Departing Memories of Animal Crossing: New Leaf

Darren’s Memories

I have had such a great time with Animal Crossing: New Leaf over the years since it’s original release. In the later years, I spent most of my time maintaining my town and building new town projects, but my first steps into the game were the best. I enjoyed seeing new buildings in town grow, such as the Club LOL. I would spend hours listening to the awesome K.K. Slider… sorry… DJ K.K. play his awesome tunes, with my tooting gyroids behind him.

The best part of New Leaf was spending time playing it with my friends. I have fond memories of fishing with a friend at 2:30am in the morning, or helping them collect the last remaining fossil for their museum exhibit. I would take my 3DS out with me just so I would walk enough to obtain Play Coins to purchase new fortune cookies, in the hope of getting more cool Nintendo themed items.

I was very proud of my Metroid themed room, with multiple Metroids lined up against a wall, while the room itself had a futuristic feel to it, almost like you were standing on Samus’ Gunship. It even had a Pterodactyl fossil to represent Ridley! I hope I get the opportunity to recreate it in New Horizons.

While my playtime with the game dwindled over the past couple of years, I have many fond memories of New Leaf. The series is a great escape after stressful days, which certainly made me feel better as a result. My only regret is that I didn’t put in the effort to complete the Museum exhibits myself, something I aim to rectify in New Horizons on Nintendo Switch.

Eric’s Memoirs

Animal Crossing was always big in our family. It’s one of the few games that my mom, my dad, my brother and I all played. New Leaf cemented that as we shared a town together (before my dad and brother later bought their own copies of New Leaf).

Here in the United States, New Leaf came out in the early summer of 2013. It was a perfect release time. I vividly remember sunny June days during which both myself and my character enjoyed all the season had to offer. We couldn’t keep our paws off the game, not even when my dad, brother and I all traveled to our local summer camp for the Boy Scouts of America, Chief Cornplanter Council.

We were all busy that year. My dad was teaching crime prevention merit badge; I was helping lifeguard the waterfront; and my brother Ryan was enjoying his second year at camp. Even so, we all managed time to sneak into our vehicle and whip out the Nintendo 3DS for 10 minutes or so at a time. It was too alluring of a prospect to check in and see how Isabelle was doing with our shared town.

My dad transformed from Animal Crossing fan to Animal Crossing junkie with New Leaf and his — get this — 500+ hours of play time across his cartridge of the game and mine. Sitting with New Leaf for about an hour per day became his after-work pastime as he successfully relaxed after long shifts as a police officer. He’s more the Copper type than the Booker type, but one thing’s for certain: my dad had a wide grin on his face when he asked me to go pre-order Animal Crossing: New Horizons for him.

Seven years after the U.S. launch of New Leaf, we’re about to bring families and friends together all over again.

Leon’s Recollection

My main memories of New Leaf mainly revolved around spending time with the good old members of 3DS Buzz Forums (hope y’all still alive). We rarely did anything serious, not that Animal Crossing really needed serious work, we mainly just messed about in each others’ towns. We did a spot of fishing, caught some bugs, whack each other with our bug nets, hid pitfall seeds in their towns… just general screwing about. IT was all innocent and hilarious fun. It was also some of the only socialising I did at that age.

One thing I always found fascinating about the franchise is how easy it is to get carried away doing random tasks around your town. To anyone who has never played an Animal Crossing game, it may be difficult to see the justification of planting flowers, catching fish, paying of mortgages and such, but sometimes it was just nice to escape for a relaxing few hours in Animal Crossing. Oh, and who could forget that super cute Animal Crossing themed 3DS XL!