Talk:Animal Crossing

Is it really?

I don't think it's called AC:PG, but rather that was just part of the logo. Wasn't it just called Animal Crossing? NintendoLover is AWESOME! ^{You knew that!} 19:24, 10 November 2010 (EST)

• Actually after looking into it, it seems that there really isn't an 'official name'. It's referred to as Animal Crossing, Animal Crossing: Population Growing, and even Animal Crossing Game Cube. Here's my reasoning for renaming the page. 'Animal Crossing' can be used in reference to the series as a whole, and 'Animal Crossing Game Cube' doesn't even sound like a video game title. The only reason I prefer 'Population Growing to the other two is because it feels like more of an actual title and fits in with those of the other games.
  • If anyone else thinks differently, please post here. This is entirely up for debate. If you feel that it's better as 'Animal Crossing (GCN)', feel free to move it back. :)

--Jake 19:51, 10 November 2010 (EST) I don't know... if the original title WAS just Animal Crossing, than it should be (GCN). Otherwise just leave it. NintendoLover is AWESOME! ^{You knew that!} 20:54, 10 November 2010 (EST)

• I know that this isn't the best way to go about this, but judging from Wikipedia's Animal Crossing infobox, the title of the first game is indeed 'Animal Crossing'. So I suppose it would be best to move it back to 'Animal Crossing (GCN)' and leave a redirect on this page. My mistake. :P --Jake 21:04, 10 November 2010 (EST)

Oh well... that's settled then. NintendoLover is AWESOME! ^{You knew that!} 07:44, 11 November 2010 (EST)

On Zeldapedia (on Wikia...), they had The Legend of Zelda as the game, with the series at The Legend of Zelda series. And you forgot the option of Animal Crossing (game)... SuperAlpaca 10:45, 11 November 2010 (EST)

It seems like most think of it as Animal Crossing (GCN), but maybe we should add "It is also refered to as Animal Crossing: Population Growing" at the top of the article. -- 76.100.111.16 17:02, 28 December 2010 (EST)

Thanks for the tip. I've added it to the article as requested. :) --Jake 17:43, 28 December 2010 (EST)

Move

I don't believe that "GCN" is an official initialism, so I propose that we move this to something like "Animal Crossing (GameCube)" or "Animal Crossing (Game)". Pakkun 08:36, 22 December 2012 (EST)

Animal Crossing website is down

I just went to the site and it seems Nintendo took it down. Should we remove it?

Population: Growing!

this article should be renamed "animal crossing: population growing. now i know what you're gonna say: BAD IDEA!! i get criticized for my edits all the time. but this is something really important. please reply to me. Pac-banana (talk) 23:20, July 31, 2015 (EDT)

Hi, Pac-banana! The article probably won't be retitled, because the consensus has been that the game wasn't called "Population Growing"; rather, its title was just "Animal Crossing," with "Population Growing" as an embellishment. That was accommodated in the article with the "(sometimes subtitled Population Growing)" note in the first sentence. -Sky (talk) 23:28, July 31, 2015 (EDT)

Ninja'd. It's already stated in the article itself: "(sometimes subtitled Population Growing)". I think just "Animal Crossing" is the name, though. ™ 23:29, July 31, 2015 (EDT)

Wherever "Population Growing" is mentioned in the article, it should be written "Population: Growing!", which is the actual text on the logo. (This was no doubt meant as a play on how "Population: XXXX" is sometimes written on signs at the entrance to a town.) 68.102.31.13 02:54, January 16, 2016 (EST)

Move request

I propose that we move this page to simply "Animal Crossing", as that's the game's official name, and it is always referred to as just "Animal Crossing" on all articles, including this one. Additionally, having (GCN) at the end makes it seem less professional and it's just unnecessary. Animal Crossing (series) already has a descriptor, so we don't need another one here. Of course, on this page we would have a wrong page notice saying "This article is about the game. For the series itself, see Animal Crossing (series)." ~ AlexBot2004 (Talk) 14:45, June 30, 2020 (EDT)

