Did you play Animal Crossing as a child?

If one game defined my childhood, it was Animal Crossing. It was like having an alternate, idyllic life. When most people play that game they only play for 15 minutes at a time, unless they have something important to do, like complete a festival or do some heavy-duty remodeling. I always played that game for hours and hours at a time: I had a insanely lucrative fruit growing operation that kept me busy as fuck.

My town’s name was Town (I was such an original little 10 year old) and the native fruit was Apples. The entire lower section of my map, from the sea to the police station and up near the rock cliffs, were all Oranges, pears...and money trees. I even got the game with the special memory card. I loved Animal Crossing, but games just slip away sometimes like real-life friends, and I guess that’s what happened in this case.

Animal Crossing and the Gamecube just became background dust, and when we got the Wii, the Gamecube disappeared completely. I only got 12 dollars for it when I traded it in, and that made me a little bitter. Animal Crossing wasn’t worth much at all, like 6 dollars, and I wish I’d never traded it, for both sentimental reasons, and for my sanity’s sake. But, now the 360 has taken the Wii’s place, and it’s the Wii’s turn to take up dust along side the lost Gameboy Colors and the obscure gameboy advance. Today I decided to dust off the Wii and play a little Starfox Adventures. I normally keep that game in a large box filled with games, wires, controllers and memory cards, but I couldn’t find it today. I must have looked for at least 15 minutes, digging around through Tony Hawks and Grand Theft Autos and Pokemon- I was about to give up and just play the 360 when I dug up something from the very bottom. It was an unmarked game-case that I’d never seen it before, but upon opening it up...

I saw Animal Crossing, and in the little slot where you can store your memory card was the original grey one that contained the free NES game. I figured it must have been my sisters town, or a copy that a friend had left at my house, so I shrugged and put it in, mostly for old times sake.

You can notice when certain things are off pretty quickly, even more so when you grew up with the thing in question. The discrepancies are amplified, and right from the get go, I knew the theme music was off. I didn’t know what- but something was off. In the very beginning during the title screen, the music starts off with the steady drum beat, and then the piano comes in.

There was no drum beat, it just cut to the piano, and in a few seconds, the drumbeat came in...but it was off. Just by a little bit, enough to make me notice and cringe, almost like someone had taken the drums and tweaked the rhythm by a hair and took piano part and changed the pitch. The bright yellow, happy logo letters came were normal, but the white letters underneath, with the copyright and the 2001, 2002 Nintendo was missing altogether, instead, there was this weird symbol that looked like a sideways 8. At this point, I thought the game was just a little weird- the graphics looked fine, and everything else was normal, so I pressed the start button.

Normally there’s this whole loading scene when you talk to one of the animals in your town and select your character. This was there, but it was weird: it wasn’t a character I recognized., He was a dog with the same head-shape as K.K Slider, but he was completely black and had glowing, yellow eyes. The character had no name at all in that little green bubble, but I placed him. He was an altered version of Lucky, that freaky ass dog wearing the bandages in both Wild World and the Gamecube version.

Another thing was wrong: the language. Instead of being cute gibberish, it was deeper and more pronounced, so it didn’t sound like gibberish: it sounded like some kind of legitimate, foreign language, and just something about the tone made it seem like it was more sinister and intense then I ever remember any aspect of that game being. The dialogue was pretty normal, but when you start a new town or play on a new memory card, K.K Slider is supposed to introduce you.

Obviously, that wasn’t the case, and the weird Lucky went through K.K’s normal speal, till the very end. He said that life on your own was lonely, but with friends, it could be even funner, especially when you’re friends with someone...FOREVER. I don’t know if you’ve ever reset your game before, but when Resetti, that fucking mole, gets pissed at you for reseting, the font is huge. Forever was just as big as Resetti at his angriest.

I mentally put two and two together: the symbol in the green name bubble was the infinity symbol. I was a bit unsettled, to tell you the truth, but before I could freak out or anything, it cut to the train scene.

