Animal Crossing: New Horizons | REVIEW | Nintendo Switch 2

''WILSON!!!!!!!!!!!!!''

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Developed: Nintendo

Published: Nintendo

Genre: Life/Social sim

Release Date: Jan 15th, 2025

Platforms: Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch

*Review copy provided to me by Nintendo

Animal Crossing New Horizons for Nintendo Switch 2 is a mix of a port and an update that is developed and published by Nintendo. With the original releasing selling something absolutely absurd like 30 million copies, Nintendo decided why not bring it to Nintendo Switch 2 as well and see how it does. But, was this the right title to port and give an update to for Nintendo Switch in general? or was this a questionable choice at the end of the day? Only one way to find out, so lets build!

''YAY, CELEBRATE OUR DEBT!''

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GAMEPLAY:

Aww are you sick and exhausted in bed and cant make a payment? forget that, PAY ME. Got stung by like 30 wasps and bees and have to pay for a hospital bill and cant afford to pay off rent yet, forget that, PAY ME. Your house that you didn't pay off yet gets blown away in a freak hurricane accident? forget that, PAY ME. Yes, those are the words of the ever so evil, Tom Nook and his money laundering operation. He's a king pin and the ultimate loan shark that ensues that you will forever be in debt and have to work for months on end to even hope to pay it off eventually, all while doing it with a smile. Ok maybe I'm exaggerating that all a little bit and I kind of want to give him a pass to be fair since he's so dang cute to begin with...but Isabelle... she...she scares me.... RIP AND TEAR UNTIL ITS DONE. Jokes and exaggerations aside, Animal Crossing New Horizons came at a time where it was almost pivotal for humanity in a way and I know that sounds like a huge dramatization but honestly, is it really?. With a global pandemic beginning to take the world by monstrous storm beginning in late 2019, before hitting full steam in 2020, societies not only in the United States but worldwide were completely shut down, locked down, safety measures put into place, people stuck in their house due to the deadly virus that was spreading. It was a very scary time and one of the rare times in human history where time almost stops in a societal sense as businesses closed, no one could really work, go out to eat, go to the park, meet up with friends and family to either celebrate holidays or play, movie theaters completely shut down, and for a lot of people the only form of entertainment during these periods of isolation were streaming services for tv shows and movies and of course, video games, and one of the main video games leading that charge for people, was of course, Animal Crossing: New Horizons for Nintendo Switch. Obviously there were many other games that came out on other platforms as well, notables like the long awaited Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which just released on Nintendo Switch 2 as well at the time of writing, quick plug, thank you very much, and of course other titles like Last Of Us Part 2, Ghost Of Tsushima, Resident Evil 3 remake, DOOM Eternal, Genshin Impact, Super Mario 3D All Stars, you get it, more than one game can make the claim to the fame without the blame of looking insane... ok ill stop trying to do a little rhyme now, but as I was saying before that, only one game really provided a true ''escape'' due to the soothing nature of its gameplay being a cute and inviting social sim for all ages, regardless if you were a fan of the franchise since its start or even if its just a game you happened to pick up for the first time due to on-going circumstances, it doesnt matter because it became a comfort for a lot of people during one of the scariest times in their lives and that's not an overstatement, its a fact.

