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Think you know everything about life in your favorite virtual village? Join us as we uncover some of the most surprising secrets and fun facts about Nintendo's beloved "Animal Crossing" franchise!
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00:08Welcome to WatchMojo, and in honor of the franchise's 25th anniversary,
00:13we're looking at 25 fun facts you might not know about Animal Crossing.
00:36Animal Crossing was created by Katsuya Eguchi and Hisashi Nogami.
00:41Of its creation, Eguchi was inspired by his own life experiences
00:45after having moved to work at Nintendo's headquarters in Kyoto at 21.
00:49He wanted to capture the feeling of moving to a new town knowing no one.
00:54As a game with a real-time clock that continues even when you aren't playing,
00:58that came from his struggle to enjoy playtime with his family.
01:01Since Eguchi worked late but enjoyed playing games with his family,
01:05he wanted to create a game world he could still share with them,
01:08even if it was at different times of the day.
01:17Number 24 Starting on Cartridge
01:27Much of the team that worked on the first Animal Crossing began development
01:31shortly after completing Yoshi's Story.
01:33It was originally intended to launch on the Nintendo 64DD
01:37due to the disk drive add-on's real-time clock and extended memory storage.
01:41But with delays and the eventual failure of the 64DD,
01:46the game, Dobatsu no Mori or Animal Forest,
01:49was released in cartridge form on the base console only in Japan in April of 2001,
01:54as the only one with a real-time clock.
01:57It also came with a controller pack for saving progress,
02:00because it was a pretty big game for the time.
02:03Even when it was ported to GameCube a few months later and the following year internationally,
02:08Nintendo still included an extra memory card because of how much space it took up.
02:20Number 23 A HUGE TRANSLATION PROJECT
02:32Since you spend a lot of time talking to villagers and other NPCs,
02:37the original Animal Crossing had a lot of text.
02:40In fact, when Nintendo of America set about translating the game to English,
02:45it became its largest translation project to date.
02:48Thousands of lines of dialogue were translated,
02:51new text was added for American players,
02:54and new holidays and items were even created to make sense outside of Japan.
02:59The process took around six months,
03:01but the end result was so impressive to Nintendo of Japan,
03:05that when the game received a Japanese-only updated version,
03:09Dobatsu no Mori E+,
03:10the American content was included.
03:20Number 22 Dungeon Crawling Roots
03:32It's always interesting to see what form a game took during its earliest days.
03:37Back when Animal Crossing was still being considered for the 64DD,
03:41it wasn't initially about a player moving to a new town full of anthropomorphic animals.
03:47Growing from his desire to play games with his family,
03:50Eguchi envisioned a dungeon crawler,
03:52in which one player, like his child,
03:55could complete part of a dungeon,
03:57and another, like himself,
03:59could pick up the game later and play through the next part.
04:02Animals only came into the picture when he thought about the player using the powers of different animals
04:07as a gameplay hook to progress.
04:16Number 21 Unused NES games
04:28An interesting thing about the first Animal Crossing is that it includes a group of fully playable NES games you
04:35can unlock as furniture items.
04:37But there are a few that players don't get access to under normal means,
04:41which can still be found in the game's code.
04:44Ice Climber was made available to Japanese players,
04:47who used Nintendo's service to transfer their data from the N64 to the GameCube version.
04:53It was also available in North America, along with Mario Brothers,
04:57exclusively through Game Boy Advance e-reader cards.
05:01Super Mario Brothers was only available to Japanese players as a sweepstakes prize in Famitsu Magazine.
05:07And finally, The Legend of Zelda is in the game's code,
05:11though it was never made available to players anywhere for whatever reason.
05:19Number 20 Forgotten Villagers
05:30There are clearly a lot of villagers in Animal Crossing,
05:34but there's a decent amount who have been forgotten, only appearing in one or two entries.
05:39Some haven't been seen since the original.
05:42The 3DS's new leaf got several villagers accessible through Amiibo,
05:46themed after other franchises, Splatoon, Monster Hunter, and The Legend of Zelda,
05:51who aren't available in the latest game, New Horizons.
05:54But the most obscure villagers are those found only in the updated version of the Japanese original,
06:01Dobutsu no Mori E+, and only through e-reader cards.
06:05These are Carrot, a cow themed after the vegetable,
06:09Nindori, an ostrich themed after the GameCube,
06:12and a cat and dog duo named Bao and Meow.
