After suggesting Animal Crossing could be the laziest first-party release Nintendo has ever produced, I was surprised to discover that the three associated websites (Japanese, US and European) have had a lot of effort poured into their creation.

The Japanese site is the most comprehensive, going into detail about every aspect of the game, and providing a few demonstrational videos to watch - some to give players ideas, others to show elements less careful or regular players could potentially miss. It also shows off the special downloadable items which have been made available to lucky Japanese players (a spinning top today joining the Pikmin hat released a week ago). Let’s hope this idea is added to the European and US sites soon, hint hint.  

The official City Folk site gives US gamers the chance to download a calendar widget, allowing you to quickly access information about important village events from your PC desktop. Again, it’s pretty comprehensive, but leans more towards new players, detailing how to get connected, how to set up your Wii Speak mic, and detailing ’new’ features, which are only new if you’ve never played the GameCube version. Several videos show actors players extolling the virtues of the game and talking about their own personal experiences which they’ve not had because they’re actors. A nice touch, but they take a little while to load.

The European site is a little lighter on detail, but it could be argued that it’s just a little more succinct and streamlined. But everything loads very quickly, the instructions provide enough info while still allowing you to discover the game’s idiosyncrasies for yourself, and it also arguably has the best feature of all three - a little game which allows you to ‘explore’ an infinitely scrolling village, catching bugs and fish, shaking trees and digging up fossils to earn bells (the game’s currency, for the uninitiated). You can then use your bells to purchase themed wallpapers and desktop icons.

All are worth visiting, and it’s a pity the same amount of thought didn’t go into the game itself. But those new to the series will likely find these sites of invaluable assistance given the open-ended nature of the game, and will hopefully encourage previously reluctant Wii gamers to take their console online - which can only be good news for future online options in major releases, as well as potentially increasing sales of WiiWare games. It’s important that Nintendo promotes its online services a little better than it has done so far, and this is definitely a step (or three) in the right direction.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 1st, 2009 at 8:34 pm by Chris Schilling
Animal Crossing, Websites, Wii.