A History of Animal Crossing

Well, since most of my page views have been about Animal Crossing, i thought it’d be nice to do a quick history of this Nintendo Franchise.

Animal Crossing started it’s run on the Nintendo 64, with the Japan-only release in April of 2001, Dōbutsu no Mori, which literally means “Animal Forest.” The game was marketed as a Life Simulation game, and gained attention for its unique gameplay. December of that same year, Nintendo re-released the game in Japan for the Gamecube, and made use of the real-time internal clock to keep track of time in the game.

Animal Crossing made its debut in the US September 15th, 2002, and recieved great consumer and critical reception. X-Play dubbed the game the 7th best game on the Gamecube, and was given high ratings by most game reviewers.

The success of Animal Crossing on the Gamecube and the popularity of the Nintendo DS prompted the creation of an Animal Crossing port for the DS, Animal Crossing: Wild World, which released worldwide in the fall of 2005. It was the first true sequel for the series, since all the versions before it were ports and remakes of the original game. The game added new features which expanded the current village layout, and made use of the NIntendo Wi-Fi Connection feature for the DS by allowing a player’s friends to visit their village.

Memorable characters such as Tom Nook and Resetti, slow-paced but rewarding gameplay, and a unique environment have all helped make Animal Crossing one of Nintendo’s best-selling franchises of this decade. According to the Nintendo site, a November release for Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Wii is planned for the US release.