06:16Themed after the Bao Lingual and the Meow Lingual,
06:19Japanese electronic devices that were meant to translate your pet's barks or meows.
06:24The new version is smaller and packs a built-in speech synthesizer,
06:28so it'll audibly tell you what your dog is supposedly trying to communicate.
06:33And on Thursday, that was apparently a desire for attention.
06:54The first character you meet in the first Animal Crossing is this cool cat,
07:00I mean dog, strumming on a guitar and talking to you about life.
07:04K.K. Slider has always been a celebrity in the Animal Crossing world,
07:08a musician not bound to any one genre.
07:11In Japanese, the character is named Totokeke,
07:14which is the nickname for Kazumi Totaka,
07:17legendary composer and sound designer on the series,
07:20and many others from Nintendo.
07:22In addition to his music, being the basis for K.K. Slider,
07:25and voicing a number of Nintendo characters including Yoshi,
07:29Totaka is known for hiding a simple yet iconic melody known as Totaka's Song
07:34in the games he works on.
07:37And, unsurprisingly, it has appeared in every game in the Animal Crossing series.
07:52Number 18. The First Villager
08:01If you've ever wondered who the first villager created for Animal Crossing was,
08:06the answer is a simple one, Bob.
08:09In fact, it's Bob's simplicity that made people speculate he was the first villager to begin with.
08:15On top of being present since the original game, he has a simple name and design,
08:20his birthday is January 1st,
08:22and he is the first villager in the e-cards and amiibo cards.
08:27However, this was actually confirmed by co-creator Hisashi Nogami in 2020.
08:38Number 17. Tom Nook's Cultural Inspirations
08:48Tom Nook has long held a negative reputation in the Animal Crossing community
08:53due to him charging players boatloads of bells for houses and upgrades across the series.
08:58He's characterized as a shrewd, money-focused merchant,
09:02but the negative view is something that wasn't entirely intended.
09:07Rich Amtower and Reiko Ninomiya, members of the localization team,
09:11thought that his act of hiring someone new to town despite that inherent risk showed generosity.
09:18Still, being given an immediate large sum of money to work towards naturally painted him as a villain.
09:24And even if he's merely meant to be a businessman, the inspiration behind his animal basis implies otherwise.
09:31Because Tom Nook is not a raccoon, but a tanuki, who in Japanese folklore are often mischievous.
09:38I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
09:48If you're not pregnant…
09:48I'm sorry, I'm sorry for this.
09:48So you're not pregnant.
09:49Number 16.
09:50Borrowing from Folklore and Myth
09:59Tom Nook is far from the only character inspired by Japanese folklore and myth.
10:04There's Red, a shady arts dealer based on the Kitsune, Japanese fox spirits who are
10:10deceitful tricksters.
10:12There's also Kappin, the turtle boatman, based on the Kappa, a river yokai, and the
10:18deer villager Shino, whose appearance is based on Hanya masks, which represent jealous female
10:23demons in theater.
10:25It doesn't stop at Japanese folklore either.
10:28Drago the alligator is based on a dragon, Phoebe the ostrich is based on a phoenix,
10:33and Julian the horse is based on a unicorn.
10:36As a bonus, there are a couple of villagers based in Egyptian history, Lucky the dog, designed
10:41as a mummy, and Anka the cat, designed as a pharaoh.
10:51Number 15, the hidden luck system.
11:01Although the diehard fans are likely aware of it, some of the more casual players may not
11:06know about Animal Crossing's hidden luck system.
11:09It's been a feature since the original game, randomly affecting a surprising number
11:14of things.
11:15From how many seashells appear on your beach, to how easy it is to increase friendships
11:19with your villagers, to how many bells you can earn from a money rock.
11:24Although each day starts with a random luck level, there are ways to impact it, like clothing.
11:29A furniture item in New Leaf, the good luck charm, would turn your luck good if you started
11:35a day with it in your pockets.
11:36The feng shui of your house could also affect your luck prior to New Horizons, where it was
11:42changed to only impact your Happy Home Academy score.
11:50Number 14, becoming the mayor.
12:02New Leaf introduced a big stepping stone in the franchise's focus on customization, which
12:08would be a major feature in New Horizons.
12:11By making the player mayor of their own town, the developers sought to give players more freedom
12:16in how their town grew.
12:17The idea to put players in this role didn't come about until a year into development.
12:23Not only was this meant to help in-town customization, but ordinances about certain shops and buildings
12:29being open at certain times of day were specifically implemented to accommodate all types of player
12:35schedules.
