to work towards ends.
There’s so many additions I adore about new horizons. I don’t know how paths or outdoor furniture ever weren’t in the games. It looks amazing. But my problem with it is that I don’t really feel like I’m a person living in a town. The island doesn’t really feel “real”. I think a big reason is the lack of shops. I genuinely don’t understand why they removed almost all of them. I think this is also just a me thing but I don’t really like the setting of a deserted island that I founded? And with the villagers not having a ton of personality (not really exclusive to NH) and the entire being completely at my mercy, the island feels more like a place to exert my cute aesthetic will on instead of a… real community to exert my will on but also be part of. There’s so many personality-filled special characters that were removed or seen much less. It kind of feels like how stardew valley would feel without all the town. If the best parts of new leaf and new horizons are combined it will easily be the best game in the series (and steal hundreds of hours of my life).
It feels like a dollhouse
Animal crossing new horizons is perfect because you can play whatever way you want, the classical way, or the new way (terraforming and island themes) but tbh the only thing that bothers me is the fact villagers say the same dialogue over, and over again. An example is a villager like Raymond a smug villager saying the same dialogue as any other smug villager making all smug villagers say the same dialogue, (same for other types of villagers too).
The truth about Animal Crossing is that there's really only one character for each of the 9 personalities, but with their names and appearances changed so it seems like there's "over 400" of them. It kind of makes sense when you realize there's so many, it's not realistic to expect them to have written unique dialogue for over 400 characters that you're only going to see a handful of. But if they could have at least had 2 sets of dialogue for each personality type, that would have been nice...
Both are pretty good ngl
Don't get me wrong New Horizons is a great step up in customization of the island. They did a great job bringing it to the Switch. HOWEVER, Nintendo being Nintendo loves to give you something and then take away a lot of a game. Especially parts that make it great. This game removed the music. A core part of what makes Animal Crossing...Animal Crossing! They removed certain characters, Rover, Resetti. Removed a lot of features. You can't upgrade the stores?...The fruits? I know they wanted to make it "grindy" and make it harder to get bells and stuff but the Tortimer's island in the nighttime was a vibe! NH is a fun game but when it came to the Switch I expected a lot more. Also the graphics...as cute as they are I expected Mario Kart 8's AC course level graphics. Or a higher quality Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival...But nope we got what we got. And still till this day we don't have many features from previous games that even the DS had.
I miss the Online Tortimer island from New Leaf! It was such fun to meet random people and do mini-games together and have a chat ☺️
omg i didn’t even know katrina had a shop on main street 😭😭 i never used to go to her tent
My only experience with AC is NL and NH. There are things I love about both games. In NL, the variety of items, mini-games and soundtrack are what make it stand out. While I do enjoy these things that NH has to offer, NL was just better in these aspects, plus the only mini-games that NH offers is the occasional little game the villagers will engage in. On the other hand, NH is more customizable, atmospheric and adds a lot of quality-of-life changes that I never want to see another AC game without. I hope the next AC game combines the best of both games. TL:DR New Leaf=character and content; New Horizons = Customizable and quality-of-life.
i still really wish they would have added the old furniture sets back in and had a fancier final shop upgrade u_u the addition of gyroids back in was a huuuge plus for me though, i was really butthurt about no gyroids during the initial release of the game but their revamp made them so much better and more enjoyable for me.
I always wanted to play nh, but I don't own a switch :( so a couple days ago, after 5 years, I played new leaf and I'm in love (again).
something I noticed is that the game is a lot better if you play with friends, because yeah it's cool to talk with villagers, water the plants etc... But years ago I had so much fun going to the island to meet new people. I spent afternoons playing with my friends, but now there is no one left sadly. Nowadays the people you meet in the island just look for cheaters lol,
Finally an objective video about this topic. I swear those "new horizons is sooooo bad and new leaf is perfect" people are getting on my nerves
Check out protendo he has like 20 videos on it crapping on nh and just simping all over new leaf. New leaf is shit compared to nh
Really the only thing I can think of new horizons got better was character designs (different skin tones, etc), but other than that new leaf takes the cake for me
I've just started playing New Leaf because my only Animal Crossing game before New Horizons was Wild World when it first came out back in 2005.
