Some Animal Crossing: New Leaf Information

First and foremost, some new information about Animal Crossing:  New Leaf is that it is named as such, since there really wasn't word of a Stateside title until the Nintendo Direct that happened just recently.  Certainly a better title than the Japanese one which I'm told translates to "Animal Crossing:  Jump Out" which is clearly a 3D thing and it gets my eye a-twitchin' because yes, we get it, the thing is called a 3DS and yet you're moving away-ish from 3D and blah blah, not really worth getting into.  There's not a whole -lot- of meaty information to dig into at this point, but there is some, and I would like to talk about it rather than sit here and let off a rather petty rant that I feel a-brewin' because of things as of late.  Like the Twitter gadget just not fucking working anymore what is wrong with you, and other stuff, but this is going to be a positive thing, a positive post.  Because I need to do a positive post and get some good feelings going to breed more good feelings to help with yet another hot/cold transition.  Since we all know how -those- treat me, or at least we would if the goddamn Twitter gadg-

Ahem.  Anyways.

We've known for a long time now that the 'thing' about New Leaf is that you arrive in the city and are near-instantly instated as the Mayor for reasons that I'm assuming boil down to "Because!", which gives you free reign to...do most of the normal stuff in an Animal Crossing game, like naming the town and whatnot.  It carries some additional benefits this go around, however, in that you get to design the city to your liking with some level of creative control (in the trailer, it shows that you can purchase items to place in the town itself, like benches and bridges and the like) and I've heard tales that you'll be able to decide the hours at which the shops in your town operate.  I do have to wonder if there's going to be any restrictions on this, like the stores can only be open for a certain amount of hours, no matter when the open and close time is, or something like that, but it's still a neat idea in theory and will make the game that much more accessible since you likely won't have to fit your schedule around it rather than vice-versa.  I know I went to the effort of changing my DS' clock to play Wild World more than once, just so I -could- play it instead of walking around at night being annoyed that everywhere was closed when I actually had time to play it.

In keeping with the 'more customization' theme of the game, you can now apparently change your outfit 'from head to toe', which more or less means socks and shoes, I believe as it's shown in the trailer.  You could already do hats and stuff, though perhaps now you can manage hairstyles when wearing a hat as well, instead of getting the default "you are wearing a hat" thing.  More interesting, however, is the look that there will actually be more things to put up in your house alongside returning favorites like the Robot TV and such.  At least, I'm pretty sure I've never seen the wall mounted thing that gets thrown up in the trailer.  Or....any wall-mounted things for that matter.  So that's actually kind of a big deal!  I hadn't even thought about it, but that makes sense why it was specifically shown off then.  All sorts of possibilities there, which is good, since there's always a need for more.  Perhaps you'll even be able to put up designs in frames on the wall instead of (along side, I should say) the option to use a design as a wallpaper?  And hopefully you'll be able to have more than eight, since the 3DS has a whole memory feature thing and whatnot.

What bothers me, I suppose and I'm not sure bother is the right word, but what I'm not sure I like is that it kind of seems....like any other Animal Crossing game.  They make a point to show off how you can explore your 'old favorite past-times' from the previous games which include fishing, catching bugs in a net and...picking...flowers.  Because we all did that, I guess.  I have no doubt that digging up fossils and such will also make a return, though I certainly hope that there will be a little more variety in what comes out, or perhaps a better way to look at the things you collect and put together in the museum.  With the new island paradise thing, I hope it'll breathe a little more life into the 'daily routine' as it were, inspiring you to stick around instead of just doing what you have to do and getting out again, but I'm not getting my hopes too far up - all in all, it looks like an Animal Crossing game on the 3DS which is a good thing and a less good thing, depending.  We'll see how it works out sometime next year, however!