Tom Nook is Still a Jerk

So I finally opened up and started playing Animal Crossing City Folk late in the night hours after work on Monday. The game started off very similarly to the first Animal Crossing. I was riding on a bus and some cat sitting next to me (the same cat from the first Animal Crossing) strikes up a conversation about moving to a new town, which I named Snestown (a No Prize to anyone who guess where that name came from). I hop off the bus, go to town hall to meet the mayor and then I go house hunting. The houses are much more spread out this time around. After checking out the first house, I leave and guess who's outside waiting for me? Everyone's favorite monopolizing raccoon, Tom Nook. The only raccoons I like in video games are the ones that fly with their tales and Rocky from Pocky & Rocky. I despise Nook with a passion that cannot be put into words.

Now, it isn't like I wasn't aware that I'd have to contend with Nook again. With the way City Folk began just like the first game, I knew only too well where this was going. Still that didn't make Nook's presence anymore bearable. Just like the first AC, you're immediately made Tom Nook's personal whipping boy/girl and must deliver gifts, plant trees, write letters, you know, all the usual slave labor that fiendish rodent hangs over your head. Of course it's not over when he says he has no more work for you to do. No, you still have to come up with a way to pack him back for your house! Gah! It's 2002 for me all over again!

In spite of dealing with Nook, I really am enjoying my time with City Folk. Snestown is a great place to live. Things from the first game return like bug and fish catching, finding fossils and paintings, which can all be donated to the museum. You can also talk to your neighbors to help them out, send them letters, invent new catch phrases for them to say. It's all light hearted fun. I've found the Animal Crossing games to be very relaxing and sometimes I need a game where I don't have to save the world.

I was always a big fan of the wardrobe in the first Animal Crossing and some old clothes from that game return here with some new stuff. As with the previous game, you can design your own patterns to wear on your shirts, put on the town flag, and on your wall/floor. There are cool little accessories you can wear like sunglasses, a doctor's mirror (look's like a monocle the way your character wears it) and some other stuff like tribal headgear. It's neat little touches like that which help make City Folk all the more fun.

New to City Folk is a City that you can visit, which houses an assortment of stores not found in your own town. During the day hours, the city is bustling with people, including some faces from the original Animal Crossing. I got a kick out of seeing Cookie and Savanna again even if they didn't acknowledge who I was because it was a new game. I'll have to get more bells if I want to buy some of the fancy clothes and change hair styles in this game. Doing stuff in the city tends to cost more than what it would in your hometown. I'm still making my first payment to Nook on the house to make it bigger, and the only way I have of making money right now is selling apples. So yeah, I gotta get different types of fruit somehow and plant more trees. Being broke again sucks. By contrasts, I was filthy rich with maxed out cash in the first game.