Animal Crossing New Horizons doesn't even feel like Animal Crossing

[@theRCenby]

half of this is now outdated cuz of the 2.0 update XD update this video bro!

[@voyan38]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/b2eVmmqIrNGMhtk

[@theRCenby]

@@voyan38 watching nowww

[@TraceguyRune]

Half? Not even a quarter. Maybe 1/5

[@MrBlackcandy85]

Villagers are still the same, i agree with Voyan and his point about the villagers.

[@TheTC]

KZbin keeps glitching and it's always weird seeing my name on stranger's comments

[@kantoskies]

the fact that when villagers are crafting diys, if you don’t already have the recipe they give you a choice to decline it but if you already have it they MAKE you take it...I feel like that sums up this game’s design choices perfectly

[@panicathedogpark]

This. Absolutely this.

[@feliscatus4922]

Is this what you chose to complain about

[@sarcasm8007]

It's evolving... Just backwards.

[@akreanimated7242]

and on top of that, you can’t put it in storage or give them to other villagers. what do they expect us to do with all of these DIYs? I haven’t played in awhile but I think you can sell them. But...why would you give me a diy i already know in the first place? it’s not like they did this for the purpose of selling them on nookazoon

[@yujutheworld]

@@feliscatus4922 yes. because it makes no sense

[@huskycity6868]

I. Feel. You. So. Much. It almost feels like New Horizons isn't even an Animal Crossing Game, if anything it seems more like the deluxe version of happy home designer.

[@SpongeyBubby]

If there was a this tbh option on KZbin, I’d honestly spam it on this comment.

[@Soy_Barman]

I wish it has the amount of content of HHD.

[@phoenixmorphix]

You cannot compare Happy Home Designer to this game. 😭 Reasons 1. You could squeeze into smaller spaces. 2. You could place rugs outside. 3. It was first game to have more than 1 skin tone option. 4. Has more than half of the amount of furniture of New Horizons 5. The HHA played a bigger part in the game, than just sending you letters every Sunday.

[@jorge_m-h4g]

@Bemani Fan nah honestly this REALLY doesn’t feel like the Animal Crossing game so nah I’m not gonna read your boring useless comment.

[@Toksyuryel]

Which they've now added as DLC because of course they did.

[@ninjahotdog9036]

I think in previous games, you lived a life you didn’t build. In New Horizons, you built a life but not live it.

[@crongoloid8132]

I thought up something very similar to describe it a couple years ago: In the classic games, your life revolves around the town, but now, your town revolves around your life

[@boneappleteeth3127]

@@cedar4539 I guess people didn't like how "mean" the villagers were in the original Animal Crossing up until New Leaf. Which is pretty ridiculous to throw that part out.

[@DerpySloth]

u described acnh perfectly

[@crongoloid8132]

@@boneappleteeth3127 I heard a while back that City Folk was actually extremely mean in Japanese, to the point where even some of the people who liked that about PG/WW thought it was excessive. I've tried to find it again but couldn't unfortunately

[@TheeStarryMeadow]

@@boneappleteeth3127 maybe I didn’t notice how mean the villagers I just really enjoyed the villagers in past games

[@Islay2806]

They seemed to have forgotten the reason the first animal crossing was so good. It was the dialogue.

[@RH-xp7ju]

I completely agree. That’s why I keep on playing the GameCube one

[@boneappleteeth3127]

Exactly. They abandoned the concept of the complex dialogue.

[@Jdudec367]

that and stuff like the feeling of "building up" which at least that is still certainly retained.

[@greenbanana1001]

Yes and not to mention that people played animal crossing then for the friendships you make with the villagers and see the town grow as a whole and live a nice cosy life in the country/ town .. but now all people care about is the town looking good and even hunting for their perfect villagers and kicking the “ugly” ones out .. back then people didn’t care about what villagers looked good or not we just loved them regardless

[@Wackaz]

I think it's almost undeniable that all the prior games in the series are better Animal Crossing titles than New Horizons, purely because they stick to the core of what Katsuya Eguchi intended with the games until he stepped down and the development teams were switched onto New Horizons - a development team who never worked with Eguchi. All prior games have, objectively, more content, depth, detail, love, care, and character than New Horizons, too. New Horizons' new flagship feature was that you can add traditional in-home furniture items into the town environment; this came across as a side feature, not something that resulted from a game supposedly 8 years in-the-making. The other titles didn't need such bonus features to advertise themselves as a whole new product, because their primary intrigue and fundamental quality came in the form of a plethora of intricate detail and attention that made every single day spent in the game feel fresh, alive, distinctive and most of all, interesting. New Horizons is honestly so detached from what Animal Crossing was - and should be - that it's hard to even compare it to previous titles; it's not a mainline game, to me, and feels just as much of a spin-off as Happy Home Designer or Pocket Camp, only more glorified and substantive - with an emphasis on creativity and total, capitalist control over your villages and even town structure. As Tama Hero perfectly stated, New Horizons isn't an Animal Crossing game which appeals to or is built for old or core fans that waited 8 years for the game - instead, it appeals to the new, Tumblr/Twitter crowd of VSCO aesthetic girls that came out of the franchise's fanbase near the end of New Leaf's lifespan, combined with Nintendo's newfound business strategies of releasing unfinished games and slowly, painfully finishing them with free updates overtime. It's important to state that there isn't anything inhernently wrong with the first direction Nintendo took, generally, but from a veteran fan's perspective, this is definitely something which feels wrong. As for the second direction, this is a blatant problem that Nintendo now has, and it's ruining their games and their image - I'd be able to accept New Horizons more if the game was at least finished upon released, but it wasn't, and that led to many of us veteran fans being fed up of the game by the time the massive 2.0 update released. It's extremely disappointing that many of us loyalists waited 7 - 8 years for this game to release, and when we did, we realised the game didn't target our demographic remotely; the fact the villagers are mindless, evidently pre-coded happy-go-lucky robots who have no personality, is all you need to show that New Horizons lacks Eguchi's primary vision for what the franchise was supposed to be in the first place: a game where one can live another life, distracted from the social worries of the real world, and form new relationships with animals that feel authentic and real, in a setting which also feels lived-in, special, unique, and somerhing you feel apart of, not something you have unnatural control of. Animal Crossing is no longer a life simulator game, it's a sandbox game. The simple, conclusive fact of the matter is, New Horizons wasn't built for us veteran fans, and it doesn't seem like that is going to change anytime soon: Animal Crossing is no longer built for us at all, and that's a hard pill to swallow.