It took the world by storm and helped launch the Nintendo Switch in general to even greater heights, pushing it further to one of the best selling consoles of all time and that in part is thanks to the ''all stars aligned'' release during the COVID pandemic. But that was then in 2020 and now here we are 6 years later in 2026 and New Horizons is back with a brand new 3.0 update with new content and a fresh port to Nintendo Switch 2. With many games coming from Switch to Switch 2, all with their own unique additions such as Kirby and the Forgotten Land getting a new power ups and new levels to play, Super Mario Jamboree getting brand new mini games and new modes to play with friends and family, the upcoming port of Super Mario Wonder to Switch 2 getting a ton of mini games for multiplayer as well as new playable characters like Rosalina and Luma, etc, all of them bring something to the table in some way shape or form to warrant their port and re-release to an extent, but now the question is, does New Horizons do the same? well yes... and kind of?, I know that's confusing, sorry, I'll explain as we go. If this is your first time venturing in the series, then off the bat you should know that this game is a social simulator that lets you craft your own world and in this case, your own island with the goal of gathering material, making friends, building a community that can be visited by friends and new members to the new vista you have built for yourself, all while under the watchful eye of the resident loan shark, Tom Nook. When starting you get to pick the layout of your new island, as well as give it its very own name, which of course in my brand of immaturity of a 5 year old, I named it DookieLand, just so I can see the other residents I bring in and Tom Nook himself constantly say it over and over. I know I know, very ''mature'', sue me. Once named and location picked, you're given a tent and told to set it up as you look around your new barren wasteland of an island and begin the journey of gradually being it up piece by piece with new cute animal friends and new stores, housing and experiences to uncover. Let me be clear on one thing at the start though, if you truly want to have an amazing island, it will be a labor of love and one that will take patience due to everything working in ''real time'' and based off a 24 hour time zone clock. For example if you plant a tree such as a pear tree or even a coconut tree on the beach, you can expect it to grow in 3 to 4 real life earth days. Obviously there's ways to get around that by ''time skipping'' and using your consoles internal clock and moving it up a day and that works, and its something I used for this review due to time constrains, but I'd highly suggesting NOT time skipping as that can take enjoyment and fulfillment away from you when you watch your first tree grow, your first flower patch bloom, your crops beginning to ripen, etc, it gives you a sense of fulfillment that makes you proud, whereas time skipping takes that away and just gives you instant gratification instead, which again, CAN be useful, for growing faster or using it to gain money quicker by planting money trees, but still, again my point remains the same. Its far more satisfying to play in real time, but I understand not everyone's real life scenario's can allow for the allotted time to do so, but as long as you're having fun, that should be the only thing that matters at the end of the day, so win there. Also during that fun and satisfaction, be prepared to CONSTANTLY be in debt and having to pay off loans for EVERYTHING. DO NOT trust Tom Nooks nice guy personality, he may tell you its going to be some much fun to re-decorate your house with a squint and a smile, but then he goes and says ''oh that fun? yaaaa its gonna cost you 600,000 bells''. You're trapped for life!

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''DONT LIE... YOU LAUGHED''

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Starting off your island might be a bit tedious at first I admit, with the entire island or most of it covered in weeds and other things stuck in your way like trees that are in the way of where you want to build, so the first several hours will be making sure to pick up EVER SINGLE WEED, one by one until your island looks clean and fresh, but its not all for nothing, because trust me, those same weeds that made you nearly fall asleep picking, are definitely gonna come in handy very soon with your crafting, so please do not throw them away or sell them or get discouraged due to the initial time sink of the game because those early minor chores soon rise to island perfection as you are able to gather more materials and create more tools to use for fishing, mining, harvesting, chopping, nets for bug catching, etc. The game operates via on going content updates that involve things like season events for you to partake in to get various items that are holiday themed, as well as your island turning into a festive environment, as well as daily updates to the in game stores that rotate out new items for you to purchase and decorate your island with, which ensures you never run out of things to collect or obtain to fill your house with and the new 3.0 update aims to align with that same philosophy by further giving you even more content on top of the abundance the game already has, further improving its overall replayablity... and keeping you trapped forever on this island beholden to Tom Nook and his pocket book like you're Tom Hanks in Cast Away, only this time, you have no Wilson to keep your somewhat sane... oh well at least you have Axel and his weird little elephant self and even... wait... what's that sound? hoo? who what? oh no, its Blathers, I know hes cute, but these dang Owls seem to follow me in every review without fail, leave me alone owls!. One thing straight from the start you'll notice, is the quality of life changes made to the game that make gathering and collecting way faster and even more efficient in general, even for crafting as now you can create in bulk, such as if you have enough material to make an axe, you dont have to wait and build one by one anymore, you can now choose multiple to create at the same time, so if I want to build like 4 flimsy axe's at the same time, dang it, then I'm going to build those 4 flimsy axe's and no one can stop me. The best part about this though is now you do not have to keep your inventory filled with materials just to be able to create something, which was BORING and made everything super tedious by having to use up precious space just for materials, but now with the new quality of life feature? all your resources and items you gathered to make tools, furniture and other items, can now be pulled directly from your home storage system, ensuring you 3 to 4 times more space to hold things in and improving on the time it takes to make what you want. It was probably Isabelle's idea to make this changes because we know for dang sure Tom Nook doesn't want us to do things faster because the slower we work, the longer we work and the longer work, the more money he can siphon off us... that man is a menace, a menace I tell you... but it gets even worse when you factor in his adopted children, Timmy and Tommy. While they aren't his biological kids in a sense, he still looks after them as if they were his own and of course, being their dad figure, he taught them how to rip you off as well since they too are involved in his money grabbing scheme. I'm not making a joke, I'm serious. They start off cute enough by living in a tent offering you good for your adventures, but then after Tom Nook upgrades his shop thanks to all our payments he forced you into via ''good loans'', he has them open up their own shop where you can drop off items to sell and then they take a 20% cut of that. What the heck you little jerks, I spent hours finding that stuff, NOT YOU. Granted you can go in store and THEN they'll pay you 100% of its worth, but when its 11pm at night, they shut down and with limited inventory, you HAVE to use their drop off box, which means they're guaranteed 20% of everything you own and sell. MONSTERS I TELL YOU, MONSTERS.

