Tuesday, March 24, 2020: Neighborhood Construction
I'd forgotten I'd ordered some new clothes for my character, and K.K. Ragtime! (Classic. There's an IRL ragtime band with violin and piccolo and piano and others playing it!) The album covers from New Leaf return here, and it's nice I can get them (and a tape deck) right away. There's even a setting to adjust the volume...if doing it on your Switch or TV wasn't enough. :)
And speaking of music, I finally crafted an ocarina! The moment I saw this in one of the trailers, I got immediately excited! Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D was my first-ever Legend of Zelda game I got for my 3DS in 2011 (right alongside playing City Folk, actually!). Furthermore, it's also a portable item you can hold and play anywhere, like on this tree stump I cut down with my new axe! (I found in the Nook Miles Redemption items to get better tools, as well as more hairstyles and colors... More customization to play around with!) ...With all the wooden furniture and items you can craft, will I be able to craft a violin? :)
Also, the museum opened today, and it's just as gorgeous inside as I remember from the February Nintendo Direct! I'm saving most of the exploring (even though I did a quick run-through) for when I play with my family tonight on the TV and my sister donates the fish and bugs she has collected thus far. The donation process can work a lot like in New Leaf, where you donate multiple items at once if you're in a hurry; but you can also have Blathers, true to his name, go on about any particular thing you're curious about. That's such a great feature!
Oh - and the bridge is here as well. I keep forgetting that it exists and keep using my pole vault! Also, I tried out the drop-off box in the Nooklings' shop - for those playing late or early (like me), it's a convenient thing to have even if the shop's closed, but your inventory doesn't have to keep getting filled up. (Also in the Nook Miles, I found an option to expand my inventory! This game just keeps reminding me of Zelda games...)
I didn't just try out these new things - I was also a busy beaver gathering all the items I needed for the three construction plots so Tom Nook can start having more residents move here! I already had clay and iron from storage, but needed more wood (that's why I tried crafting the different tiers of axes). It's basically like Minecraft, you need wood for everything in that game too... It took some time, including buying some peaches at Nook's; but eventually, I was able to gather everything and complete the task!
My reward for this? Fencing! I haven't figured out what I want to do with it yet; maybe I'll just give it to my sister, who is growing her empire in the corner of the island; keep away the invaders. :P Hopefully tomorrow some new townsfolk will move in! (Also - check out the beetle I caught from the tree stumps - that's why I'm leaving them there.)
One more thing I just wanted to mention, just for posterity. So in January 2019, while I was watching Square Enix's new Kingdom Hearts III and imagining what a full HD Animal Crossing game would look like, I was very excited thinking about how Square Enix modernized their franchise for 2019. Well, I think Nintendo did an exceptional job modernizing Animal Crossing: New Horizons for 2020 (and beyond)! The menus are all crisp and fit right in line with the inventory or shop windows in other current Switch games from Nintendo. (Especially going from having two screens on the 3DS back to one.) And besides those minor things, the game looks absolutely gorgeous in HD on the wide-screen TVs. Go back and take a look at my 3DS and Wii posts on this site, and you can really see how much the series has evolved graphically even since 2008, let alone 2005 and 2001-2002!
Alright, that is the end of my TED Talk... and the end of today's post. :)