[@pink.zombie8631]

I read somewhere that ACNH is like getting a pizza but getting each topping gets delayed. At first you get the dough, a couple months later you get the sauce, later you get the cheese, and way later you get the toppings. By the time you get your full pizza you just don’t want it anymore.

[@AS-cs9gi]

Wow great analogy

[@mari-bk5pe]

Ooooh I like that

[@ultimatetoelicker]

Yessss exactly

[@TraceguyRune]

Read somewhere? What you wrote is practically plagiarism of DougDoug's video "Animal Crossing explained with food"

[@splitsee2526]

@@TraceguyRune yeah but who cares, not everyone watches dougdoug and also, its just a funny quote

[@felsfaser]

the game feels so minimalistic. all of the things i've loved about animal crossing are... gone? it doesn't give me the vibes new leaf or wild world gave me. for me, new horizons is more like a building simulator with animal crossing skin, than a lovely and cute designed life simulator where you can just chill, have a great time and explore new things. sadly.

[@mekaijohnson]

It just lacks the weirdness of the older animal crossing games in my opinion but it will always hold a special place in my heart for getting me through quarantine

[@thebiggestturdonthiswebsite]

Same I love this game but it could be better

[@SpongeyBubby]

Yeah, believe me it was alot of fucking fun in quarantine when I would VC with my friends and play it, everyone has a great time. But unfortunately everyone except for a very tiny few have moved on from the game and I'm about to be one of those people who move on from it :(

[@mekaijohnson]

@@SpongeyBubby Yeah exactly, It's just not as appealing as it used to be and I used to play it for a couple hours a day but now I just get on to talk to my villagers and buy whatever from the nook shop.

[@wackiest10]

@@mekaijohnson It was nice while it lasted, but after that magical time I realised that the game as it is right now is boring af without friends when I could play for hours without them in older games.

[@maplemiles3381]

The biggest turd on this website The game is very very good and it doesn't need to be better because it's a fantastic game overall

[@SebbyWest]

I agree wholeheartedly. This game feels so lifeless. I started out with New Leaf when I was 9. It became a sort of safe space for me. Parents are fighting? Animal Crossing. Feeling alone? Animal Crossing. Want to just goof around and do some random shit? Animal Crossing. I was looking forward to feeling those emotions again when New Horizons released. I started the game, and after getting K.K. to come to my island, I was looking forward to what else the game had in store. Little did I know, I had already experienced it. The game became a mindless chore, just a second routine to kill time for 15 minutes. If you have played the game your daily routine most likely goes something like this: 1. Visit all 2 of your stores. (Compared to New Leafs 9) 2. See who you’re special character for the day is. Who could it be? Redd? Leif? Flick? Oh wow it’s... Saharah. Yay. Time to wait another day to see if the person you wanted is here. 3. Go smash some rocks. Typical Animal Crossing stuff. Oh, your shovel broke? Sorry, go make another one! Oh, you don’t have the materials on you? Better go to your house, and tediously take the materials out of storage. See you later when your shovel breaks again in 2 minutes! 4. Check the beach for D.I.Y. recipes. Oh it’s a dupe? Sorry, see you tomorrow! 5. Wait a minute. Today is a holiday? Sweet, I can’t wait to see what this one is like! Oh. It just wants me to get “special” holiday materials instead of doing a fun activity for the special character that comes once a year. Ok. I’ll just craft some more. And there you have it! Did you have fun? No? Well your only alternative is to wait for updates that slowly drip feed you content from previous games that you have already experienced but in a more lifeless way, or wait until the next Animal Crossing comes out in 7 years, and hope it will be better than this one. Have a nice life!

[@huntermcgrath3769]

I also started with New Leaf. I agree that this game is completely lifeless and unforgiving. New Leaf was so straightforward and I loved it for it.

[@holabuenosdias28030]

Started with new horizons, and I've grown used to it, and with that, I have gotten bored from all animal crossing games, I hate that I didnt start with new leaf or wild world

[@SpongeyBubby]

@@holabuenosdias28030 I started with City Folk and then New Leaf.

[@ThePrismaticEnder]

@@holabuenosdias28030 I've played all the main line games and they are all better than nh. Please give them a go. You won't be disappointed. Lets hope that next years content is actually new

[@phoenixmorphix]

*I RELATE TO THIS ON AN ASTRONOMICAL LEVEL!* Literally everything that you said in this comment just speaks to me. 😭👍

[@jakedona2993]

If I had to give a very harsh hot take, it’s a very good Happy Home Designer.

[@jakedona2993]

@Sean Beebe Agreed the villagers just seem like props to make your village look nicer and I feel like that’s a huge reason buying villagers on Nookazon as become such a big thing.

[@thebiggestturdonthiswebsite]

Don’t get me wrong I love this game but want to do more then customise my town,I want more villager dialogue and interactions ,I want more buildings in the game, acnl had more buildings and the town was smaller. But I’m still hooked after 7 months lmao Like I said I love this game but it could be better.....

[@SoraFan23]

Yeah it feels like they took Happy Home Designer and just ignored every thing that past main AC games had and just made it its own game about island designing. Thats literally what this game feels like.

[@tomnookyankees3761]

The issue is that they probably spent most of their time updating all the assets graphically because this is the first game on a console significantly more powerful than the gamecube. They probably were going to delay the game again were it not for the increasing fear of a pandemic that could affect work. I suspect that whatever is the next mainline animal crossing after New Horizons is going to be much more robust in content because they will be able to just use the graphical assetts from New Horizons and expand from there similar to how New Leaf was much more robust in content because they didn't have to drastically update the graphics. It's also pretty clear that the April-July updates were mostly stuff that was meant to be there from launch.

