Hello Internet!
I hope everyone is doing well and are doing their best to stay healthy. You probably know there’s a world wide pandemic going on and I was going to talk about it, but I figured that it wasn’t really my place to talk about something like that. I’m not a medical professional or someone who studied medicine or pandemics, so I will leave that up to people like The Centers For Disease Control or The World Health Organization. I can’t speak to everyone’s perspective on how this disease is affecting your health or your life, but I will just quickly say that for people living in the United States, you should be informed but not afraid. Do not panic. Do not feel the need to hoard toilet paper. Just look to official sources of information like The CDC and The WHO. Self-quarantine if you can and look out for the people around you, especially the elderly or people with weak immune systems. Do take this seriously, but the world is not coming to an end. Anyway, that’s not really what I want to talk about. I figured with all of this stuff going on, we need a bright light to shine through and Animal Crossing is that light! I talked about some Animal Crossing Memories before, but I had so much more to say and since Animal Crossing New Horizons comes out this week, I want to talk about more Animal Crossing.
However before I jump into that, I want to quickly talk about all the other stuff that’s been published here on the website in the past couple of weeks. Like I mentioned before two Sundays ago, I published a Weekly Blog talking about my experience playing the original Animal Crossing on GameCube. It was super fun to talk about my introduction to Animal Crossing and how much fun it was. It just made me more excited for the newest game on the Nintendo Switch. Then on that next Wednesday, I published a poem titled “March Forth (Haiku).” I had to take advantage of it being March 4th which is a date which sounds like a command. March forth! So I used that Haiku as a call to action for all of us to come together and make the world a better place which is even more important now. On that next Friday, I published a Writing Prompt Piece tilted “Repeat. Cycle. Repeat.” which is all about a man reliving the same cycle over and over again as he tries to figure out how to stop a bomb that blows up an apartment building or at least figure out why the bomb went off. The actual Writing Prompt Piece follows one cycle. This past Wednesday, I published a Poem titled “Spring Growth.” Spring is here and we are starting to get some warmer, Spring weather (I say even though it literally snowed today where I live) and that means we should see some new plant growth outside. This can also be metaphorical of good things emerging out of the bad. Finally, this past Friday I published the latest chapter of my Dungeons and Dragons series Stolen Prince [D&D]. Although the whole group of adventurers made an agreement to meet up at a pub for a final meal before setting off on their own paths, Riffen didn’t show. Well it turns out that he didn’t ditch the group. He got kidnapped. Read this latest chapter to figure out what happened exactly and the next chapter should come out this up coming Friday so look forward to that.
Ok, now that we got all of that out of the way, I want to talk more about Animal Crossing! Now I was going to talk a little bit about Animal Crossing Wild World which came out on the Nintendo DS, I truly don’t remember that much about it. The few things I can recall is that you got to make your own constellations at the museum which was really cool. I’d like that to be re-added to the series. I also remember that everyone who played on the one system had to share a house together and that seemed like a major setback. In the GameCube Animal Crossing, you could have up to four people playing living in the same town, each with their own house. So the fact that in the DS game you all had to live in one house really sucked. Plus I didn’t really like playing with family members. I liked building my house without anyone else getting in the way and this made it feel like I was marking off sections of my own house with masking tape like you sometimes see in movies or television shows. Overall, I liked it and still played a ton of it, but I just don’t remember anything that really stuck out to me.
Now let’s talk about the 3DS game Animal Crossing New Leaf because so far I’d say that is the best Animal Crossing game to date (although I’m sure New Horizons is going to blow New Leaf out of the water) and is probably the game I’ve sunk the most time into. I absolutely love Animal Crossing New Leaf and it just took everything about the other games and turned it up to eleven. There are so many things to do, bugs and fish to catch, fossils to dig up, and even an island full of fun activities. I always felt like there was so much to do in a good way and it really felt rewarding to come back to it day after day. If you don’t know or have never played this game, the main premise of Animal Crossing New Leaf is that when you move to this new town, the animal residents assume that you are the New Mayor sent to their town and you are made to take up the position. As Mayor you are able to set town ordinances which make your animal neighbors care more about waking up early, staying up late, spending bells, or taking care of the town’s scenery. Your Mayoral duties also include deciding where to build public-works projects like bridges, benches, fountains, towers, and so much more. Now most likely you as the playable character are going to end up paying for most, if not all, of the funding for these projects but your animal friends help a little bit. Plus they don’t have the option to go to the island and catch beetles worth thousands of bells so it’s kind of fair. All of this paired with the fact that I was no longer a kid when I played this game, made me really care about the town as well as my home and I put a lot of effort making sure both look really good.
The other thing about Animal Crossing New Leaf that makes it better than the previous games is that it introduces a new character named Isabelle. 
Isabelle is an anthropomorphic dog character who serves as your assistant and secretary. She really runs the town and helps put on events while you are more of the figurehead which the other townsfolk can talk to. Plus she is just the cutest! I mean look at here! I know last time I went to this whole long thing about how I had a major crush on Coco the Bunny when I was a kid playing the GameCube Animal Crossing and I don’t really want to go down that rabbit hole again (heh, get it?) with Isabelle, but she is the best! Without her, I could not accomplish my tasks as Mayor and she is a good girl! Plus her head kind of looks like a bag of bells (the Animal Crossing currency) and her name is Is-a-belle. I mean I’m not sure what to do with that, but it’s a pun and I like puns. Puns and Animal Crossing basically go hand in hand so this just makes it better. Isabelle is perfect and a great character both in Animal Crossing and in Super Smash Bros Ultimate and no one could convince me otherwise.
Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah. Animal Crossing New Leaf for the Nintendo 3DS was one of my favorite games on the system and definitely the best game in the Animal Crossing series so far. I hope that Animal Crossing New Horizons is even better and have no doubt it will be. I just can’t believe we are so close to it! AAAAHH!! Sorry. Sorry. I’m just really excited to get my hands on Animal Crossing New Horizons and spend so much time building an amazing town on my own deserted island. I’m counting down the days.
Thank you so much for reading that Weekly Blog all about Animal Crossing. I hope you enjoyed it and are as excited as I am for the new game. If you liked this Weekly Blog, feel free to give it a like or leave a comment down below expressing your excitement for anything Animal Crossing. You can also leave a comment down below talking about your memories with any of the Animal Crossing games. Let me know what your favorite game is and what fond memories you have of it. Also if you don’t follow me here on WordPress, I highly recommend you do so. I’m very close to 500 Followers and you could be a part of that final push. I want to continue to grow this wonderful, positive, and creative space here on the internet and your support helps me do that. When you read my stuff, like it, leave a comment, or share it, it helps me grow and helps others find my stuff which means the world to me. Thank you all for spreading the love and showing your support. No matter if this is the first time you’ve read my stuff or you’ve been a Follower for years now, every view, like, and comment really makes my day! There are still days where I am dumbfounded that people from all over the world are reading the stuff I write and actually like it. So again, Thank You.
I hope you have a wonderful week and I hope you stay safe and healthy!
-Allen_The_Writer
Header Photo Credit to Wall Alpha Coders
https://wall.alphacoders.com/big.php?i=518245
Picture of Isabelle comes from Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabelle_(Animal_Crossing)
Allen The Writer 