Having lots of fun getting to experience a brand new (to me) Animal Crossing game!
When they said “last major update” I thought we’d still get smaller updates but I guess not
it was majorly the last update
Both are good in my opinion.
Animal crossing New Horizons does having fishing hunts and bug hunts that have timers but you can do once a seson only😅
i feel like horizons is better decor wise as we can decorate outside and terraform. but the crafting was hard to understand at first and it threw me off (i bought the game and didn’t play it for 2 years because i was spooked by crafting)
new leaf…is a masterpiece. we have the camping ground with cool furniture from npcs. public works projects, many store upgrades, the classic gyroids, the nostalgic furniture sets (ik we have them in horizons also) and all the flowers look way cuter on new leaf. AND new leaf has violets, carnations, dandelions and dandelion puffs which NH doesn’t have horizons.
I've thought about getting a used DS just to get NL. But then I remember how I'm a chronic time traveler and get max bells on every new island I make. And I'm just like ehhhh I dunno.
Try playing Animal Crossing without Time Travel? Just this once?
Very difficult to compare because what Horizons has in terraforming & outside decorating it lacks in all other content and character relationships. HHP saves it somewhat more than HHD ever did. I’ve started playing New Leaf again so it will be interesting to compare.
In my opinion, NH is a good game or can be if you enjoy it (I personally found NH boring when I first played it lol) The problem for me doesn’t really come from if NH is good or not. It’s more like NH doesn’t really feel like an animal crossing game. It does have a lot of features and freedom to do a lot, but those features mostly revolve around building or designing. I think NH is a building/decorating game. Which doesn’t make it bad, it just lost the things that made animal crossing, animal crossing.
The reason why I personally couldn’t get into it is because when I played there was basically nothing to do in the beginning. I also felt very overwhelmed with the idea of making the best island with the best theme and it had to look absolutely perfect etc.
There’s a lot more I could say, like the villagers were very bland in comparison to the villagers in the previous games. They had all these cute interactions, like exercising or eating food but that to me was just aesthetic. The villagers themselves didn’t really feel real, if that makes sense. There’s also the fact that the game wasn’t complete upon release (despite costing the same as what a full game would cost) so there were a lot of things missing, which I think contributed to it feeling bland.
Though if I’m being honest, NL isn’t perfect either. My problem with NL or what I don’t like about it despite loving the game is that after you sort of achieve everything, have all the money you could possibly want, unlock everything, expand your house etc. There isn’t really much else to do? So i usually just start a new town when that happens. The good thing is that you don’t get to that point overnight so I at least get a couple of years in playing the game lol.
Both games have flaws and good things about them, I think it all depends on people’s preferences and what they enjoy in a game.
4:53 whilst newleaf doesn't have a post game, it does have mini games you can unlock through special items. One of my favourites is the puzzle swipe game where you can climb the ranks by competing against your villagers. This mini game is accessible through the Nintendo 3DS XL in game.
i just bought new horizons being a newbie and i hope i dont regret it.. i feel like im a little late to the party and everyone already seems bored of it. at the same time, im sure itll be a while longer before any new animal crossing game so i feel like its fine that i got it now
I think I may be the only one who found more fun in New Horizons than in New Leaf lol.
Your not the only one 👋🏼
You definitely aren’t the only one new leaf is so boring compared to new horizons
@@TheVioletBunny 😂😂😂
new horizons has a few mini games. I played one with my villager hamlet once where he buried tresure and I had to find it in under 3 mins. It did come randomly, but its still there.
Why I prefer new leaf is because animal crossing is that one game I just put 1 to 2 hours in ever second day to wind down and relax and for some reason the fact that every rock and tree drops materials and I can craft and stuff just stresses me out, if I wanted to craft and built stuff I'd play Minecraft, terraria or heck stardew valley but all I want is to fish catch up with my virtual villagers and buy new drip and lastly grind some bells, I don't want to feel like I have to hit every rock 6 times, i want to hit every rock once without feeling like I lose resources until I find the money or diamond rock. But I totally get people who like horizon it just doesn't feel like animal crossing to me when I feel like I should do things a certain way while the feeling from the last once was that I could just do everything in my own time and way whenever no pressure
I feel like New Horizons is a decorating simluator, whereas the previous games all were actual games
You don't mention anything about multiplayer or how nook's shop has less upgrades in NH. No Nintendo items or villagers. Villagers are the most one dimensional and repetitive than they've ever been. There's so much more to do with other people in new leaf. So many more locations all connected to your town. It's more than just the mini games. NL isn't perfect, but it doesn't feel nearly as soulless.