[@phoenixmorphix]

happy home designer was 10 times better than this game, though. (For its age) 😭 Happy Home Designer still had more features and things that are *STILL* not in New Horizons. ☹️ For example, Happy Home Designer has all the NPC's (Brewster, Kapp'n, Katrina, etc. through amiibos) from New Leaf and has more than half the amount furniture of New Horizons. Furthermore, It also allowed you to place rugs outside and move through smaller spaces by squeezing. All of those features are still not in New Horizons. 😭

[@frauleinzuckerguss1906]

I feel like NH just lack warmth. Like with Wild World (which I still have fun with to this day) it gives me nostalgia and thinking of it makes me have warm thoughts. While New Horizons just feels kind of too... clinical

[@choobiestudios2305]

100% agree. Clinical is the right word

[@brittanygarcia9641]

This is the perfect comment to describe how I feel about new horizons

[@greenbanana1001]

I loved wild world as a kid it’s the best game of all even better than new leaf

[@haleyjadelovethatname]

@@greenbanana1001 and the soundtrack is the best too

[@DellDoll23]

I feel like new horizons doesn't even let you feel like you're meeting characters, they're just there and it's assumed you'll already know and like them. I'd only played wild world so didn't know Isabelle or Harv and playing new horizons I still don't. Also I cared so much about getting to know characters and unlocking their stories like when you'd turn up and Blathers would be all melancholy... I just want to matter to him again. New horizons looks great and I bought it for the graphics but playing it makes me sad.

[@whh5938]

One of the things I was really disappointed with when I first played is how they added kk. Kk was one of those important characters that everybody knows in the animal crossing community but they managed to make him shallow. Most of the npcs that come to your island are also kinda shallow but kk is supposed to be an important character and they just made him useless because you can already buy the music on nooks shopping

[@leozeld_nb]

This. I fucking hate this change.

[@96vicki]

While people hated on Zipper so much, I actually adored him because hes the only quirky character left in the game.

[@ggazrt4523]

Aaaaaa meee tooooo

[@yujutheworld]

he's also the most realistic. he's tired of his job, sighs, talks under his breath a lot

[@choobiestudios2305]

Daaaaang

[@sirk603]

Blathers is good too

[@joycesummer3818]

@@yujutheworld Love him to bits

[@LexxiKitty]

I feel embarrassed, I told my boyfriend before this came out I'd never give up on it, it's animal crossing after all. Well this video nailed how I feel and been struggling to understand... Every villager is so bland, I miss the snarky comments and when they'd get angry with eachother or skip around happily because of an interaction with you/a villager. I miss the requests, the visits to your house which are just GONE, alot is missing here.

[@marsoulini]

me too! i feel so so bad for making my mom buy me a switch and acnh. sometimes i force myself to play it so the money doesn't go to waste.

[@magepumpkin]

i just want the series to go back to just you being a regular citizen talking to your neighbors

[@kingcorey9762]

It's not going to acnh is supposed to be different then the other games

[@greenbanana1001]

Same

[@Emily-lh6em]

New leaf : joining a community and building a relationship with villagers. New horizons: doll house where aesthetics matter most. Villagers are just decorative and content is bread crumbed.

[@Emily-lh6em]

@@cedar4539 the worst part is it didn't need to be a choice between lots of customization and quality characters/lots of content. They could have done both but that would have just required a bit of effort and maybe a longer delay.

[@discussingwhattodo5381]

Everyone says they hate 2 pm, but if you think about it. ITS THE ONLY soundtrack that sounds UNIQUE. it doesn’t use the same boring guitar

[@sarcasm8007]

5 am made me cry the first time I heard it.

[@discussingwhattodo5381]

@@sarcasm8007 you think 5 am is sad? Listen to new leafs one am. New leaf had nighttime music similar to 5 am new horizons

[@GabrielleTollerson]

I love 7 p.m in New Leaf

[@idontcheckmynotifications]

I LOVE 2pm. Best track long with 5pm but 5pm even better 2pm is a bit repeititive, but it has soul

[@marble-q6j]

@@discussingwhattodo5381 you have not heard sad animal crossing night music until you've heard wild world 2am

[@AlphaDevil2018]

We need more long lasting features like a better soundtrack and better interactions, not what we're getting now

[@localmenace3043]

Seriously. I literally don’t hear people criticizing the lackluster soundtrack enough. It sucks ass compared to the past games.

[@sandsand9403]

Yes! They need to focus on making it more like a life sim and less like Happy Home Designer. And the music is SO bad.

[@MoonlightGlxssy]

Ok but they better keep the 5AM song it’s the best in the game ✨

[@AlphaDevil2018]

@@MoonlightGlxssy there are a few songs that should be kept in

[@butterflyexists]

they can't update the soundtrack it's ingrained into the game

[@harmon1zation168]

If new leaf had nh's graphics, I would pick new leaf over new horizons 100%. Edit: wow, this blew up.

[@bobafrap3253]

Who wouldn’t smh

[@jakebutnotfromstatefarm4950]

I like new leaf but the way it looks just makes me not want to play it. In the winter the trees aren't even white they are either green or orange. And when you run or walk it just looks off, like how far your legs go when you walk doesn't fit how fast your going.

[@Islay2806]

Honestly I prefer lower quality graphics like on the 3ds. My friends also think I’m weird

[@mebibibi]

@Bemani Fan ungrateful lmao? have you heard of constructive criticism?

[@zigaudrey]

Graphic isn't everything

[@randompotato]

I have moved from new leaf recently, and I agree with you. New Horizons just lacks the AC charm of New Leaf and the other games. I miss the soundtrack, the viliager personality, and NH just feels like 'design your own island simulator.'

[@greenbanana1001]

Wild world has the worst graphics but the best gameplay

[@fabiofuoco]

@@greenbanana1001 and best soundtrack imo like come on

[@Jumpluffmusic]

THIS! very well put and well spoken. Animal Crossing games always had that quirk to them through music, dialogue, characters, etc. and New Horizons took that edge away. I feel like my nostalgia for growing up with the games carries the weight for New Horizons, like an "aw it's animal crossing" but in reality New Horizons is just generally... vague. I feel like the wait for it to launch led to this feeling as well. Now I just spend my time trying to make my island look "nice" by restarting and time travelling, instead of the day-to-day leisure and enjoying the AC life

[@sarcasm8007]

Honestly I'm a first time player, I had heard great things about new leaf but by the time I heard about it I had already moved on from my Nintendo switch so ACNH was the only reason I even got a switch because I wanted to play it... It didn't take me very long to realize how shallow it was and I don't know even a fraction of the new leaf features to compare it to and that's saying something. Truth of the matter is Animal Crossing New Horizons wouldn't have been as popular as it is if it weren't for the world just lowkey stopping for a year. We were all looking for an escape, and it was the early days of the game so it was easy to overlook any of its flaws but now that time has passed the honey moon phase is over and the truth is settling in. New Horizons looks pretty, it has no depth. Some people like designing an islanf.. Personally I wanted it for the story and the content the gameplay... Not to decorate an island.

