About Animal Crossing: Wild World
The original Animal Crossing is a favorite with gamers from around the world. Living a fantasy life where you do whatever you wanted to do. The game makes it's triumphant return with Animal Crossing: Wild World on the Nintendo DS. This time, there are more items, more things to do, more animals to meet, and more experiences to create. Wild World is also the 2nd game from Nintendo to feature the ability to go online via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.
Moving Into the Wild World
You begin your new life with a taxi ride to your new home. Your driver, Capp'n, will ask you a few questions; your answers define your gender, name, and general appearance.
When you finally reach town, you'll be dropped off at the Town Hall where you'll be greeted by Pelly, the clerk. She'll give you a quick welcome, and then it's off to your brand new house.
Once you get inside, the first thing you'll notice is how empty your house is. You'll be wanting to collect collect some furniture and other various items to decorate your home with. Once you step outside, you are greeted by the friendly (and sometimes evil) Tom Nook.
Tom Nook is the town shopkeeper. Nook will give you the major goal of the game: pay off the mortgage for your house and its subsequent upgrades. Tom Nook will start you off with a few odd jobs, and these tasks will serve as a short tutorial to the game. After that, you're off on your own. Make friends, get new tasks, decorate your home, be hip and trendy, and create new memories.
Your Home
Having your own home is one of the best parts of Animal Crossing: Wild World. There are a few main aspects of your home:
- Size. The size of the house has always been a major goal for all Animal Crossing players. Players are constantly trying to sell that fish or fossil to earn enough money for a little extra space. Wild World builds upon this by offering even bigger and better upgrades to the house.
- Save Room. The second floor of your house is your save room. Walk up the stairs, jump in bed, and you'll be asked if you want to save and quit. You can change your bed if you have another one in your inventory. Just go upstairs, stand at the foot of your current bed and press A. You'll be asked if you would like to switch beds!
- Inside. The inside is where you'll either decorate or leave a mess. You'll go crazy trying to find that matching bed or couch, and you can show off all those cool things you find. As you upgrade your house, not only will the inside provide more space, but additional rooms will be added on as well.
- Outside. The outside of your house isn't as customizable as the inside. The only things you can control are the color of your roof, and the pattern on your door. You can use any pattern that you've created and paste it onto your door. The outside appearance of your house changes as you upgrade it.
Most parts of your home can be decorated in any way you choose. There are hundreds of different items that you find, buy, and trade. The combinations are limitless, and whatever you want to do is completely up to you.
Tom Nook regularly stocks his shelves with various pieces of furniture and a selection of flooring and wallpaper. Friends and town animals will also occassionally give you gifts that can help you decorate your home. There are also a few 'other' ways to get items.
In addition to furniture, flooring, and wallpaper, you can also place almost any other type of object in your home for display. Drop a fish in your home and it automatically appears in a fish tank. Set down a piece of clothing and it's now on display for everyone to see.
It's your home: do whatever you want with it, or don't do anything at all.
Tools
Animal Crossing is an expansive game with tons of stuff to do, and you can't expect to do it all bare-handed. Tom Nooks sells several useful tools, including some not in the original Animal Crossing.
- Shovel. The shovel is used to dig holes and fill them up. You'll be able to dig up fossils, bury things, and plant fruit that will grow into a tree. When something is buried, a small X-like root will stick out so you can see where it is.
- Fishing Pole. The fishing pole can be cast into rivers, lakes, and the ocean to catch fish for selling, eating, or donating. The key to fishing is to reel in the fish the instant it bites. As soon as you see the float dip down, tap and hold on it with the stylus, or simply hold down the A button.
- Axe. The axe is used to thin out the tree population in case you go overboard planting. It also looks really cool to walk around with an axe!
- Watering Can. Sometimes when you plant a tree or flower it doesn't quite grow and needs a little help. Have no fear, the watering can is here to help you perk up little plants.
- Slingshot. Just like in the original Animal Crossing, presents tied to balloons will sometimes fly over your town. In this game, you can shoot them down with the slingshot. Presents appear every ten minutes on the fives (XX:05, XX:15, XX:25, etc) at the north edge of town and float east or west until they're gone or shot down. The arrival of the presents along the top screen of the DS is designated by the sound of a gust of wind, so listen closely. Be careful not to shoot them into the water.
- Bug Net. Lets you catch the various bugs and critters in your town. Bugs can be sold to Tom Nook or donated to the museum.
- Timer. Not the most glorious item but great fun in multiplayer. It lets you set a countdown and measures the number of fish and bugs that you caught to make having competitions easy.
Golden Tools
By completing certain tasks, collections or criteria, you can earn golden versions of your various tools.
- Golden Shovel. Allows you to grow bells from trees. To get it, buy a second shovel, dig a hole and bury your second shovel. Wait one day, then go back and dig up the shovel you buried. You should now have a golden shovel!
- Golden Fishing Pole. Fish remain hooked for a longer duration. To get it, catch every type of fish possible in the game. Not easy!
- Golden Axe. This axe never breaks and it probably the most complicated golden item. To get it you need to perform several steps:
- Get a red turnip from Joan
- Give the red turnip to Wendel the next time he is in your town.