I've been a long time AC fan. My first game was Wild World which is so nostalgic for me and I do miss things from that game that we had and don't get now like the animals personalities, flea markets, judging animals Xmas lights etc. However each time the AC games have improved in some way. I absolutely love New Leaf and New Horizons I've spent countless hours on both. For me though, I think New Leaf ultimately wins out as the better game because not only does it feel there is more to explore and do but the animal dialogue is a huge thing for me and it's just too repetitive in New Horizons. That's not to say in New Leaf it was perfect because the older games seemed to get it better but it's not as bad as NH. I really hope if there's another installment they work on the dialogue. It's called Animal Crossing for a reason and the animals are the heart of the game.
Love your channel! It is comforting and helpful! Tysm!🤩❤❤
ACNH is automatically the winner bc Black and Brown players can actually make themselves in the game.
lol
That’s actually crazy they didn’t have blacks up until New Horizons
No really. People shit on new horizons so much but when I play new leaf I just think about wanting to do things that I can’t
I recently started a new town in New Leaf. I'm only about 5 days into the game but I'm starting to wonder if I should have started New Horizons back up instead. I love NL but I'm really feeling the lack of quality of life features that NH added. The inventory is so small and the trick of carrying things in letters is cumbersome. Everyone always says the dialogue is better in NL but so far it doesn't really feel that different from NH's dialogue. And especially after the 2.0 update and HHP, there's no question NH has more variety of things to do.
The one thing NL has over NH for me is a sense of coziness. Maybe it's NL's better hourly music (I guess that makes two things it has over NH) or the fact you're in a little town rather than an island. I still think the perfect Animal Crossing game would be a combination of both games.
I just wished they gave us a few more quality of life updates as it does pad the hours of gameplay
As far as decorating everything, you still can’t decorate villagers houses without paying. So that’s more of DLC than post game
I prefer new horizons new leaf I don’t feel the urge to play every day. But new horizons I actually have the desire to play for at least an hour or 2 each day.
I always used to say that New Leaf is better than New Horizons. But, I got to playing New Leaf again and the pacing was soooo slow that I got bored super quickly. It’s much more fun to restart an island in New Horizons than having a new town in New Leaf. IMO, btw. I still love New Leaf to this day tho, I just got used to playing fast paced games, like New Horizons. Unlike back then when I was younger and had a lot of free time, now with College and stuff, playing fast paced games is the way to go, for me at least. New Leaf will always be there for the Nostalgia, but New Horizons is staying for longevity.
Same here
Huh- 14 minutes ago-
I never got to play New Leaf or any of the other animal crossing installments, I got a 5 star island within about a month and my final house rent is fully paid off, but I don’t have much furniture to decorate with, I’ve found ways to have fun but I just don’t have much to do anymore
I've played since I was 11 years old on the Gamecube and all of the games suffer from no post game. I played over 1,000 hours of New Horizons on just one island. I don't know why I played it so much looking back. There is no post game in NH either. I'm not sure what you do in the post game, but, once I decorated my town a little, the game was done for me.
The core of the game is absolutely gutted and I think they realized this when they shoehorned in shops on Photopia. I don't think those were originally planned like that which is why 2.0 took 2 years to come out. There is zero sense of progression in this game beyond upgrading your home. Nook's Cranny doesn't even change, it upgrades after 30 days no matter what and it's the same kind of store with an additional item. Why aren't there additional Nook's Cranny upgrades with new names? We should have a massive department store. Why can't we place a Cafe where we want? Why doesn't the campsite upgrade to a lodge or a hotel? Why can't we place a Reset Center and a Police Station? Why is there no actual Post Office, Salon, or Museum Shop? Why is there no Observatory, this was the game to do mini-games and a Tortimer island, but where is it? Where the heck is Gracie and Wendell? Why is Label just a visitor with luggage?
