The promised August update for Animal Crossing is here, which means more stuff for me to check out! Let's go over what 1.4 brought us this time around. BACKGROUND:
Last month, we got the 1.3 update (which I discussed here), and it added small but meaningful changes to the game. At the end of the reveal for that update, another update for August was announced. Well, it's August, and here it is. WHAT'S NEW: Dreaming Your bed actually has a use now! Starting in 1.4, lying down on bed-type furniture allows you to go to sleep. Once you do, you enter a realm of dreams, where you meet Luna the tapir. She tells you that in this dimension, you can visit the islands of other people (and vice versa). This feature was in New Leaf, and was referred to as the Dream Suite. It basically lets you visit other people's islands without the user actually being online to open gates and host you. In the dream version of the island, you are free to roam around, and anything you do in there will not reflect on the other person's island. You can also upload an instance of your island so that other folks can visit whenever you aren't active. As it is, it's not really an engaging feature. It's pretty much the same as properly visiting islands, except there's less to do (e.g. you can't shop or fish), and the social aspect of interacting with others is removed. The fun of it lies more on exploring the islands of complete strangers you're otherwise unable to connect with and appreciating the work they've done decorating the place. Unless you've been living under a rock, you're probably somewhat aware of how massive an online phenomenon this game is, and this feature capitalizes on that by giving players a new, more involved way to enjoy the content they see on Reddit or Twitter. The process of dreaming requires you to have a unique code for the island you want to visit, so I basically have to know of an island's existence so that I can visit it. The reverse is also true; if you want people to check out your island, you have to put your code out there. That's all well and good, but I would like it if there were a "visit random island" feature; it feels more in the spirit of dreams if you don't know what you're getting into. Alternatively, a basic search engine would be nice; just look up islands by username/island name, or perhaps implement a category system where islands have specific tags to them. As much as I enjoy perusing the Animal Crossing subreddit and finding dream codes to check out, it would probably be better to have various ways to find dream islands available in the game itself. Overall, I like that this feature is back, but it's not one I see myself using often. If I find an island that looks interesting online, or a celebrity/person whose work I admire shares their island, I'll check it out. Otherwise, I'll stick to "real-world" visits where I can get into stupid shenanigans with friends. Fireworks Show The last patch didn't have a limited-time event like the spring update, but this one does. On every Sunday in August, a fireworks display will be held from 7PM to midnight. Throughout that time, the skies will be illuminated with dazzling fireworks, and your villagers will be out and about enjoying the show. It's really pleasant to look at, and the cheery music complements the overall positive vibe. Now, there is more to do than just look at the pretty lights. Throughout the show, criminal bastard Redd will be in the plaza holding a raffle. You can pay 500 Bells to test your luck, and you can win one of 12 items each time. The items range from sparklers, fountain fireworks, bubble blowers, fans pinwheels, tweeters, and balloons. Unlike previous limited-time items, these raffle rewards aren't decorative items like furniture, or exclusive clothing pieces. These are purely novelties that you can play around with. They serve no real function other than to provide amusement with cute animations and flashy lights (as they probably would in real life). Items like that probably seem pointless in most video games, but it works incredibly well here. They just provide you with a fun thing to do while enjoying the fireworks, and isn't fun what video games are all about? In a shocking turn of events, Isabelle gets something to do other than sit behind her desk at Resident Services during the fireworks show. Every Sunday, she will give you a neat bopper headband that you can wear, and there are four designs to collect. You can also talk to her to set up your custom designs to appear as fireworks! This feature is pretty awesome, and seeing my pixel art patterns show up in the sky as fireworks is satisfying. It really adds a personal touch to the fireworks display, and encourages creativity. Based on content, the fireworks shows seem like a nothing event; the items aren't exactly must-have collectibles, and there's little else to it but looking at the sky. Despite this, it's still one of the most delightful things I've ever experienced in this game. The fireworks look wonderful (and I can make my own designs), the novelty items are silly fun, and it was charming to see majority of my villagers all in one place cheering and clapping at the fireworks display. I even played a session in multiplayer, and