[@randomname1924]

Honestly the fact that the villagers are now really “friendly and fluffy” and can’t have any “negative” reactions to the players wouldn’t be that repetitively boring if they would do more stuff, like visiting your house, having more dialogue, being more interactive, the fucking FLEE MARKET????!

[@grimreap--2]

flea market was so interesting and fun :)

[@johnross5098]

You can't even play mini games with them

[@polyhex]

it’s so strange to me how little they’ve changed over the course of the game. my big hope is that they have a massive overhaul update planned, but it’s difficult to still hold onto that hope over a year later

[@Crox101]

Also the fact that gold tools break is so sinful

[@franklin-fq6vp]

You know whats really stupid? Remember how in New Leaf there was a feature to invite your villagers over but it never came back into New Horizons. Turns out it is in the game but a modder had to hack in the game to make it work. So this makes me wonder if that is in the game's coding why is Nintendo taking so long to even release it?

[@TurtleMofo12468]

Well do I have some news for you

[@franklin-fq6vp]

@@TurtleMofo12468 Yeah thats great news and its hard to believe that its been 8 months since I made this comment.

[@scientistservant]

I love this series, I really do. I even love NH, but I miss the quirkiness of the past titles and how different each villager was. Now they all act the same, even the snooty and cranky villagers are way too nice.

[@RH-xp7ju]

I don’t like the fact that they don’t even act like their namesakes. Back in my GameCube game I loved Olivia and Jane (they’re still in my village today) because they were so rude to me it was hilarious! The rudeness they had is really lacking in New Horizons.

[@SmashLiXs]

i feel the neighbors rooms designs have been neutered too. cube used to have robot furniture

[@MrQuincy27]

The updates just aren't good enough, I swear the Gamecube title had more content

[@holabuenosdias28030]

We waited 2 months for just a festival that you will just craft, the updates are far from good

[@SoraFan23]

And Nintendo last year "promised" there would be advanced improvements to the game which so far in 2021 I am not seeing it. I swear to god if we don't get any improvements by March 2021 there is a clear sign that Nintendo is not even listening.

[@ThePrismaticEnder]

@@SoraFan23 Considering we've been asking for bulk crafting since the game released and it still isnt added is a clear sign that they arent really listening Shame really bc this game has so much potential but its being wasted

[@feliscatus4922]

@@ThePrismaticEnder You'd only use bulk crafting for fish bait

[@maplemiles3381]

Yes they are and new horizon is better then the GameCube animal crossing

[@jordynbassford6893]

after my ACNH honeymoon phase wore off, I actually began to play AC Wild World again, and it's legitimately shocking how much more fulfilled it makes me. Yeah, it's rudimentary in the way that you really can't customize your town. But the villagers and NPCs have so much character. Sable and Mabel have stories they will tell you the longer you know them. Fishing and bug catching is more relaxing, less of a grind. The villagers have virtually inexhaustible dialogue (unless you talk to them 10+ times in a row of course). Phyllis and Resetti are still here--and as mean as ever. With ACNH, it seems like the ultra-customization was Nintendo giving us what we wanted, but deciding it was one or the other. We either get to make the island completely ours, or we get just another version of City Folk/New Leaf, where there's still charm but less uniqueness.

[@astrodizzius]

Now that I'm done decorating my island, I am so close to just putting the game down for 2 years and hoping that the game just updates the problems away.

[@xxlukedanuubzxx7279]

That’s what I’m going to do

[@adrianbuelna1]

I logged into new leaf and the difference was jarring, same day and time set up as my switch, but not even 3 minutes in and I had already made a snowman who gave me a lottery ticket, and then Leif had given me a challenge to pluck all the weeds in my town, and right after Cube had asked to look at my stuff back home. New horizons feels like a game that’s was built to just look at, not something that has any interaction.

[@waffles3439]

Yes. I started playing animal crossing with wild world and I loved it. I miss all the other characters. I also miss the "Nintendo Flare" Oh and I really want an option to change the sound track to wild worlds, GC's, New Leaf"s, City Folk any of them!

[@Toastedletoast]

I used to play the game every single day, but after a while 2pm got stuck in my head and I had to stop playing

[@teegan.]

I think it would be a cool idea if nintendo remastered the older games maybe like the original animal crossing game, wild world, or city folk, make the graphics look better (not like acnh graphics though like the same kind've graphics but a bit better) it would be cool so new animal crossing players can play the older games without having to spend $100's of dollars on old systems

[@relaxmusical8264]

Yes?

[@relaxmusical8264]

Yes!*

[@idontcheckmynotifications]

I’d like to see them emulated with Reshade added. I know there is a WIP high res texture pack for the original game

[@Wooper_Dude]

not gonna lie i just picked up new leaf for the first time in years, and already i can feel that theres something that's keeping me coming back, even if i still dont have a fishing rod.

[@raul130471]

I've played AC before but this was the first time I actually owned the copy and it was my own town. The first 200h of the game were MAGICAL. I fell in love with the game, I never really felt something like what I felt with NH. And even tho NH feels so distant from the rest of AC games and to me it seems like it has lost a lot of that personality, the game is still amazing in so many ways. I think the main reason I feel that way is cause this game makes you build this entire town from scratch and it's so beautiful to see how your town evolves and then look back to when you were just starting. But after those 200h, the game really started feeling more and more repetitive, tedious, content lacking, etc. And really when you compare it to its direct predecessor (New Leaf) NH doesn't feel like a step up, at all.

[@SpongeyBubby]

I’m only starting to get burnt out by the game after having 1K hours in it, infact I actually started playing New Leaf again and boy did it feel like a game, like the Club Tortimer islands, that’s what kept me coming back to the game everyday but in New Horizons? Like, what’s there to do? You could invite some friends over but, now what? *EDIT: Also thanks for featuring my best friend's comment during the first minute of the video bro*

[@jessearth]

How many hours do you have in New Leaf?

[@failing2improve17]

The older games (the first three especially) were, well, kinda weird. I feel like NH kinda killed off some of that quirky gameplay I loved about the previous games. It comes off as a more mainstream take on a series that was always just a little...off, but in a good way.

[@Squishydew]

The villagers in this game are SO FRIGGIN BORING! I only lasted a month and was bored for most of it.