The worst offenders here are the total lack of customization options. You cant customize your airport. You cant customize your Town Hall. You cant customize your cliffs or beaches. Lots of fruit, including perfect fruit, are missing. Villager dialogue was totally gutted as well, even New Leaf has better dialogue. My villagers are sock puppets in NH, I don't even talk to them anymore. I've gone back to New Leaf recently and I find myself much more engaged with the game, Tortimer Island adds a whole level that New Horizons doesn't have, Main Street is so much more dynamic and alive, and collecting publics works projects instead of just throwing furniture everywhere feels way more satisfying.
I think they took things a step in the wrong direction with NH. It turned into the Nintendo version of The Sims or a dollhouse.
It’s not only the minigames that makes new leaf better. But sure, whatever helps people cope.
New Leaf was the first Animal Crossing game I've played, and even though I really like New Horizons, New Leaf will always be my favourite
I have 4 characters in my town now, just to be able to customise my town the way I like it 😂
I charged up my 2ds consoles so I could visit my old towns, I had 4, 2 digital, 2 physical. I'm not sure I want to erase any of them though.
I miss new leaf a little because now their is new updates and in new leaf there was 1 so I knew what to get but now I need to get all the new things in the updates not knowing what to do.
It would get boring without updates and eventually the game would die to lack of updates, ik a game that's dying bc of lack of updates
Hi k have a question I am sorry this might be an obvious answer but what do you use to rec
New Horizons only has more personalized customization but New Leaf had so much charm and more meaningful content, I loved villagers & multiplayer in NL but I love decorating/designing in NH
I grew up of City Folk so im pretty biased. I do like ACNH though i do get burnt out a
LOT except when i do builds. A dream of mine is that Nintendo would update the soundtrack to past games.
And theyre getting rid of the random player minigames on tortimers island :(
I hate that they got rid of that because I was constantly reacting to other players. Now since New Horizons don't even have that, I find the game mildly boring 😔
Both are equally great in different ways.
New horizons gives you more freedom but has less things to to do with that freedom. All the shops that you could unlock/upgrade and potentially place anywhere is trimmed down. Expanding your home and choosing the specific rooms you want added is no longer your choice. Having goals to complete the encyclopedia for golden tools is pointless because they all break anyways.
Agreed. New Horizons is the better game. I admit though that i do miss some things from new leaf like April Fools event, Holloween event, Hide and Seek, frequency of villager quests, awarding ceremony of Bug Off amd Fishing Tourney, PWP, and the music
I also got back to new leaf while playing New Horizons and it was then that I realize I like playing New Horizons more
Villager hide and seek and April fool's is the only things I miss from new leaf. Even though new horizons was my first game. Then I picked new leaf up because I saw many claiming it was better than new horizons and for only 20 dollars at Walmart (yes, my Walmart still has 3ds games) I said why not and bought it. New leaf isn't as fun but it's still a great game. I'll play some tonight before I go to bed
@@Twinklethefox9022 New Leaf is really good in making me fall asleep with its atmospheric music and simple gameplay
So New Horizons is my first Animal Crossing game. I enjoyed it, it's fun collecting the funiture and villager hunting. I also like the freedom of putting items outside without raising the money for one. I just started playing New Leaf resently and I find it refreashing and fun. Yeah, you can't do much at the beginning but I love getting the fish and planting tons of flowers. I don't feel like rushing the game like I did with New Horizons. I like both games. They both have their strenghts and weaknesses.
I love new leaf I used to play it with my dad back when the 3DS was still alive the good o’l days
I would love a combination of new leaf & new horizons, if new leaf could place furniture outside it’d be the perfect game.
I like playing new leaf and wild world but if I put them down for a bit (months) I feel like playing them but don’t because I don’t won’t to play and find one of my favourite villagers gone that’s what make new horizons easier to play after not playing it for a long time, the villagers never leave with out asking you
I wasn't a fan till New Horizons. Now it's my most played game like ever. First time I ever hit 900 hours in anything and now I'm just about to hit 1100. I also like that I can actually pick a skintone and hair types closer to my own. Before you could only just tan.
