I loved Animal Crossing as a kid - and really, what's not to enjoy? The slice-of life gameplay, the quirky music, and the peaceful atmosphere of the game has made it earn its place as one of the most iconic Nintendo franchises. I played Wild World (DS) and New Leaf (3DS) obsessively throughout grade school and middle school. And like many other people, I spent a lot of my quarantine time playing New Horizons on the Switch.
As many series veterans have been reflecting, New Horizons doesn't quite hold to the same standard as some of the previous titles. For me, one of my favorite part of Animal Crossing was the social simulation aspect. Talking to the animal villagers, hearing them chatter about their lives, and imagining what they get up to when I'm away made the game feel that much more alive for me. And of course, New Horizons watered down the villagers so that they are blank-slate decorations more than actual definite characters.
To celebrate what made these games so memorable to me, I'm going to retell some stories about some villagers who stood out to me for the better...or for the worse.
Goose
When I first played New Leaf in 2012, one of the starting villagers in my town was the chicken named Goose. Now, this is kinda a dumb name - a chicken named Goose? He was also a dumb character, a "jock" personality type, meaning he was always asking me about my workout routines and challenging me to competitions. I wasn't thrilled by his presence in my town, because he wasn't as cool-looking as other villagers I had, like Bianca the glam tiger, Shari the posh monkey, and Sly the camo crocodile.
But the thing I began to love about Goose was that he always stayed. Even when I put down New Leaf for 3 years, he was still in the village when I came back. My interest in the game dropped off around mid-high school, but I found myself returning to it in Sophomore year of college. I was struggling with a lot of things around that time, and returning to my New Leaf town helped me escape from it all. A lot of the villagers came and left during that time, but Goose was still there, and he was still one of my best villager friends.
The last time I played New Leaf was in 2020. I decided to give the game to a friend of mine, so I visited my town for one last time. When I spoke to Goose, he asked me to dig up a time capsule he had me bury months before. It was a poetic way to bring an end to my story with my New Leaf town, and the best way to send off my best villager friend.
Tipper
This story is just embarrassing.
Back when I played Wild World as a ten-year-old, I chose to play as a male avatar. I liked seeing myself as a boy back then and would always choose male player characters when playing Pokémon or other role-playing games. So, while I lived in Wild World as a boy, it made sense that I would give myself female love interests, right?
It's an awkward roundabout way of saying that I had a crush on Tipper, a "snooty" villager type cow who was hard to please but quick to ask for favors. Maybe I liked the fact that she was the only "snooty" villager in my town, and let's be honest, the other two girl personality types in Wild World weren't all that distinct.
So Tipper was my Wild World girlfriend. I wish I could say it was a more archetypically cuter character like Rosie the cat, or that pink squirrel whose name I always forget but pops up everywhere. No, I was smitten with the generic-looking cow wearing mascara.
Then one day, Tipper told me she was thinking of moving. I asked her not to, but the next day, she was gone. I remember I was so angry that I bought an axe from Nook's shop and began cutting down every tree in sight.
So, yeah. Not my best. Eventually, Tipper and I reconciled when we met again in New Leaf a few years later, but part of me could never forgive her for leaving me the way she did. Apparently she's somewhat a popular villager now (at least compared to Goose, whose Amiibo card is being sold for less than $1 while Tipper costs at least $6). As far as I'm concerned, people can have that cow.
Limberg
I just might be the only person in the world whose favorite Animal Crossing character is Limberg. And I will proudly stick to that.
In general, I've always liked the "ugly" villagers, like Harry the hippopotamus or Jitters the cracked-out bluejay. But Limberg is where it started.
The very first time I played Wild World, Limberg was one of the starting three villagers. I thought he looked kind of gross (I thought his five o'clock shadow was clown makeup), and I didn't like his "cranky" personality type. He was the type to laugh when I got stung by bees or blow fumes at me for now reason.
But Limberg was the first villager I really bonded with. My copy of Wild World was bought used from GameStop, so whoever had it before me had changed the time settings to be waaay later in the day than it should have been (for reference, they had it set so that it was 10pm when it should have been 1pm). By that time when I was playing, all the other villagers were asleep. But Limberg must have been suffering from insomnia, because he was always awake at those hours, and always there to talk to me.
The more I got to know Limberg, the more I loved him. I helped him out with his fossil collection, and I hung out at his house a lot. I loved his design and music choice for his house so much that I began to model my own after him. In my own head, I came up with a narrative that he used to be a samurai, but was disgraced and chased from his home after failing to protect his master. Now, he only wanted to find a life of simplicity and solitude, even if it means acting like a grump to chase people away.
I loved Limberg so much that I actually bought his Amiibo card in preparation for New Horizons (it was cheap, too!). I gifted him the samurai outfit and a few other props to help decorate his room the way I imagined it looking like in his glory days.
While New Horizons is a game that prioritizes player autonomy and design over social simulation and character arcs, I still enjoyed being reunited with my old friend Limberg. Because of how busy I've gotten as an adult, I haven't had time to play video games like I used to, so I doubt I will be running into Limberg or my other villager friends any time soon. But I still carry with me comforting memories of late nights on my DS and immersion into a world where everyone knew my name.