[@surich7095]

I only have 25 hours on it before I decided to stop. I literally had a 3 star island, but I’m not the Mayer so I had to check on my sister’s account. When I did then, the rating went to 2 stars! How?? Literally nothing changed on my island for it to become 2 stars but yeah. I agree about the villagers, they’re so boring it hurts.

[@olivegames7987]

your quote saying "NH gives the player too much control for it to be a good life simulation game like population growing! or wii/ds ones, but not enough control for solid world building" hit me SO hard. This is how I truly felt since release and it was so nice having someone put it into words. w video. w creator.

[@WhoTheDev]

The "final update" was complete bs, it was almost everything everyone wanted, a year and a half too late, and half of it was locked to a DLC that was just it's own game. It's still incomplete, I've gotten the same dialogue from Audie 4 times, I hate talking to cardboard with an audiobox slightly taped to the back.

[@SirRias]

They FINALLY added the extra shops, but Mable doesn't have her own shop and they still didn't add Gracie. Why? They added Tortimer, Katrina, Reece, and Cyrus! They could've just added Gracie with a few unique furniture items, it wouldn't be much different from Redd or Mable. It makes me miss New Leaf. Maybe you couldn't customize your town very well in it, but it had a lot of charm and utilized the NPCs in better ways. Plus the house customization was more unique.

[@CRT.v]

Give me a moment, that Golden Sun music hit me straight in the nostalgia and I need to collect myself.

[@leozeld_nb]

My first AC game was Wild World and I loved it to the death. Sadly, it wasn't my copy, it was my cousin's, so I barely played it. When I got a 3DS, I got New Leaf way after the amiibo update and I loved it too. I was surprised with the mayor change but appreciated. I eventually got New Horizons on launch week and I had fun with the game, until I got the three stars. After that, I just loaded up the game and built. That was it. Fast forward two years, and being fully aware of this, I decided to restart, fully aware of the core mechanics of the game. I don't play it anymore because it's Animal Crossing. I play it because it is somewhat a cozy game, coupled with a piano playlist. If I really feel like playing Animal Crossin, I'll boot up New Leaf and Wild World... Which I just did this week. It saddens me the series focus changed. A huge part of my childhood just fading away. I'm 25 now. The older games felt like a community. This game feels like a chore. And it makes you feel like you want to play it, with the Nook Miles plus bonuses, the hot items being worth double, the Nook Miles Tickets, the same fucking sea bass ending up in your fishing line... Compared this to the older games where none of this exists. I was excited every week when I could listen to KK's songs on Saturday at The Roost... now you can always buy his songs, and it's YOUR GOAL to bring him to the island. I even got frustrated to a point it made me boot up Stardew Valley, Terraria or even Minecraft. Like I've said once before. New Horizons as a game is alright. Not that good (9/10, yeah sure buddy), but not that bad. As an Animal Crossing title, it's mediocre AT BEST and a slap on the face to the older games. Fuck you, Nintendo. Okay enough ranting, time to boot up Twilight and play Wild World. 😊

[@wackiest10]

You described the problems with the game better than I ever could to anyone.... explaining these to new players is impossible without them saying something like *"but what about the terraforming and crafting?"* *"It'll all come back in updates"* (kinda like what you said at 12:15) or they'll just say I'm blinded by nostalgia. (The base game should've had as many or more features than New Leaf) 0:40 Also, I didn't expect to be mentioned in a video but it was a nice surprise.

[@teegan.]

It feels like the older games were way more chill and comforting I think that's why I got attached to animal crossing because of how comforting the game felt I like the music in the older games more because it just has comforting feel also acnh just feels like a competition between whose island is better I feel like I have to have the best island rather than the older games where I would just go to the island and catch bugs, do villager chores, go fishing, etc it feels like all I do in acnh is make my town look the best but then I can't succeed at the so then I just get sad and stressed because my town doesn't look go as others I wish I wouldn't compare my island to others but it feels like that's what acnh has come to a competition to see whose town is most aesthetic

[@ericselvig5808]

I started playing Wild World recently and I love it. New Horizons doesn't feel like a life sim at all. I'm interacting with my villagers more in Wild World than New Horizons. My favorite feature in Wild World are villagers asking to come over to my house.

[@sukunawillstillwin]

New horzions should have had everything new leaf had and more.

[@sterloin]

Maple Miles This is literally false. Not even an opinion, just plain false.

[@sukunawillstillwin]

@@maplemiles3381 lol

[@Wackaz]

I think it's almost undeniable that all the prior games in the series are better Animal Crossing titles than New Horizons, purely because they stick to the core of what Katsuya Eguchi intended with the games until he stepped down and the development teams were switched onto New Horizons - a development team who never worked with Eguchi. All prior games have, objectively, more content, depth, detail, love, care, and character than New Horizons, too. New Horizons' new flagship feature was that you can add traditional in-home furniture items into the town environment; this came across as a side feature, not something that resulted from a game supposedly 8 years in-the-making. The other titles didn't need such bonus features to advertise themselves as a whole new product, because their primary intrigue and fundamental quality came in the form of a plethora of intricate detail and attention that made every single day spent in the game feel fresh, alive, distinctive and most of all, interesting. New Horizons is honestly so detached from what Animal Crossing was - and should be - that it's hard to even compare it to previous titles; it's not a mainline game, to me, and feels just as much of a spin-off as Happy Home Designer or Pocket Camp, only more glorified and substantive - with an emphasis on creativity and total, capitalist control over your villages and even town structure. As Tama Hero perfectly stated, New Horizons isn't an Animal Crossing game which appeals to or is built for old or core fans that waited 8 years for the game - instead, it appeals to the new, Tumblr/Twitter crowd of VSCO aesthetic girls that came out of the franchise's fanbase near the end of New Leaf's lifespan, combined with Nintendo's newfound business strategies of releasing unfinished games and slowly, painfully finishing them with free updates overtime. It's important to state that there isn't anything inhernently wrong with the first direction Nintendo took, generally, but from a veteran fan's perspective, this is definitely something which feels wrong. As for the second direction, this is a blatant problem that Nintendo now has, and it's ruining their games and their image - I'd be able to accept New Horizons more if the game was at least finished upon released, but it wasn't, and that led to many of us veteran fans being fed up of the game by the time the massive 2.0 update released. It's extremely disappointing that many of us loyalists waited 7 - 8 years for this game to release, and when we did, we realised the game didn't target our demographic remotely; the fact the villagers are mindless, evidently pre-coded happy-go-lucky robots who have no personality, is all you need to show that New Horizons lacks Eguchi's primary vision for what the franchise was supposed to be in the first place: a game where one can live another life, distracted from the social worries of the real world, and form new relationships with animals that feel authentic and real, in a setting which also feels lived-in, special, unique, and somerhing you feel apart of, not something you have unnatural control of. Animal Crossing is no longer a life simulator game, it's a sandbox game. The simple, conclusive fact of the matter is, New Horizons wasn't built for us veteran fans, and it doesn't seem like that is going to change anytime soon: Animal Crossing is no longer built for us at all, and that's a hard pill to swallow. Thank you so much for making this video, I am so damn glad a critique like this finally exists - one that is emotional and objective, which captures exactly how I feel about the disappointment that isNew Horizons, a disappointment we waited 8 years for, and a disappointment that I had been calling out for what was a good year until people actually started to listen and critique it too; most of the time I criticised this game, I was bombarded with fans who only played New Horizons and Pocket Camp, or recency bias fans, rather than veterans. And now, with your critique, we finally see a veteran discussing New Horizons, so thank you ever so much, wholeheartedly.

