Animal Crossing has introduced plenty of fun rewards over the course of its almost 25-year history. The Nintendo property certainly has a wide variety of cute items for players to decorate houses and dress up items with. However, even though these changes shouldn’t be Nintendo’s top priority, some of Animal Crossing’s features would be an even bigger hit with players if they were expanded further.
Though details about the Switch 2 and titles associated with the new console have been released over the past month, news on the next installment in the Animal Crossing franchise has been radio silent. It would be unsurprising to see the next title in the franchise take the opportunity to expand on its existing features, as this was a theme of New Horizons. Hopefully, Nintendo will consider expanding this specific reward in the next Animal Crossing title.
Most Animal Crossing Fans Have Never Met These NPCs
Animal Crossing has racked up hundreds of NPCs and Villagers across its many titles, but there are a few that players may have missed.
Villager Photos Deserve an Upgrade in the Next Animal Crossing
Photos are a commonplace addition in most games, and Animal Crossing is certainly no stranger to them. Villager Portraits specifically have technically been present in the franchise since Animal Crossing: Wild World, though a portrait of Nook is available in the first Animal Crossing. However, the feature has evolved as the franchise has progressed, with New Horizons and New Leaf’s versions of Villager Portraits establishing them as a unique reward for players. Villagers that players have reached a high Friendship Level with will give players a portrait (New Horizons) or randomly after completing a task (New Leaf).
Collecting these Villager Portraits is certainly fun and adds an immersive tone to Animal Crossing. It’s proof that the players and Villagers have truly become close. However, while these gifts are touching, it would make more sense for rewards at a high Friendship Level to be not just personalized and unique, but also useful.
Villager Portraits Could Take Notes from Hello Kitty Island Adventure
One of Animal Crossing’s latest competitors, Hello Kitty Island Adventure, similarly gifts players with rewards when achieving higher Friendship Levels with Villagers. Rather than gifting Villager Portraits, players receive uniquely themed Character Gift Boxes, with different Gift Levels associated with the size of the box. The rarest box includes not only useful crafting and dying items, but a collector's hat themed to the Villager that gifted the box.
How Animal Crossing Could Implement Villager Gift Boxes
This is one example of how Animal Crossing could still incorporate Villager Portraits as a high Friendship Level reward for players. These Villager Portraits could simply take the place of Hello Kitty Island Adventure’s collectible hats. Choosing the Villager Portraits as this item would also work in Animal Crossing’s benefit, rather than switching to a new item like the collectible hats. Animal Crossing notably has an outrageous number of Villagers, who each have their own devoted fan base, no matter how big or small. Animal Crossing already has Villager Portraits for each Villager, and even some for the franchise’s other NPCs. Reusing the Villager Portraits in these themed boxes would save time and labor, as this would not add to the number of assets Animal Crossing’s team would have to work on for this technically expanded feature.
However, theming these Villager boxes to each individual Villager would drastically increase the labor needed for this feature. Rather than theming to individual Villagers, Animal Crossing could instead theme these boxes to different Villager personality types, with the only differing item in each box being the Villager Portrait. This would leave only eight different boxes for Nintendo to technically work on, though each box should give different rewards. For example, a Jock-type box could feature items like stone, whereas a Snooty-type box could maybe hold a pearl. Overall, Villager Portraits are definitely a fun part of Animal Crossing, but a final gift from a Villager should be much grander.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 90 /100 Critics Rec: 99%
- Released
- March 20, 2020
- ESRB
- Everyone / Comic Mischief, Mild Fantasy Violence, Users Interact, In-Game Purchases
- Developer(s)
- Nintendo EPD
- Publisher(s)
- Nintendo
- Engine
- Havok
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer, Local Multiplayer
- Expansions
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons — Happy Home Paradise
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Simulation