Did you play Animal Crossing as a child?

If one game defined my childhood, it was Animal Crossing. It was like having an alternate, idyllic life. When most people play that game they only play for 15 minutes at a time, unless they have something important to do, like complete a festival or do some heavy-duty remodeling. I always played that game for hours and hours at a time: I had a insanely lucrative fruit growing operation that kept me busy as fuck.

My town’s name was Town (I was such an original little 10 year old) and the native fruit was Apples. The entire lower section of my map, from the sea to the police station and up near the rock cliffs, were all Oranges, pears...and money trees. I even got the game with the special memory card. I loved Animal Crossing, but games just slip away sometimes like real-life friends, and I guess that’s what happened in this case.

Animal Crossing and the Gamecube just became background dust, and when we got the Wii, the Gamecube disappeared completely. I only got 12 dollars for it when I traded it in, and that made me a little bitter. Animal Crossing wasn’t worth much at all, like 6 dollars, and I wish I’d never traded it, for both sentimental reasons, and for my sanity’s sake. But, now the 360 has taken the Wii’s place, and it’s the Wii’s turn to take up dust along side the lost Gameboy Colors and the obscure gameboy advance. Today I decided to dust off the Wii and play a little Starfox Adventures. I normally keep that game in a large box filled with games, wires, controllers and memory cards, but I couldn’t find it today. I must have looked for at least 15 minutes, digging around through Tony Hawks and Grand Theft Autos and Pokemon- I was about to give up and just play the 360 when I dug up something from the very bottom. It was an unmarked game-case that I’d never seen it before, but upon opening it up...

I saw Animal Crossing, and in the little slot where you can store your memory card was the original grey one that contained the free NES game. I figured it must have been my sisters town, or a copy that a friend had left at my house, so I shrugged and put it in, mostly for old times sake.

You can notice when certain things are off pretty quickly, even more so when you grew up with the thing in question. The discrepancies are amplified, and right from the get go, I knew the theme music was off. I didn’t know what- but something was off. In the very beginning during the title screen, the music starts off with the steady drum beat, and then the piano comes in.

There was no drum beat, it just cut to the piano, and in a few seconds, the drumbeat came in...but it was off. Just by a little bit, enough to make me notice and cringe, almost like someone had taken the drums and tweaked the rhythm by a hair and took piano part and changed the pitch. The bright yellow, happy logo letters came were normal, but the white letters underneath, with the copyright and the 2001, 2002 Nintendo was missing altogether, instead, there was this weird symbol that looked like a sideways 8. At this point, I thought the game was just a little weird- the graphics looked fine, and everything else was normal, so I pressed the start button.

Normally there’s this whole loading scene when you talk to one of the animals in your town and select your character. This was there, but it was weird: it wasn’t a character I recognized., He was a dog with the same head-shape as K.K Slider, but he was completely black and had glowing, yellow eyes. The character had no name at all in that little green bubble, but I placed him. He was an altered version of Lucky, that freaky ass dog wearing the bandages in both Wild World and the Gamecube version.

Another thing was wrong: the language. Instead of being cute gibberish, it was deeper and more pronounced, so it didn’t sound like gibberish: it sounded like some kind of legitimate, foreign language, and just something about the tone made it seem like it was more sinister and intense then I ever remember any aspect of that game being. The dialogue was pretty normal, but when you start a new town or play on a new memory card, K.K Slider is supposed to introduce you.

Obviously, that wasn’t the case, and the weird Lucky went through K.K’s normal speal, till the very end. He said that life on your own was lonely, but with friends, it could be even funner, especially when you’re friends with someone...FOREVER. I don’t know if you’ve ever reset your game before, but when Resetti, that fucking mole, gets pissed at you for reseting, the font is huge. Forever was just as big as Resetti at his angriest.

I mentally put two and two together: the symbol in the green name bubble was the infinity symbol. I was a bit unsettled, to tell you the truth, but before I could freak out or anything, it cut to the train scene.