Hope you folks aren’t sick of hearing about Animal Crossing, because I’ve been playing the Gamecube version recently after a year of playing City Folk for the Wii, and I wanted to grumble about some of the differences. It feels like they left a lot of detail out of City Folk and I don’t understand why. Perhaps it’s because they based City Folk off Wild World for the DS, and they had had to leave stuff out of Wild World due to memory/space limitations. If that’s the case, then it seems just sheer laziness not to have ported things from the Gamecube to the Wii game, since obviously the Wii can handle whatever the Gamecube (GC) can. Here are some of the things they left out of City Folk (CF):

  1. There are clumps of leaves in the GC version. They're scattered throughout your town and when you run through them, leaves float around. There are also circles of dirt to break up the grass. In CF, there's the whole Animal Tracks stuff that causes your grass to erode, so I guess that makes up for the circles of dirt in GC, but there's no equivalent to the leaves. When I run around a grassy area in CF, it's all pretty monotonous. Trees, grass, dirt. The leaves help to add interest to the landscape in GC.
  2. There are balls in GC that randomly appear. You can kick them around and get the animals to kick them back sometimes. Animals will also occasionally moan about being bored, and you can fetch a ball for them.
  3. You can add a circular pattern to the front of your door in GC, but not in CF. It's just another way to customize how your house looks.
  4. Animals actually use their tools in GC. In CF during a fishing tournament, the animals could be seen wandering around town holding their fishing poles, but not actually using them. It just feels kind of cheap to hear them talk about how they're going to catch the biggest fish, when you know they're not even going to try. In GC during the tournament, animals can be seen around the river with their poles out and their lines cast.
  5. There are no docks in CF. In GC, there are a few docks sticking out into the river for you to fish from, and there's also a dock into the ocean.
  6. There are no waterlilies in CF. In GC, there are a couple of pools in the bends of the river and clumps of waterlilies float there.
  7. There are multiple pools in a GC town. In the different CF towns I've created, I've only ever seen one pool of water separate from the river and ocean. In my GC town right now, there are at least two different pools of water.
  8. There are different kinds of bridges in GC: wooden bouncy ones that are just suspended by some rope, and sturdy arched stone ones. I only ever saw the arched stone bridges in CF.
  9. There are raffle tickets in GC that you get by buying furniture at Nook's. You can trade them in at the end of the month to have the chance at winning an item from Nook's.
  10. You can post your own sign boards around town in GC. Blank ones are for sale at Nook's, and you can post your Able Sisters designs on them.
  11. Animals more frequently want to do something with you other than talk. In GC, you have the option of talking with them or doing work for them. When you choose to just talk with them, they'll often want to buy your items, play a game that allows you to win items, or ask you questions that lead to other things happening. I had one animal repaint my roof for me because I answered some question. In CF, you don't have any particular options when talking with an animal, so it's just random chance that they ask you to do something, or want to trade/sell items. I've never had an animal repaint my roof in CF, either.
  12. When the sun sets in GC, it happens gradually. You see shadows across some trees and land, but it's still sunny (albeit orange sunlight) in other areas. In CF, it always looked like it happened at all once. Bright sun to orange light to nightfall.

I’m sure there are other things found in the GC version that aren’t present in CF, but this is all I can think of for now. I know there are plenty of things they changed slightly, like replacing the train station with the bus stop, but the things listed above are those that I didn’t see any kind of replacement for in CF. They’re mostly small details, but for a game like Animal Crossing, they’re important details. The little things are what make this game enjoyable day after day; they break up the monotony of the landscape.