[@m.k4447]

I haven’t played the game since New Year. After you’ve reached a few arbitrary goals, the game is essentially finished. On the one hand, I tell myself that the game gave me 350 hours of fun and I should be happy with that, but on the other hand...it’s just so empty. Such a shame. Also, am I crazy or was that a danganronpa soundtrack playing somewhere?

[@twirlygirl0714]

yup it plays at 6:36

[@dawnsbuneary]

My favorite thing about ACNH is how when you give the villagers clothes, the clothes don't automatically become sleeveless. If you give them long sleeve shirts, they stay long sleeved, short sleeves stay short, and best of all, tube tops and workout tops are my favorite clothing items in the game to dress the villagers in because they actually wear them. Yeah. You can give the characters the equivalent of a bikini top!

[@Wachalpharoh]

I've said it before in other comment sections, my biggest gripe has been a loss of that sense of community, I see ppl clamoring for the return of the roost and things like that, because it adds to that sense of community, of it feeling lived in. I see ppl asking for the return of minigames, I want that too, but don't just make them online, let e play them offline with my villagers, let the ppl I have in my community feel as such. I like the customization, but I'd prefer for my island to feel lived in than just look nice. I have also been holding out for a big year 1 2.0 patch with a lot of updates, if that doesn't happen I may just leave this game in the dust, which I would hate to do as it did make me happy for a long time.

[@bellajaimee8570]

yeah im disappointed for the year anniversary we basically just got mario items

[@catboyrodeo]

I still really enjoy NH, but I agree they completely botched the update rollouts. Maybe in 3 years it'll be hands down the best AC experience, but it's a shame that they made its first year so divisive. My one hope is that they at listen to some of the fan opinions and add some depth to the game.

[@thebiggestturdonthiswebsite]

I 1000000000000000000000000000000% agree with you, NH is a good game but the update System is botched. I do think in 2 or 3 years it will be one of the best or the best animal crossing game but it seems like its a game that was rushed to meet the deadline and it unfortunately launched with just a handful of content and now it has a reputation of being “unfinished”. A game like this didn’t deserve a launch that it had

[@royalblanket]

Hysterical reading this now that we're not getting free updates anymore

[@fancyclown3593]

This shit has nearly been out for a year? Geez. I miss the city folk days

[@crongoloid8132]

City folk is the most underrated game in the series, I'm still playing almost every day 12+ years later and loving it

[@idontcheckmynotifications]

Tbh I miss the fandom from that era. It used to feel so personal to meet people and visit their towns I think City Folk is still the weakest game tho. NH offers more through its decorating, CF doesnt really have a niche because its like WW but more padded out and worse

[@ToaderTheToad]

@@zigaudrey Honestly I find City Folk to be one of the best because of that. Though that's probably because CF was one of the first games I played, and I didn't even use the Wi-Fi features. Now, I appreciate Wild World for having a lot of cool content and being a huge leap for the series, (As well as fleshing out the characters) but I can't swallow the low framerate that the game has. (I don't know, I just can't get into it, maybe it's the way the game doesn't respond to the first input that you use a different control style, like for instance if you were using button controls and you tapped on the screen, that first tap wouldn't do anything, only when you tapped again) And City Folk restored a lot of the degrades WW had, including multiple player houses (Though that may be subjective), more varied terrain, the framerate (Being the last game so far to have 60 FPS), though to be fair it did introduce two of the most infamous mechanics (Grass Deterioration/Animal Tracks, and Messy Hair) but I still really like City Folk despite that.

[@HoneyPastry]

“I’m just so mixed… literally.” SAME. Great thing about being mixed, getting to make jokes like this LOL

[@CaddyKiddo]

God bless the Golden Sun music at the beginning

[@rorynator7567]

When I first played New Horizons I time travelled. I'd time travelled in every other game in the franchise; I was gonna do it for a bit at the start. I did it because I thought "The game starts you off with nothing and it seems like it takes a while to progress that point; I wanna get to where I'd normally start in the other Animal Crossing games and then I'll slow down again" I then realise that was it. The progression ends with the stuff that you start with in the other games. 2 shops, 4 buildings, that's it.

[@ninetozero920]

Dude this is so real tbh

[@LelekYoutuber]

everything in new horizons + good dialogue + mass production ( being able to buy multiple nmt, craft items at once, auto villager hunts ) = perfect game

[@colorblockpoprocks6973]

I think a lot of it has to do, indeed, with the purpose of the game. Old Animal Crossing was about them being *social sims* because people yearned for a social nature in life. But now, with social media, we don't crave it. We have to deal with it. And our way of dealing with it is often by comparing ourselves to others. By showing off what we can control, because the parts we control are the things we want to speak for us on social media. So it essentially went from being "i'm lonely and want company" to "im not cool enough and want to feel cool." Animal Crossing went from a social sim, to a social media sim.

[@minikipp8549]

talks about repetition but when i play city folk i spend hours selling peaches and catching fish which is repetitive, mind you hide and seek is a very fun addition

[@idunablack2592]

I haven't played new horizons and thank you for showing me that I don't need to. I honestly miss wild world, but am playing new leaf and am also very happy with it. The fact that wild world kept me playing for YEARS! I even shared my town with my neighbor/best friend and we spent so many hours playing it together on my Nintendo. The only reason why I still feel for all the villagers and npcs is because all my memories of them from wild world. New leaf has already removed enough dialogs honesty... But if THIS is what NH is like... Then I'm happy playing my old games and not engaging in the new installment

[@riley6801]

The game feels like it was made for the sake of "we finally made another mainline ac game, y'all can shut up now"

[@zigaudrey]

Couldn't agree more. AC become a in-name game series and it sell well thank to past success. I would stick to Wild World.

