Animal Crossing New Horizons could not have released at a better time. It’s serves many as an escape from quarantine blues, placing you on an island with infinite customization. This game is packed with endless content, making for hours of gameplay. And if the Nintendo Directs are anything to go by, there’s even more come in future updates. However, while the game is centered around you relaxing in your own virtual happy place, it’s not perfect. There are some features missing to the game that, without them, brings frustration to that peaceful island living.
Bulk Crafting
It makes sense why this wasn’t added from the get-go. Bulk crafting can exploit the economic mechanics in the game, much like abusing the stalk market. But bulk building for small items such as medicine and fish bait is definitely needed. The amount of time that goes into crafting each fish bait when you have a pocket full of clams is too much, and takes away from the fun of the game. Not to mention, makes the crafting feel more like a chore than a choice.
DIY Storage Access
This has been in demand by a lot of New Horizons players. It doesn’t make sense to have a DIY table in your home that can’t access storage. Especially when most players store there materials in it. The extra steps of having to pull out the materials into your pockets before entering the crafting table, takes away from the relaxing nature of the game. If anything the crafting mechanic needs to be more streamlined in the future.
Lock-on Path Placement
Paths make up a big portion of landscaping in the game. Everyone wants a town with clean roads that match the theme of their town. However the amount of mistakes that happen while constructing them is exhausting. The path-making feature needs an optional guideline to indicate where the next path will go. Similar to the outline seen with building bridges and inclines. It’s a small feature, but will save so much time.
Custom Path Pro Design
The Animal Crossing community is filled with some of the most design-savvy people. Just a simple Google search will have you drowning in QR codes for custom paths, clothes, and patterns. When it comes to custom clothing, the design app in New Horizons offers a special place to create and store them. However, custom paths have to be saved in the regular design slots.
This is a problem for many who want more variety in landscaping their town. Because the designs can’t be rotated or adjusted, each edge, corner, and angle for a design has to be saved in there own separate slot. Since basic path designs average at 9-10 slots, taking up a lot of space. Instead there should be an option in the pro-designs section for a path template. It would both reduce the time and space needed for saving and placing custom paths, and expand players’ ability to get creative.
Construction Camera View
Inclines, bridges, and customizing the overall layout of your island is an amazing feature. No other Animal Crossing game gives the player so much control. But there’s a catch. Whenever you “visualize” the location of an object you’re relocating or building, the camera stays in a fixed zoomed in position. Placement becomes a gamble when constructing behind cliffs or taller buildings, and risks blocking off areas while charging the player a lot of bells.
Being able to zoom the camera out, even with the limited perspectives of the player camera, would be a major improvement to the mechanic. Both reducing stress with layout design and save players from breaking the bank.