 Support per the above. Definitely more professional than Animal Crossing (GCN). Drago (talk) 10:33, July 2, 2020 (EDT)

Just a heads up, tomorrow I'll be moving this page the requested title unless anybody objects. ~ AlexBot2004 (Talk) 03:21, July 6, 2020 (EDT)

Result: Page moved to "Animal Crossing" per the above. ~ AlexBot2004 (Talk) 17:19, July 6, 2020 (EDT)

Split Doubutsu no Mori+ into its own article

I don't think these two games should be in the same article, since the differences between Doubutsu no Mori+ and Animal Crossing are substantial enough that they're practically different games. A good half or so of this page is dedicated solely to "regional differences" which indicate that the two titles are only similar through their basic mechanics at most, and the "development" section shows that the developers thought of it as a separate project, as well. I don't think it's fair to call it a mere localization as, say, Animal Crossing: Wild World is to Oideyo Doubutsu no Mori. Rather, it's an odd misconception to call it just the "Japanese version of Animal Crossing" rather than what it actually is, an entirely separate game that the international version used as a base. The Wikia also has Doubutsu no Mori+ as its own article, and I feel like we set the bigger example for these kinds of things. Any thoughts? StrawberryChan (talk) 17:43, November 26, 2020 (EST)

Just noting here for reference: we used to have the articles split, but they were merged as a result of this discussion. ~SuperHamster Talk 16:46, November 27, 2020 (EST)

Ah, I hadn't seen this. It looks like it was a pretty thorough discussion, too, but I think my opinion would still remain the same if it were still active. I guess the main thing I could see as opposition is that it simplifies things for wiki organization (such as villagers) to merge both games, but at the same time, you also have characters and aspects that simply don't exist in the Japanese version which are worth distinguishing (Farley, Franklin, the Wishing Well, most of the events). The differences are more than significant enough to keep them separate in my eyes. StrawberryChan (talk) 23:42, November 27, 2020 (EST)

I agree that the differences between Doubutsu no Mori+ and Animal Crossing are greater than any other localization in the series. That said, the game's unique identifier or "game code" as marked on the disc itself, is the same, "GAF" (followed by a letter representing the region). So essentially, to Nintendo, they are the same game, even if the localization resulted in many differences which would become atypical in later games. If you read interviews with Katsuya Eguchi he talks about why there are less changes in future AC games compared to ACGC:

WIRED interview excerpt

WN: It took a long time for Animal Crossing to finally make it to Europe. What happened there? KE: The localization for America took a long time simply because there are so many elements that have to fit with the audience. We took out so many things that were traditionally Japanese, and replaced them with things Americans would like. And then we got to Europe, it was like: this holiday doesn't mean anything, this conversation doesn't mean anything… the localization is so focused on the audience. So it took a lot of time to make the game fit in each territory. The replacement time was very long. WN: Which leads right to the question – when you were developing Wild World for DS, did you go into it thinking, let's make this a product that doesn't have any cultural flavor, something that's easily ported around the world? KE: Exactly. That was our plan from the beginning. When we started working on WW, we decided that we were going to get rid of things that were region-specific. That being said, we didn't want to make it bland – we wanted to make it worldwide and multicultural. So, for things like the fish and the bugs in the game, rather than have things that are local to any area, we went with things that we thought people who were interested in fish and bugs would like to collect. Things you'd see in a museum. WN: Do you think, in general, that's become more of a major concern? That games now have to be developed from the ground up to be more worldwide products? KE: I've been told: "think about localization when you're starting on projects." Nintendo's philosophy is to make things enjoyable to anyone anyway, so it's not that big of a shift.

I would be in favor of establishing a separate page to document the differences, as you are correct in your observation that the section is becoming increasingly long. (talk) 18:45, December 3, 2020 (EST)