- Wendel will give you either a turban or the country guitar.
- If you get the country guitar, trade it to K.K. Slider for the K.K. Slider picture.
- Give the turban to Sahara the next time she is in your town.
- Sahra will give you either the massage chair or the red vase.
- If you get the red vase, give it to Redd to get the safe which you can then give to Nook for Nook's picture.
- Give the massage chair to Tortimer and he will give you the scallop.
- Give the scallop to Pascal the next time he is on your beach and he will give you the golden axe or Pascal's Picture.
- Golden Watering Can. Keep your town's environment perfect for 15 days. Check the status of your environment at the town hall. At the end of 15 days, you will be rewarded with the golden watering can.
- Golden Slingshot. This slingshot will fire 3 projectiles at a time. To get it, shoot 15 balloons/items out of the sky. The 16th should be the golden slingshot.
- Golden Bug Net. This net is larger than the normal net. To get it, catch every type of bug possible in the game.
Tom Nook's Shop
Aside from your home, Tom Nook's shop is one of the most important places in your town. Every day, Tom Nook will get a new shipment of items for you to purchase: new furniture, tools, flowers and trees, and stationary. Tom Nook is by no means your sole supplier of goods, but you'll probably buy more stuff from him than from anyone else.
Another reason to frequent Tom Nook's store is to sell items. Nook will buy almost anything you can bring him. Bring fish, bugs, fruit, fossils, clothing, furniture or anything else you collect, and Tom Nook will pay Bells for them.
As a businessman, you can't expect Nook to work out of a shack forever. As you buy and sell from him, he'll occassionally upgrade his shop. It'll become bigger, nicer, and have a larger selection of items. The downside to this upgrade is that Tom Nook closes his store for an day. That's an entire day devoid of purchasing or selling. On these days, you can visit any other town online and simply shop at their store.
- Nook's Cranny. This is how Tom Nook starts out. It's a small and simple wooden shack with a limited slection of goods.
- Nook N Go. This upgrade is a tiny convenience store. It's bigger than his old shack and it has a few more items, but still not all that impressive.
- Nookway. The store grows up a little more and becomes a grocery store of sorts. It features many more goods than the old shack and looks pretty impressive.
- Nookingtons. This is the final upgrade, and boy is it a big one! Nookingtons now features two floors filled with great merchandise. In addition to these two floors, you'll find a brand new hair salon to serve all your hair styling needs.
Your Town
Besides Nook's Shop and your house, there are plenty of other places to note.
- The Museum. The Museum is a large building with display rooms for fish, bugs, fossils, and paintings. The owl, Blathers, who works there, will gladly accept donatations of any of the above and display them for all to see. The museum is kind of a scrap book to show off all thing things you've collected. There is a huge debate whether stuff should go to the museum or be sold to Tom Nook, but it's really up to you.
- The Observatory. Located on the 2nd floor of The Museum, Blathers' sister, Celeste, allows you to view other existing constellations or even create your own! Play the game online via Nintendo WiFi Connection, and you have a chance for your constellation design to end up in your friends' sky and vice-versa.
- The Coffee Shop. Brewster, the ever quiet proprietor of this venue, serves you up delicious coffee. For a price (200 Bells). Drink it down hot and speak to him daily to get him to open up to you. Every Saturday between 8PM and 11 PM, K.K. Slider plays a show on the stage setup here.
- Able Sisters. Tired of the bland generic shirts for sale at Nook's? Head over to the Able Sisters' shop and design your own pattern. You can put it on shirts, hats, the ground outside, your carpet, just about anywhere! There are many websites that can help you take an image from the internet and put it into a format that you can copy onto your DS to have great drawings on DS even if you aren't an artist.
- Town Hall. In the Town Hall you'll find the Civic Center, Post Office, and recycling bin (hint: check the recycling bin! You can take anything inside) You can change the town tune, pay off your debt to Tom Nook, save some Bells in the Bank, and check the status of your environment.
- Town Gate. At the Town Gate, you'll find Copper and Booker standing guard. You can see lost items (take the ones you like!), change the flag, find out what's new, or access the wireless features of the game.
Wi-Fi
Animal Crossing: Wild World is compatible with the Nintendo Wi-Fi service. This allows players to connect to other players' villages from all over world using the Nintendo DS's wireless capability.
Once you have found a friend who has the game, you need to input their Friend Code, Town Name, and Character Name into your Friend's List. Your friend needs to do the same. In order to get your Friend Code you need to complete Nook's beginning quest. When done, visit Copper at your town gate, and ask him to give you a Friend Code.
There are two ways to play online:
- You can leave your town and visit your friend's town. To do this, talk to Copper and tell him you want to go out.
- You can open your gates so that your friends can come visit your town. To do this, go to Copper, and tell him that you want to invite guests.
WiFi can be very fun as you are playing face to face with a friend (something left out of the original) and lots of games have been designed to be played on WiFi (ex: hide and seek). However there are a few flaws in the WiFi. Mainly the lack of tracking there is no way to tell where in your town your friend is. Unfortunately, it's quite glitchy and if two people interact with the same object it often crashes (example: two people shake a tree or enter a building).