So what can you build exactly? since I already touched upon the gathering aspect for resources. A lot actually, so much so that you can play for like 5 to 6 hours and not even realize it, just like I did. During your time on your island, you will be given daily activities to do from Tom Nook in the form of Nook Miles and main story objectives to do that further improve and expand the island even further with the end up goal being to get the good ol singing doggo, K.K. Slider to come to the island for a personal concert to you and all of the islands inhabitants. But he's famous and were all just scrubs, so in order to get his attention and pull a ''notice me senpai!'', we have to upgrade the island and turn it into a 5 star island. Doing this involves you upgrading things around your village such as making Tom Nooks building into the town hall, use Nook Miles to buy a ticket and fly to other islands to visit and if you find a new animal friend, invite them to check out your island and come live there, set up land plots with the help of Tom Nook and pick locations to set up housing for potential buyers to move into it which has you craft items that they require such as bedding ,outdoor stuff, furniture, etc, build a museum for Blathers and dig up fossils around the island that you find, put on a wet suit and go deep see diving to find water life to submit to him and even fish for rare squids and variety of fishes and submit those to him as well. Why? well by submitting this, he displays it for you in your very own museum that showcases all the water life you've caught or fossils of dinosaurs you've uncovered, and its awesome as well heck because its a complete showcase of all your hard work and dedication.. plus any duplicates you find, he'll give back to you so you can sell to Timmy and Tommy, so you can make a 4-5k profit off anything that doesn't get donated, so huge win there. You're also able to create path ways, plant and water flowers, plant exotic trees, create fencing, build bridges and ramps, talk to new residents who move in to become their best friend and keep morality up, etc. The work is endless, sure, but it also means the fun is as well as there's so much to do that the title can provide months and months worth of time sink and engagement to the point where its hard to ever get bored, and helps express any dormant creativity you might have that you want to let out. But for me as far as creativity goes... maybe not as much as everyone else, but I turned my house into one big Nintendo and randomness themed housing plan. Outside my house I have giant Mario mushrooms, coin blocks, ? marks, goal post and inside is moving Mario wallpaper, warp pipes, mushrooms, stars, clothing for Peach, Mario, Wario and Luigi hanging on the wall for display purposes, a LEGO themed bed, lego themed crafting table, an arcade cabinet. Basically I put my creativity aside and just made a room that I'd prefer to live in IRL to be perfectly honest. Heck even my backroom lacks creativity and just puts ''bucket list'' wants in it by having a dark eerie room with fire burning and a huge fire breathing Godzilla monster chilling in the middle of the room. Why did I give an entire room to a giant monster? well because... I can, so shush it. But please, do NOT fall asleep, because then an evil being haunts your dreams just like Freddy Krueger in Nightmare On Elm Street. Half joking, because the first time you do sleep after you've upgraded housing past a tent, you'll be visited by Luna who will eventually, after uploading your island into a ''dream'', allow you to partake in Slumber Island, a cooperation mode that allows you to go to an island for construction purposes and be able to use all the items you have already registered whenever you want to and basically turns it into a free build session, an the best part about it? your real life friends can come into your slumber dream island as well and build alongside you, offering many more hours of fun co-op alongside friends and family for those that just want to sit down and build for the sake of fun without the other heavy lifting that involves it otherwise. Definitely a really cool feature for 3.0 update to be added, alongside the use of Mouse Mode for Switch 2 which makes for creating custom designs for shirts and other products and absolute breeze. I kind of wish I could stay in the dream world to be honest because at least there, I can escape Tom Nook and his devilish ways, but then again... with as sinister as Tom Nook, can we really even escape him? ...even in a dream?.

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''WELCOME TO JURASSIC DOOKIELAND''

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OVERALL:

At the end of the day, the core Animal Crossing New Horizons experience remains just as addicting and fun as it was 6 years ago with its debut, but now on Switch 2 with some enhancements and an upgrade cost. Is it a hugely substantial upgrade for the game? no, but this update and the Switch 2 version in general offers better visuals with less pixelated picture, mouse controls for better furniture placement and decorations, improved online with addition of slumber island, smoother framerate, quality of life changes to further improve crafting, etc etc. All in all it remains an industry top tier social simulator that will 100% keep you addicted and motivated for hundreds of hours of fun and its definitely worth checking out or coming back to at least one more time for old times sake. So with all that having been said, my verdict is clear, GameNChick says BUY NOW.

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