[@tomnookyankees3761]

They probably were going to delay it another year were it not for the looming pandemic. The April, May, and July updates all seem to be stuff that was supposed to be in the game from launch but had to be added via DLC to avoid delaying the game.

[@jorge_m-h4g]

@Bemani Fan your a lie lol

[@FalconMain3]

@@zigaudrey The animal crossing community wasn’t even close to this big, the pandemic brought so many people along with toxicity. I remember during most of new leaf’s life the animal crossing subreddit only had about 100,000 people in it, now it’s 1,500,000. So many casual people just jumped onto animal crossing as a trend.

[@sunspot5]

@Bemani Fan Not really a lie tho, NH is pretty garbage compared to the others in the series

[@annaisntcool]

everything you said is so on point. this game is such a husk and it makes me sad

[@marsoulini]

one of the first things that bugged me was the ost. it lacks emotion. it's this casual thing. nl and the previous games had potential in the ost, it makes you feel stuff, and suits the hourly music. NH took "tropical island escape" TOO seriously. It's all about decorating, whilst the animals in ANIMAL crossing -the LITERAL point of the game- have no dialogue, they're lifeless

[@fionna_cool_girl]

If they just rereleased New Leaf on the switch, I would buy it in a heartbeat and have so much more to do

[@randomatwork15]

Dude, for real how does a video this good have so few views? You've got excellent arguments and production and you couldn't be more true.

[@samuelz4619]

8:29 no ones taking notice of Opal’s dialogue

[@Under10Hours]

This was beautifully put. I had to stop myself from pausing the video and making a comment to agree with you 6 or 7 times before it was done. My issues with the game at the beginning were just like a lot of people. "These things will be added in an update so it's fine." But like you said, we're basically a year removed from release and we still only have one upgrade for Nooks, one clothing store and nothing else. I literally had an entire area set up with space for new stores and they NEVER CAME. I was hoping for better villager dialogue with updates too. That never came either. Gyroids were my favorite. I have a shrine dedicated to them on my island. It was a joke that I'd remove it when it came back. They never did. Your point of this game being the person you needed when times were tough resonates with me very deeply. I'm thankful for it. I still love and cherish the hundreds of hours I put into it in quarantine. But it's hard to go back to.

[@TreeckoJedi9]

"She was given the role of greeting you at the starting of the game because who else was going to do it?" Tom Nook?

[@zachsteiner]

Awesome video. I completely agree with just about everything you’ve said. Tbh I’ve struggled to figure out why this game hasn’t had the magic of past games for me. I kind of just thought it was cause I was older but no, that’s definitely not the case.

[@LHSMeleeClub]

6 minutes in and your words are speaking to me about this game - an OG animal forest player

[@allieherba]

I'm super late to this video but villagers are accessories and not, ya know, vILLAGeRs. Some of my favorite villagers are the traditionally "ugly" ones because their personalities, dialogue, and moments that I shared with them in the older games are etched into my memory forever. Nowadays, all people strive for are the traditionally cute, new, or unique villagers because they are aesthetically pleasing. There's no desire to get to know a villager on a personal level (despite their appearance) because there is no personality to ANY of them. I go to other people's towns and I see the same villagers over and over again because they only thing that endears people to their villagers now is their appearance. In the older games villagers had hobbies, likes and dislikes, furniture combinations/colors that they preferred over others, unique dialogue, arguments/disagreements with the player or with other villagers in the town, etc. All of these things added so much depth to these characters and made them so much more than just their design. I'm like you, the villagers are the meat and potatoes of this franchise to me, and after only a few months of playing I needed to put the game down because I found that after filling my town with all of my favorites from previous games, they were completely unrecognizable - hollow husks of what they used to be

[@ok_oscar2010]

I’ve found myself opening up my 3ds and playing new leaf more than my island on new horizons

[@anthonyk1667]

Can we talk about the fact that the DLC added the Happy Home Designer but for outdoors but ONLY when you are designing a villager home on the island. Why not apply this to your personal island? I might actually enjoy terraforming then

[@HollyWoomy]

This video articulated a ton of feelings I didn't even know that I had about new horizons... As with many others, I still hold some vague hope that Nintendo will eventually release the quality of life updates we are all begging for, but it doesn't excuse how long we've had to wait for the most basic of content 🥺

[@bennycaustic5102]

5:53 Is just sad. I remember picking this game up on launch and sticking with it full-on for like nearly a year. Just slowly watching this game go from bustling with hype and people to just dead. People ran through this game, most of them not knowing how compared to other AC games NH has very little content. Everyone burned through the game and left. Edit: Also 30 mil sales wtf? Why aren't the updates flying out faster then we can work through them?! No other AC game was this popular and now this one launches sells 3 times what NL did and it's hardly changed at all in a year.

[@Toksyuryel]

I distinctly remember being so excited to see Isabelle suddenly show up after building resident services... only to be crushed by the realization that she's just a prop.

[@alexamorenodelucio8484]

Someone finally talks about this😭😭😭

[@yggdrasilsaltar]

as a person who’s inputted 500 hours into new leaf and nearly 700 hours into nh im still conflicted on my thoughts for the game, ive had fun with it and i genuinely enjoy it but my personal theory as to why everything feels so shallow is because they’re trying to appeal to the mainstream animal crossing community that dont care about the little things and want to make their island look pretty.

[@andrescube64]

This game doesn’t feel like Animal Crossing. The older games were true Animal Crossing games.