all of us were having a blast just holding balloons and waving sparklers. Maybe it's just that the depressing news cycle over the past few months has broken me to the point that the shallowest of amusements bring me immeasurable joy, but this event just has a certain je ne sais quoi to it that puts a stupid grin on my face. Maybe I just like fireworks. I don't know. Other things Per usual, I don't know the full scope of changes outside of what I've observed, so I'll stick to stuff that I've encountered personally. I'm sure the dataminers have found more shit, so just go look up their findings if you want definitive information. A "mechanic" was added that causes your character to trip. Yes, trip as in "fall over and fully eat shit on the pavement." This can happen when you run around holding a balloon, or you put on the King Tut mask (which is a new DIY clothing item introduced in this patch). As of now, it seems to be a feature purely to appease the schadenfreude crowd (which does include me), but it may hint at a returning feature: luck. In previous games, your character had random luck each day, and this affected certain actions. If you had bad luck, you are more likely to trip, you're more likely to fish out garbage items, and your villagers may even avoid you. I somewhat like the idea of a whack-ass luck mechanic returning and causing chaos (even though it may end up annoying me), so I hope the fact that tripping is back is a sign of things to come. Another cool quality-of-life feature they added is the ability to toggle off the UI in camera mode. Previously, this was achieved through a glitch, and people used this in order to put together cinematic video clips (among other things). In a succeeding update, the glitch was patched out (to the chagrin of players), but now it has returned as a proper feature. I'm glad the devs did that, as it makes recording video clips much nicer. It also shows that they are, on some level, paying attention to player feedback. One thing I forgot to mention in the previous updates was the rotation of seasonal items in the Nook Shopping catalog that are updated each patch. These items coincide with real-life holidays (only becoming available to purchase around the date it happens in real time), and feature all sorts of exclusive decorations and clothing. They've put in some really inspired choices each time they update the seasonal catalog (including items pertaining to holidays I've never even heard of), and it has me excited to see what's coming in the coming months. Lastly, a save data backup feature has finally been added for this game. Animal Crossing was not compatible with Switch Online's cloud saves feature (presumably to prevent forms of cheating), and now they've introduced a similar feature that is completely separate from that (but still requires a Switch Online subscription). It's a nice insurance policy that really should have been here from the start, and I can't help but feel for people who a) lost data before this patch, and b) can't really afford a Switch Online subscription. In my case, I now have one less thing to worry about should my Switch explode sponatenously. Nintendo also hinted at an upcoming save transfer feature coming in a future update, which, again, wasn't available at launch. It's really strange how keen they are to preserve the Animal Crossing experience at the expense of significant quality-of-life features. One can't help but wonder if there's a better way to handle all this, but this is Nintendo, and it wouldn't be Nintendo if online features made any sense. VERDICT: Truth be told, the 1.4 update for New Horizons isn't as robust in terms of content compared to previous updates. I don't really use the dream stuff apart from updating the dream version of my island, and the fireworks show is a pretty straightforward event with little to do. Even so, I'm still quite happy with this patch; I found myself pleased as punch with all the fireworks stuff, and dreaming is a fantastic feature for exploring and appreciating creativity from all around the world. This probably won't feel substantial to players who want actual new shit to do, and likely won't pull back lapsed players for more than a few days, but I personally wouldn't call this a lackluster update by any means. While not an actual gameplay addition, the save data backup feature is really appreciated, but it only appearing now (with save transfer on the way) raises more concerns with how Nintendo's handling the online side of their games. That said, the fact that these features exist at all does seem to indicate that they're taking (painfully slow) steps to do better in that department. Regardless on how you may feel about this patch, the next update is confirmed to come in the fall, and that has the potential to be big. Based on the Halloween tease, it may not come until October, so there may be a bit of a content drought heading into September. P.S. If you also play the game, go check out my island via dreaming. The Dream Address is on the image above. It won't be as impressive as some of the islands you've seen online, but I hope you'll like it nonetheless. - end -
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
Archives
June 2024
Derryck
|