Top 10 Best Video Games of 2020
By: Travis Vuong
Tags: Games, 2020, Lists, Video Game Journalism, Gaming

When the Nintendo Switch was first revealed, the one game Nintendo fans had on their mind was Animal Crossing. The series was always jumping between console and handheld systems; we finally have a Nintendo console that can do both. Three years after the Switch’s release, Animal Crossing: New Horizons arrived to fans with critical praise. If you don’t know what Animal Crossing is, the best way I can describe to people is “it’s like doing chores but it’s fun and really cute.” The end goal for the game is to upgrade your house to its largest size while paying off Tom Nook. To pay off Mr. Nook, you can go fishing, pick fruit, mine material from rocks, chop wood, and many other activities to get bells. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is an improvement on all fronts for the series. A ton of quality of life changes to make navigating Animal Crossing easier. Furthermore, the customizable options this game offers is insane. Players can create custom clothing or furniture pieces to share with others online. I’ve spent some time on Twitter browsing some of the designs players have created and put them into my house and wardrobe. You can even transform the island to your liking with terraforming in the post game. I haven’t dabbled with this option too much but I’ve seen some really creative stuff from players when the game initially came out. The addition of the Nook Miles program gave the player new goals to achieve every play session. The Nook Miles can be redeemed for bells, a Nook Miles ticket, or exclusive furniture for the island. The Nook Miles ticket transports you to a random island to gather resources and/or meet new villagers to potentially bring back to your island. The whole Nook Miles system is great. It really gave me a reason to do certain activities throughout my play session. Also, the miles being used as a second form of currency was really smart. I genuinely had a great time playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons during the first couple of months of its release. Seeing everyone on Twitter playing the game along with my friends giving the series a shot for the first time was really wholesome. It really brought me back to when I played Animal Crossing: New Leaf in the Summer of 2013. Sadly, I stopped playing the game entirely in June, only three months after its release. Why did I stop playing New Horizons so soon? Well, despite all of the improvements they implemented for this game, I sort of got bored with it once I hit the terraforming stuff. I’m not too crazy on the customizing aspect on Animal Crossing. In addition, playing this game with your friends can extend the fun but my friends also fell out of the Animal Crossing high.

AC: New Leaf play time (TOP), AC: New Horizons play time (BOTTOM)

The console and handheld aspect of the Switch works great for Animal Crossing but I haven’t been able to try it out with 2020 being all out of whack. I literally have almost 200 hours on Animal Crossing: New Leaf and over 115 hours for Animal Crossing: New Horizons….wait I actually played 115 HOURS OF ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS??!? I’m going to be honest, I thought it’d be less than 50 hours. I had a fantastic time playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. All of the improvements introduced for this game will make you not want to go back to its predecessors. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the best game in the series so far. I spent over 100 hours with the game without even noticing.