[@tango_g_sierra]

I was actually gonna ask for a full video on the joys of new leaf, so now I'm very excited

[@yasminh]

i've been saving up for a switch for quite a while now, but i think i'll just still with my new leaf and happy home designer after seeing what new horizons is really like 👀

[@amemelia]

Honestly you can get about a solid 400 hours in acnh tbh. The hours from your first time playing and discovering inc changing your island theme a couple times (none of mine have ever completed) and then restarting to use the game more decoratively, that's how I've played but I must have about 300+ hours and I'm already bored. It made me realise how bad it is without nintendo online too. Rn I haven't had Internet for months and restarted during it so my gotspot isn't strong enough but bc of that my game is even more empty and getting diys or items is so hard its pretty impossible and I've already got replicas after 3 weeks of playing. You can get a solid amount of hours but then there's no reason to go back. Wish they had an emulator for wii games and ds so we could actually play the better games

[@yasminh]

@@amemelia very true i did get new horizons a few weeks ago, and I do love it, but also yeah doing it without nintendo online is a bit sad lol

[@sharonjohnson2388]

Feels more like villagers are mostly ignoring my presence

[@Cabinet_Juice]

I still love NH and will continue tp play it, i agree with a lot of your points but hear me out; -I'm pretty sure this game was rush hard. Remember, it got delayed by like what, 6 months at least? I'm sure the devs wanted to take their time and add more but the executives just wanted it to be done already and pushed it out the door. I can't imagine how pissed we'd be if it got delayed a second time, and that's not even including the pandemic. Which probably would've slowed development even more. If that was the case, we probably wouldn't have gotten this game for another 1-3 years. -I know the updates are slow to come and don't add much content. But keep the pandemic in mind. Not only did they likely had to rush this game, but development on the updates has been extremely slow due to covid. -NH is a different approach to the series. Obviously a deserted island is going to be much smaller than a landlocked town. And I don't think that's a bad thing, it's nice to shake things up every once in a while. i just think it's being mishandled.(along with covid slowing development) This IS Nintendo we're talking about. They haven't exactly had the best track record for the past decade. -I think the biggest glaring issue is that NL set the bar so high and was such a big leap forwards for the series that it would take a LOT to live up to it. And considering the delays, it makes sense. I have the same issue with GTA V, its an amazing game but i'm worried that Rockstar set the bar too high, and won't be able to exceed it. I agree that the biggest issue is with the villagers. I just want more dialogue that differentiates one villager from another. I want more activities to do with them. Really if they just fix that I’d be set. But that’s my two cents.

[@LoupGarouForte]

I remember pleading with my mum to let me stay up for Totakeke on the gamecube AC, not to mention the igloos and clam chowder in winter with the mini games and rewards! Bring the igloos back!

[@slob5041]

played this for the first time last month and it felt like this franchise's version of getting something out of the microwave rather than the oven.

[@tuffdude7795]

It is such a shame too. This game has so much potential and pretty much everyone who has played the other games know exactly how to fix it. We can keep the customization and life Sim. We need more progression, so it actually feels like stuff changes as time moves on. If they are worried about shops ruining people's aesthetic then they can make the look more customizable (unlock new looks) like the train station and Town Hall in New Leaf. We could choose if the café goes in the museum or is it's own shop. We can choose wether kicks becomes an add on to Able Sisters or his own shop. Make the villagers have much more personality like they did in previous games. We overall lack content, basic features, and the level of quality we had in the last entry that was 7 YEARS AGO. Almost every new thing that this game offers is broken in some way. 8 players, but barely any actual multiplayer content. Random Islands to visit, except they become pointless quick and have only a couple different variations. Nook Miles, but you quickly run out of stuff to spend it on. Crafting, but you can't craft in bulk for some reason. The issues with this game are extensive and pretty much everyone has good ideas of how to fix it and content ideas for how to keep it on par with New Leaf and the other games.

[@Yrrats]

I’m genuinely sorry for those not enjoying the game they used to love for their own good reasons. Believe me, I know the feeling (Sims 4... ugh). But I’ve been playing this NH version for over a year daily now (after playing NL for a couple of months, also enjoying it; the very reason I bought the successor) and I can’t help but totally love the game. I see the flaws, but they’re outweighed by the pros for me. P.s. and no, I’m not using the game as a happy home designer. I love designing the world, true, but I just do so while playing and my island still looks very much the way it looked when I started playing.

[@isabellarose9737]

Great job of making a devastating topic a little easier to cope with from the humor ... also the game is way lonely when you don’t have Nintendo online whereas the old games I feel the villagers/characters were enough

[@Y2KH94]

Thank you. I litteraly force myself to play but the robotic NPCs are just a big turn off for me. You explained what's wrong with the game really well man

[@HannahCharlesworth98]

Watching this has made me want to go back to New Leaf and just see how that is to play now. I love NH and I think the positives far outweigh the negatives (for me personally anyway) but after a year it'd be nice to see how older games hold up now

[@FalconMain3]

Just came back to this video once again, I am so sad this game turned out so shallow. Great content though man.

[@anonbobanon7320]

....shoot, you're making too many good points to ignore

[@drmiguel3299]

I know right at first I wanted to hate this video

[@nocctea]

I've been playing wild world and new leaf again alongside new horizons and I forgot how much the villagers talked to you! Like if I play ww and nl for 15 minutes, I would have gotten a ping from all of my villagers, nh, probably barely one a day Edit: also in response to the nooks rng, I believe every island's nook store only gives furniture of ONE color. Like my nook only sells red cute set items, or white instruments.. which makes rng even worse

[@Flower_Mom]

New Horizons just doesn't have that same feeling New Leaf does where I boot it up and feel like I'm home.

[@Wackaz]

This video was absolutely perfect, I couldn't agree more, and feel like everything you said were exactly my thoughts and how I feel about this disappointing game. The fact people have defended Animal Crossing: New Horizons for this long, is truly baffling to me. It's an unfinished and lazy game which still feels like it's in its alpha stage at times. I waited 7 years for the sequel to my favourite game of all time within my favourite franchise of all time, to end up being a game which doesn't even include staples of what made the series so special. The game lacks so much content that all previous games in the series had, and it still isn't getting updated with big content, not finishing the game whatsoever; this is a testament to how lazy and scummy Nintendo has become, not only as businessmen, but as developers too. Thank you for making this, thank you ever so much.

[@kaiafg]

People are saying new leaf was better in terms of dialogue, and maybe, but even new leaf was very toned down compared to wild world - people were complaining about repetitive dialogue in new leaf too.

[@yusofplayed]

ALSO YES THE SOUNDTRACK STINKS. Turn on new leaf and the ambience is incredible. New Horizons music is cheesy muzak.

[@jaycookie2912]

The addition of Island tours would have made the game so much more lively. Imagine just meeting random people in the midst of the pandemic in your little virtual world, playing Minigames and exchanging items. They're so different from having people come to your island/village. It was so exciting and fun. I'm dreading the day this service for NL will be shut down :(