Thursday, December 31, 2020: New Year's Eve

I played really early this morning in portable mode to do some last-minute prep before tonight. Isabelle had on a cute New Year's hat in the intro! It was a bit strange how after seeing her in the plaza in the title screen, she was in Resident Services... hmm...

Once I had control, I headed straight for the plaza to see everything up. Isabelle gave me a light stick, and I bought a hat (in orange of course!) from Tom Nook. It's actually kind of nice to see him here, which is bringing me back to the very beginning of the game when he did the announcements, rather than Redd, who I believe sold items in New Leaf like he does for the summer Fireworks Festival.

Here's a look at my outfit I picked out for tonight, as well as the plaza. It took me a few trips coming back to notice all the balloons in the square - they copied my idea on the outside! And you can run straight through these balloons, but not the ones I placed down? Too overpowered, haha! I was also quite upset the balloons to the right of the building covered up the presents I put down, but what can you do? (I guess in the picture it's blocked by Tom Nook's cart...)

Isabelle must have been up at 3am or something setting up, as it was about 5:40pm when I was speaking to her - that's already pretty early! In truth, I was just excited to work on my Animal Crossing Christmas Eve/New Year's Day music cover that will be up on the channel in a couple days from now...!

When I went to start doing my daily routine (changing into a Link outfit for now so I can save the spiffy tux for when the festivities start), I noticed one of the snowballs allowed me to start rolling it right away, even though I hadn't kicked it at all. Maybe dung beetles really can change its size... It wasn't a perfect snowman (not sure why I'm struggling with it!), but oh well.

I got out a bunch of gadgets from my storage and set up my tool wheel so I could easily access them tonight - create a hootenanny! (My main room is still set up for musical chair(s) from my last online session.)

And finally, at least for my solo session, I stocked up on party poppers from Tom Nook so I'd be all set. Sadly they don't stack greater than 10, but oh well. If I don't use them all, I can give them to my friends or keep them in storage for future use.

Here's the link to the VOD of tonight's livestream!

Because I did the livestream, I didn't take a ton of pictures... but if Toy Day 2020 was slightly disappointing, the New Year's Eve event completely blew all my expectations! The countdown hasn't really changed much over the years, and New Horizons sticks true. First, here are a couple pictures of us goofing off in my forest-themed musical chairs room I was bored and made earlier today.

The music does indeed change throughout the 11pm hour, and the animals (as well as me and my friends!) gather in front of the plaza. It got very crowded quickly, counting my two friends playing with me!

At the 5-minute mark, everyone was getting out their glow sticks, so we did, too.

And then, with the camera panning back so we could see the whole plaza and the sky above, we counted down the final minute and rang in 2021! There was a special firework for this year, just like in New Leaf.

And from there, it was literally joy and chaos! Everyone was partying, and because I was playing on a smaller TV, it was easy to lose track of my character and my friends with all the dancing villagers! The zoomed-out perspective kinda reminds me of Wild World on the DS, where you'd be able to see the fireworks at all times on the top screen. And oh man, the music track that plays is incredible! It honestly might be one of my new favorite video game pieces of all time, reminding me of a New York big band with strings ringing in a new year!!

We moved to a quieter spot to try and take a group photo - above were some of our attempts in the crowd, where we'd either accidentally talk to someone by pressing A to use our party poppers, or someone would photobomb and get in our way!

So yeah! The hype for this event for me was definitely worth it - just as the hype for this game was when I saw a new Japanese ad for it one year ago...

Happy New Year everyone! I'm so happy to be continuing these posts and will continue in 2021 and beyond! I am considering for the game's second year both slowing down the frequency of posts, as well as potentially starting a new section on the site where I play through some older Animal Crossing games as well and blog at the same time, similarly to what JVGS Jeff does. It might not happen right away, but it's a possible project I've had in mind. Still expect the consistency for the next couple months at least, though!