Animal Crossing Celebrates 22 Years: A Nostalgic Look Back at One of Nintendo’s Most Beloved Series

It’s still a bit surreal to me, but Nintendo’s purple lunchbox is firmly a retro console at this point in time. Released in Japan and North America in 2001, the GameCube would be the first real “failure” Nintendo felt in the home console space until the Wii U. While it wasn’t a dud and most even retrospectively consider it Nintendo’s finest home box, it had stiff competition from the PS2 in an era where everyone wanted DVDs and more mature games.

We’re not here to wax poetic about the GameCube itself, however. Today marks the 22nd anniversary of Animal Crossing, a humble little series that started as something of a cartoonish take on The Sims before it would gradually build its way up into one of Nintendo’s most popular and beloved franchises. Part of that is likely because Nintendo has not milked the ever-loving crap out of it, with only one game releasing on each console (except for the Wii U… and no, Amiibo Festival doesn’t count), and another part is that Animal Crossing ticks every possible box possible as far as market appeal is concerned.

 

While the series actually started on the N64 in Japan with Dōbutsu no Mori in April of 2001, it was the port to the GameCube that started the series proper. It wasn’t quite a launch game in Japan, releasing in December 2001, but the localization would take almost an entire year to be finished and that is what set the gears in motion. Nintendo of America did such an extensive and incredible job not only translating all of the dialogue but creating new and region-specific events that made Animal Crossing feel like an exaggerated form of real life. Nintendo of Japan was so impressed with the result, that it ported the US version back to Japan as Dōbutsu no Mori e+ (the E part of the name referring to the E-reader). From there, the series developed an identity for being a life simulation game, even if its ambitions weren’t quite as grand.

 

 

I’ve always been a big Nintendo mark, but in 2002 I wouldn’t have really considered a game like Animal Crossing to be worth my attention. I had my phase with The Sims a few years prior, but I was moving on to more “mature” and “adult” games that were only on the PS2 and Xbox. I liked first-person shooters and wanted more of that, which is something the GameCube lacked. Then I saw the bizarre US TV spot for the game and I was sold.

 

 

Fashioned after shows such as The Real World, that TV ad isn’t accurate about what Animal Crossing is, but it’s also not inaccurate. If you were to boil down Animal Crossing to its basics, it’s mostly a game about existing in a fictional world with anthropomorphic animals and trying to make ends meet. You collect items for your house, talk to neighbors, hang out with friends (although you actually couldn’t do this in the original), and trade items. It’s mundane, but that’s sort of the charm.

The series would continually lean into those charms with each new entry, but it’s not as if the GameCube version doesn’t have some unique qualities. Everyone of a certain age will remember this, but 30 full NES games are collectible in Animal Crossing. A bunch of these are hidden behind cheat codes that you can only access with external devices (Action Replay crew rise up!), and few were Nintendo eReader exclusive, but a decent portion of them are obtainable in-game. This was the first time Nintendo not only acknowledged but embraced its history within another game, opening the door for future nostalgia dumps in its legacy franchises.

 

 

The villagers that can move into your town in Animal Crossing are also wildly different from the ones in later installments. I’m not sure if Nintendo of America’s localizers were trying to appeal to edgy teenagers or not, but the villagers here are incredibly touchy. If you aggravate them or miss a playdate, they’ll not only get angry but will openly berate you. I had forgotten about that tidbit, but it’s clear as day in videos online. I don’t think you’d ever see a Nintendo game in 2024 have characters call you “stupid!”

But really, the biggest draw for Animal Crossing was that “always on” philosophy. While it doesn’t quite play out like that and masks a lot of its simulation behind clever programming regarding the GameCube’s internal clock, it results in a game that you can literally play forever. With the clock ticking down in real-time and events occurring on specific days -such as Christmas happening on December 25-, Animal Crossing has a sensation that something is happening every minute. For a game in 2002, it was revolutionary, even if the idea had been explored in MMORPGs or even Shenmue (to an extent).

 

 

More than anything, that is what kept me glued to Animal Crossing 22 years ago. I had never played anything quite like it and while there was no goal, the game pushed you to make micro-goals for yourself. It was very much a player-driven experience and I think that design ethos instilled in me a desire for games to give me the reins. I like a linear experience as much as the next person, but when you can approach a title in whatever fashion you want or completely ignore aspects that don’t interest you, that’s what really sparks my interest.

I remember my sister and I occupying the same village and playing with different characters. We would find fossils, talk about which villager was being a jerk, and pool our money together to help each other pay off our loans. On certain holidays, we would take turns engaging with the villagers and collecting new items to decorate our houses. When one of us found some new tidbit about the game, we’d tell the other. It felt like this grand social experience that had never quite existed before.

Now, obviously, the sequels would improve certain aspects and include even more items and villagers, but everything has to start somewhere. Without the original Animal Crossing busting down the doors, we wouldn’t be living in a world where New Horizons is the second-best-selling title on the Switch. As time went on, my sister and I would continue to play each new entry and our mother would even join us. When she got her hands on the DS installment, Wild World, it was like something possessed her. She is more into Animal Crossing than either of us.

 

 

That’s the ultimate charm of Animal Crossing, though. The game appeals to so many different demographics at the same time. If you’re an experienced gamer who craves challenge, Animal Crossing has activities that cater to that. No one that has caught all of the bugs and fish and dug up all of the fossils will tell you that it’s easy. If you’re super casual and not all that active with games, Animal Crossing also has you covered. The simple controls and fixed camera ensure that you’ll never be fumbling around learning complex buttons, not to mention the game has no urgency or looming clock to pressure you. It’s funny, cute, and quirky in a way that appeals to not only women, but men, children, and the elderly. It’s the rare game that embodies the very mantra that Nintendo was founded on.

With the series finally becoming fully mainstream after New Horizons, it’s very clear that Nintendo will be continuing it for whatever its next console winds up being. Nothing has changed dramatically since the first (unless we’re talking about the attitudes of villagers) and I’m not sure that it needs to. Animal Crossing was already pretty perfect when it was released and it has only gotten closer to perfection with each new sequel.

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