“Hello there! You came to play, did you?”Animal Crossing: Wild Worldgreets me warmly, like a neighbor. Never mind that it’s been more than a decade (and several successiveAnimal Crossinggames) since I last dropped by. By all accounts, I should be a stranger now. But holding out its fuzzy little hand to me, Animal Crossing: Wild World welcomes me back as if no time has passed at all.
As the comfortably familiar title screen music eases me in — lum dee-dee dah, dum di-didah— and the rickety attic of my house comes into view, I see the villager I made ever so long ago snoozing soundly in a pineapple bed. I’m soothed, at ease. It feels like coming home.
Animal Crossing: Wild World is the second terrarium inNintendo’s thriving Animal Crossing series, third if you include the original Doubutsu No Mori for the Nintendo 64, which was never officially released in English. A sequel of sorts to 2001’sAnimal Crossingon the GameCube, Animal Crossing: Wild World released exclusively for the pocket-sized Nintendo DS in 2005 — 18 years ago, as of 2023.
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Over these 18 years, Wild World has since been succeeded time and again by newer Crossings for newer consoles:City Folkfor the Wii,New Leaffor the 3DS,New Horizonsfor the Nintendo Switch. Compared to these later, shinier installments, it can be all too easy to think of Wild World as nothing more than a star in the soil, long since buried in the series’ history.
But this is Animal Crossing, darnit, and there’s only one thing to do when we see a star in the soil. Grab your golden shovels and clear out some space in your pockets: it’s time to dig up this fossil.
After waking up my villager for a brand-new day in this well-worn town, I open the front door and — wow that’s a lot of weeds. I see that my surroundings are positively littered with the little suckers. But I suppose that’s what I get for having left my Wild World alone for nearly a decade.
Ready to do some pruning, I take all of two steps from the porch of my home, when all at once and without warning, I am accosted by the abrasive fanfare of none other than the reaper of my past self’s mistakes:Resetti, who chews me out for what feels like hours over some crime against saving that I must have committed the last time I played (whenever that was). So much for that warm welcome back!
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I’m laughing, though. I’mecstatic. This is perfect. There’s a huge smile on my face, and I’m not even kidding. Above all else, I always loved Wild World for its zany dialogue. Distinctly I remember rolling around on the floor giggling about characters giving me an ergonomic chair and warning me totell no one of this. When nothing encapsulates Wild World’s wonderfully offbeat dialogue more than Resetti’s deafening diatribe, though, what better way to reacquaint myself with the game than by walking bobble-head-first into the reset-me-not’s torrent of outrage?
Once Resetti has taken his leave, I finally get to my mailbox, which has been pinging non-stop with unread letters all the while. I open the box to find thoughtful words from Mom, a note from Kiki to say she’s moved (nooo, I really liked her!), and a letter from… me? Eyebrows raised in confusion, I open it to find a sparkly message reading, “Dear Future Audrey, these Bells are for you. Love them, use them, ring them well, I don’t care, I’m not you. From Audrey.”
I have zero recollection of having sent this to me. But Idoremember gleefully composing elaborate epistles for hours on end back when I used to play daily, because the responses I’d receive from each of the animals would leave me in stitches. “Dear Audrey,” one read. “I dropped your letter in the soup! Then I ate it! Dancing to Euro-pop really makes me hungry.”
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Maybe it’s muscle memory, or maybe it’s excellent game design plain and simple, but it’s hardly half-an-hour of real-world time before I’m right back in step with Animal Crossing: Wild World. I’m buying up writing paper in bulk, and I’m reacquainting myself with old friends of yore. “Long time, no see!” says Kid Cat. “How’s life? You know, it’s been a while, but you look more dignified somehow, psst.” Well, I don’t know aboutthat, but I do know that it’s great to see him again.
Wendell visits town and I swap an apple for an artsy pattern. Katrina sets up shop and tells me my fortune. I fill out a questionnaire for a new hairdo. I talk endlessly with Pudge and Marina and Genji about ginger ale, seafood, and biceps, in that order. The Flea Market runs on the first Saturday of each month, and I all but beg Margie to buy mymini alloidfor 5,000 Bells. (She respectfully declines.)
It’s all simple, day-to-day living, and darnit, I love every bit of it. Where later Animal Crossing games overwhelmed me to the point of stress with their inundation of daily activities, I find myself falling into a comfortable, dare I say genuinely enjoyable, rhythm here in the four walls of Wild World. Even empirically mundane activities such as weeding are rendered fun by the random encounters you’ll have along the way. One moment, you’re tugging on a particularly stubborn sprig, the next you’re butting heads with Dr. Shrunk, who regales you with a joke that only Anders Komeiji could laugh at.
I pen letters. I pull weeds. Sipping pigeon’s milk coffee at The Roost, I askK.K. Sliderto play Forest Life, one of the game’s several secret songs you have to specially request. A week later, it’s La-Di-Day, and all the villagers are singing at me, begging me to make their melody the new town tune.
At the end of each day, the sun sets over my toybox of a town, but just before I shut the lid on the Nintendo DS, I climb the stairs to Celeste’s observatory. It’s a quiet room atop the museum, overlooking the town, telescope inside tilted up to the sky. Stargazing would sadly be absent from later Animal Crossing games. But here in Wild World, I can gaze up at the night, counting the stars above my little town which keeps on going, eighteen years later.
