Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer Reviews
Happy Home Designer is a fun way to pass the time. Certainly not a revolutionary game, and certainly not a perfect game, but it's an interesting take on the Animal Crossing series – having zoomed in so closely on just one aspect of the series is a breath of fresh air.
Happy Home Designer gets pretty much everything right when it comes to decorating, encouraging creativity, and exploring different styles. It's sometimes unsatisfying to work without a sense of progression, but taking away progression unlocks means there's no limits on the creativity you can express with Animal Crossing's huge range of options. There's no shortage of actual designing to do, and the series' charm prevents it from becoming just a series of soulless tasks. Plus, you won't have to worry about being in debt with a raccoon this time around.
Utterly charming with a fantastic set of design tools, but it'll make you crave the freedom of more traditional Animal Crossing games.
Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer feels like a minigame for fans of the series. It features some of the best characters, gives you the chance to play house with their possessions, and offers the opportunity to put your unique design flair all over the village. The selection of items grows as you complete the game, which makes it feel even deeper than the broad selection of villagers you can choose. And its control scheme is simple and perfect.
It's a fun little distraction that doesn't require too much attention to enjoy.
Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer isn't going to dethrone Animal Crossing: New Leaf as the number one game in your 3DS' play log – not by a long shot. In taking away the scant few of the franchise's stressors, however, it becomes a profoundly therapeutic life simulator that respects and rewards every millilitre of creative juice you pour into it. It's a stop-gap on the road to Wii U/NX but a detour that won't soon be surpassed.
We want to play in ways beyond the gaming population's insular past, cavorting through catastrophes and destroying the present. Our future depends on the ability to create, and design, something new. It's fun to tear something down but there's a deeper joy in building something up. Besides, there's nothing more catastrophic than the wrong wallpaper.
A more structured and restricting experience than New Leaf, Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer offers similarly addictive mechanics but much less freedom and control.
Nintendo's new social simulator for 3DS teaches Post Arcade's junior reviewer a couple of things about herself
Overall, Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer is a welcome spinoff that helps diversify the Animal Crossing brand and cements it as one of Nintendo's cornerstone franchises (if it wasn't already). The Big N has shown an increased willingness on putting fresh spins on older series and this is a case where it works naturally. It makes perfect sense for an interior design game to exist in this universe, not just because of its town-building mythos but also because of its folksy charm.
Happy Home Designer may not be your typical video game, but that's precisely what Nintendo was aiming for. It's not about challenge or winning or competition, but rather about playing interior designer to a host of creatures. While it's mostly very good at what it does, the specifics of what it does won't appeal to most gamers, or even most Animal Crossing fans. Taken on its own terms, however, the only area in which Happy Home Designer falls short of its rather relaxed mission statement is in its social and sharing features, which feel rather anemic.
I would recommend Happy Home Designer for anyone who really enjoys designing and decorating virtual spaces. If finding the perfect furniture for your house in Animal Crossing was your favorite part of the series, then you'll surely get some enjoyment out of this game.
There's a good level of content to be found here, between the constant flow of resident's requests and the expansion of the town plaza, which you can extend for as long as you like with remodels and redesigns which unlock later on. There's also plenty of variety to the different items, and with the ability to repaint and create your own designs you can make something truly unique. The simple and intuitive gameplay will especially appeal to younger gamers, as will the creativity, but the key disappointment is the limited scope. Happy Home Designer captures some of the Animal Crossing magic, but not enough to make it an essential entry in the series.
A relaxing, repetitive toe-dip into the working world.
As a whole Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer is pretty good. It is a solid package that uses everything that the 3DS has to offer and it's has loads of entertainment value for those that like to create…
Just like its prequel, Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer is bursting with content to uncover. The sheer volume of items to unlock is staggering, allowing you to cook up all manner of homely homesteads and fabulous facilities. The same world that captivated millions of players in New Leaf returns, with familiar faces that do a lot to augment the appeal of the core interior design mechanics. However, the lack of any real challenge is a fatal flaw, and while it's possible to create a stunning variety of different rooms and buildings, the gameplay does become repetitive quite quickly. Fans of New Leaf - and the series in general - may well be prepared to forgive such sins, but for everyone else this is a likeable but largely forgettable title that will entice young, undemanding players but will be too dull and samey for everyone else - despite the unmistakable charm which permeates the entire package.
Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer is a fun twist on the original Animal Crossing games.
Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer on Nintendo 3DS is a flawed spin-off that's still sure to settle right into the hearts of fans and creative folk.
Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer is a very enjoyable game until you realize that nothing you do really has any lasting effect on the game or its citizens.
A stripped down Animal Crossing with a premise so lightweight it can barely be said to exist at all, and yet there's still an undemanding charm to its no-octane thrills.