Will someone please explain how to decorate your villagers house? 😭😂💗
I played both and I like new horizons more than new leaf. I ran out of things to do in new leaf but not in new horizons. But maybe that's because NH was my first game and NL was my 2nd. Don't worry though, I love new leaf too and I have to play that game again and have a reason to collect play coins because of the game. Right now in new leaf, I'm trying to get rid of chops and in new horizons, I'm making a golden friendship garden and trying to get Ione. I love decorating too so I guess that's why I love NH more
Update to those who care: I got Ione for Christmas and she's happily living on my island. Chops is gone in new leaf and now I sadly have to deal with rococo.
Hey i just wanna share this haha. Chops is the first villager to leave in my island (i let him leave because i dont care for him) but he's back for revenge in my New Leaf town lmao. I also got Ione recently. She's one pf my dreamies
@@alds6566 I'm glad You got her. I'm thinking about seeing if target has the card packs or buying her card off of eBay. And the game keeps forcing me to like chops in new leaf. Like I had a hide and seek thing. I found him 2nd but I made the effort of making sure I talked to him last. And now he thinks we are friends.
Lets see what New Leaf has that New Horizons does not.
- Better store upgrades
- Simpler town making
- Free online (As now that it is still up)
- Main street for stores
- Minigames
- Unbreakable tools (Best one)
- More furnature slots in nooks cranny
- Many beloved characters (Main NPCS)
- Perfect Fruit
- Different Town hall styles
- The main tree (A cool narrative)
- Better designed events
Yeah New Horizons added so much more but even the smallest of details of the previous game glued it together so my personal pick is New Leaf.
Damn, it’s been two years already.
I’ve played AC (a lot) since the nintendo DS game. My favorite one is City Folk because I liked the city so much. I wish New Horizons had a city themed island with a GracieGrace shop 😭
Tbh what I miss the most in New Horizons are the classics sets of furnitures. Why are there so few furniture sets on this AC game ??
I’ve put thousands of hours into NH and love it. However, I don’t love the decorating and customizing aspect of it. I love everything else about it more. I just ordered a DS and NL hoping to get a more campy AC experience.
I want to get Animal Crossing New Leaf on a game emulator since I can't find my 3DSes.
But I'm not looking forward to having random villagers mess up my paths.
I agree ! I was really bored while playing acnl and yep after 2 years I love acnh it’s the best !
I was always running out of things to do with New Leaf and constantly time travelling in order to have more tasks. I haven't time travelled once in New Horizons 🤷 But everyone has preferences.
Same for me too. I time travel alot and all I basically do is collect the fossils (gyroids or pitfall seeds too) get them looked at, sell them and then go to the shops for villager gifts. My main characters house is almost complete (I have 4 charcters in total) so I go midnight bug hunting when I feel like it
I love New Horizons with all my heart, but New Leaf has an extremely special place in my heart because not only was the first Animal Crossing game I ever played, but that and Tomodachi Life were the first 3Ds games I ever played on Christmas of 2015. I personally find New Leaf a lot more better than NH in my opinion, because of all the stuff you could do. Not only could you play mini games, but you could do it with complete strangers if you wanted to! I played NH for at least 5 minutes and just got bored with it. But I played NL for at least an hour and just enjoyed everything. The music (especially 5PM) is so beautiful compared to NH. Also, New Leaf was a completed game with an add-on Amiibo update. NH was, in my opinion, super bland and boring playing it the day it came out before all the updates. This doesn’t mean I hate NH, because I don’t. I can sometimes find something to do. I just think my preference is NL because of all the features that weren’t in NH. And nostalgia.
Also you could play as your Mii in NL. I wish they brought back Mii masks in NH :(
If new horizons has Epona, w. Link, and Ganon plus better villager interaction it would be no contest for me
I need Brewster in new Leaf but I have to get Redd
Not to be that person but. I'd say the way you play New Leaf is well...wrong? I mean there's no real wrong way to play but old animal crossing titles were meant to be played a bit per day. Not like half the day or more. Its a long term game where you did a little every day. Or you'd burn yourself out or find less things to do.
Both are good but I think new horizons is better