Animal Crossing

Summed up in five sentences or less: You move into town. Which leads to your first mortgage and you end up working for Tom Nook. You pay off a small amount, but not a lot, and you continue to make payments to your house until you get a statue in your honor. After paying off your house, you can continue roaming around town... or you can donate your money to a far-off town (for example, "Boondox" in *Wild World*). In one game, you even get to be mayor!

That's this game franchise in a nutshell. The first US release was on the Nintendo GameCube in 2002.

## Games in the series

* Animal Forest (though it's only in Japan)
* Animal Crossing (2001)
* Animal Crossing: Wild World
* Animal Crossing: City Folk
* Animal Crossing: New Leaf
	+ The "Welcome amiibo" update of the same game
* Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer
* Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
* Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival
* Animal Crossing: New Horizons

## Tropes

* Cartoon Network Isn't Teletoon: The N64 version was never released outside Japan. Same with the anime film.
* Obscurity, much?: The N64 version is completely forgotten outside Japan. Heck, the series itself wasn't known outside Japan until 2002 at the earliest.
	+ Less so for the anime film, considering it's got *two* fandubs and is flooded with numerous fansubs but is otherwise inaccessible to people outside Japan.
* Animal World: Level 4, since the only human characters are also the only *playable* characters. It's not called "Animal Crossing" for nothing.
* Folk rock: K.K. Slider is skilled at his guitar. He even sings whenever he's in town (you need to make a request, though).
* Inunderstandable Language/Jewelrunes: The primary languages are "animalese" and "bebebese". Both are not very understandable languages, *especially* the latter. No wonder the anime film uses neither.
* Gainax Ruined the Ending: There is no ending in the first place. You need to speak with K.K. Slider to watch the credits.
* No Ending at All: Averted. There is actually something resembling a Satisfactory Conclusion (paying off all your debt to Nook, letting your tree grow to the point you can sit near it in New Leaf)...
	+ However, you can choose to end it all on a metaphorical cliffhanger by re-building (read: erasing) your town. Only if you complete the main objectives can you sell your town to Tom Nook in New Leaf.
* Innocent punishment: Oh, dear, *never* reset or turn off your system without saving or else you'll face the wrath of Resetti, who chews you out on resetting. Thankfully, *New Horizons* fixed it by putting Resetti out of his job at the Reset Surveillance Center completely via the autosave function.
	+ Subverted as of "New Leaf", where he only appears once... but once the Mayor (i.e. yourself) builds the Reset Surveillance Center... it's played straight again.
	+ Not just that, but resetting in someone else's town in the original GameCube version gets rid of all your belongings in your pockets. You also forfeit all your cash in your pockets.
	+ Speaking of your pockets, you have to let go of all items caught with a net or fishing rod should you get them too full.
	+ If you get an axe and you proceed to chop trees willy-nilly, your axe eventually breaks and you have to buy another one... only one problem. If it just so happens that you broke that axe on the same day you bought it, you can't get another axe to replace it (in other words, it would be sold out). The only way to get around this is by getting the golden axe, which *never* breaks no matter how many times it's used. Fortunately, while almost *all* tools eventually break in *New Horizons*, Nook's Cranny will never run out of stock concerning those in said game.
	+ Partially subverted when it comes to letters. In your letters, you can write content that's more suitable for an M-rated game, but other characters will call you out for it. It may cause villagers to even move away from whatever town you reside in.
	+ The game doesn't let you commit any crime, despite the letter situation mentioned above. Sure, not allowing a game character to murder someone is understandable due to the "E" rating, but stealing... it'd still get the player character in jail if caught should they have implemented that. At least thanks to this, the police aren't willing to arrest anyone.
	+ Shake (or start to chop down) any non-fruit tree (or any tree in general as of *New Leaf*) and there's a possibility you'll end up shaking down one of five beehives spawned that day. If the "bees" catch you, you end up stung by one of them. And the villagers would call you out for not getting to safety. In *New Horizons*, if you get stung more than once (without taking medicine), you will additionally pass out and wind up back at your house.
* This gave us inspiration: Zootopia came out almost 14 years after this game came to America... only it replaces humans with *more animals*.
* Do not confuse: While they're both red-eyed rabbits, the Ruby in this game franchise is red-eyed due to albinism, but the Ruby in Jewelpet, however, is red-eyed due to the jewel she represents. Not to mention that their birthdays are different, so no relation.
* Financial Failure: The primary reason why you work off some of the mortgage you accrue, but then you have to make bells to pay off the rest of your debt yourself.
	+ Because the first person to play a copy of "New Leaf" becomes mayor automatically upon arrival, they have to pay off their loan themselves without working for Nook. Doesn't help that he no longer runs the shop in the game...
	+ Once you complete the main objectives required for the game's Satisfactory Conclusion, you can even sell your town to Tom Nook in New Leaf.
* You Are Fired: Implied for Resetti in *New Horizons*, thanks to the game's autosave function.

TBA.