Animal Crossing - Y U NO GRASS?

Well, first embarrasing confession - I love animal crossing on Gamecube. Can't get enough of it. Not really regular gaming fodder for a grown man, but here I am pushing 19 and I'm still a daily player. It speaks volumes that I've been playing it, more or less, since it came out 7 years and 11 days ago today.

But of course, the charm of the game is exemplified by the verdant surroundings, and the changing of the seasons. There's nothing more magical in gaming, I feel, than those first snowflakes and the changed music in early november in your town. That for me is the Gamecube version's secret to it's longevity - the DS and Wii versions may be bursting with content, but both suffer in the aesthetics department, which for me is the joy of playing. Here's why. Compare the following 3 screenshots.

Gamecube

DS

Wii













Now, what can you gather from these three images? Well, the most obvious difference is the almost complete lack of grass on the DS and Wii screenshots. As soon as I bought the DS version, having been psyched from my original love of the GC version, I was downright disappointed when I found that the whole town just looked - well, ugly. More dirt than grass, not helped by the DS' uninspiring graphical capabilities. The characters were jagged, the music was a trainwreck and nothing was a scratch on it's predecessor. The last straw was finding out that all the seasonal holidays had been replaced with wishy-washy "inclusive" crap like the unbearable "Yay Day." I persavered for a few months, before giving up on a game I got no joy out of and going back to the much more appealing graphics and year-round playability of the 'cube version.

Then the Wii version was announced. "Finally" I thought; "A proper update to the game I love! They can't possibly screw this up!" And for a few glorious weeks after launch, it was just that. The town was beautiful. Seasonal holidays were back. There was even more to collect. But then, something odd began to happen.

I logged in one morning to find the little patch of dirt outside my house was slightly bigger. The grass around it was darker, too. This was my introduction to the "Animal Tracks" feature, and a scout around town revealed that all the little patches of dirt that had been present since the beginning were, indeed, growing. "Well this is odd," I thought, but carried on as if nothing had happened.

Move forward a few weeks and I had planted some flowers over the patches to hide them - ungainly things - but with winter approaching and wanting my town to look realistic, I removed them again and prepared for the snow.

Well, that winter became one of pure anger, as I watched my town slowly turn into a desert without me really doing anything. The grass death radiated from paths around buildings - the Town Hall and Bus Stop being the worst offenders - and pretty soon it was not like winter at all - there was even more dirt than in the DS game!

I couldn't make snowmen, I couldn't walk in the snow, and I couldn't enjoy the game. I absolutely hate time travelling in AC - it defeats the point of the game - but as it turned out, if I was to fix my desert, that was the only way besides hacking my Wii.

So once spring came around, cue many hours of painstakingly moving day by day to fix the grass. It took many days to fix, but I managed it. I planted huge corridors of flowers to prevent it happening again. My town looked like a bloody garden centre, and It was a very high maintainence one.

Then one morning, I switched on, and came out my door.

A patch of dirt, right where it had been before.

Back to the Town Hall, and the Bus Stop.

Dirt.

I calmly removed the disc from the Wii and threw it against the wall.

I haven't bothered to check if it still works; i'm too busy playing the Gamecube version. Y'know, the only one that actually looks nice without being a f**king chore.

So a kind word to Nintendo... I LOVE Animal Crossing, and the 3DS version seems to be shaping up nicely. The screenshots are looking lush and verdant, and I for one am psyched to see the Train back! The Taxi and bus just don't have the same magic.

But PLEASE, GOD, do NOT put Animal Tracks into this latest installment. I'm not convinced it will ever "work" and if it's present, I'm straight up not going to buy the new game.