12:36In this way, the game could still align itself with the passage of real-world time.
12:45Number 13, What's in a Name?
12:54Nintendo loves giving characters pun names in all of its franchises, and Animal Crossing
13:01is no different.
13:02A lot of them are obvious jokes, like naming a horse villager Elmer after Elmer's glue.
13:08Some are only clear if you're familiar with other cultures, like Pate, a duck villager named after
13:14a French dish that is commonly made with duck liver.
13:17Some names are only puns or references in other languages.
13:21For example, the alpacas Cyrus and Reese are actually named Al and Paca in the Spanish-language version.
13:28Most interestingly is Vesta, a sheep villager.
13:32In the German version, she's named Dolly after the real-life sheep of the same name,
13:37who was the first cloned mammal born in 1996.
13:47Number 12, The Family Name.
13:56One of the most cleverly hidden pun names in Animal Crossing, so clever it deserves its own entry,
14:03concerns the Able Sisters.
14:04Their clothing shop has been in the series since the beginning.
14:08Run by Sable, the shy seamstress, and Mabel, the face of the business,
14:12they took over following the passing of their parents, providing players with fashionable looks,
14:17while their other sister, Label, set out to find her own voice in the fashion industry.
14:22They have completely different names in other languages,
14:25but Nintendo of America was doing more than rhyming when they named them Sable, Mabel, and Label.
14:31The initials S, M, and L signify small, medium, and large sizes,
14:36making for a perfect little joke about characters who design clothes.
14:44Number 11, Gambling with The Money Tree.
14:56Most Animal Crossing players are familiar with The Money Tree.
14:59In the majority of games, you had to bury bells using a golden shovel to produce one,
15:04but it obviously gave you more money than you put into it.
15:07In New Horizons, this was changed.
15:09You no longer needed a golden shovel, but you can find a shining spot with 1,000 bells
15:15in a random location on your island every day.
15:18As we all know, re-burying it will produce a tree with 3,000 bells,
15:22or you can plant 10,000 and get one with 30,000.
15:26What the game doesn't tell you, however, is that it's actually a little more complicated than that.
15:32If you plant 100 to 1,000 bells, you always get 3,000 in return.
15:38If you plant 2,000 to 9,000 bells, there's a 70% chance you'll only get 3,000 back,
15:46and a 30% chance it will be three times the amount you buried.
15:50Similarly, if you plant somewhere between 10,000 and 90,000 bells,
15:55there's a 70% chance you'll get 30,000 back,
15:59and a 30% chance of getting three times your buried amount.
16:03High risk, high reward.
16:12Number 10, Haunted Art
16:23Players have been able to collect items based on real-life pieces of art since the first game.
16:29And unfortunately, what you're purchasing isn't always the real thing,
16:33as it all comes through Crazy Red, who is anything but reliable.
16:38Regardless, in New Horizons, a fun little easter egg was included in the fake versions of only
16:43a handful of pieces of art, signifying that they're haunted.
16:48At different times of night, the girl with the pearl earring shown in the wistful painting
16:53will close her eyes, the man in the scary painting will start smiling instead of frowning,
16:58and the woman in the graceful painting will turn her head the opposite direction.
17:02It isn't just fake paintings either. The informative statue starts to glow,
17:08as do the eyes of the ancient statue, which also floats when you interact with it.
17:13As a bonus haunting, the graveyard wallpaper you can buy from Sahara
17:17features a ghost when the lights are turned off, and whose placement changes each time you do so.
17:36That's right, we are in the spooky segment of the video.
17:39In New Leaf, Nintendo decided to include hints of extraterrestrial life.
17:44If you had a TV in your house and tuned in at 3.33am on Sunday or Monday,
17:50it would suddenly be overtaken by static before you receive a message from an alien.
17:55The easter egg was included again in New Horizons, found at the same time but on Saturdays instead.
18:01Most assumed the alien was speaking gibberish, and while some players have tried to decode it,
18:07the closest answer we've been given is that it's broken, heavily edited Japanese.
18:13Either way, it will be interesting to see what Nintendo does with the alien in the next game.
18:25Number 8, Coco's Origins
18:33Coco is one of the more visually unique villagers in Animal Crossing.
18:37The bunny villager's appearance is based on the gyroids, living stone statues with hollow eyes,
18:43which have acted as sort of assistance to players across the series.
18:48The gyroids themselves were inspired by Haniwa statues, ritualistic figurines from Japan's Yayoi period,
18:55that were used during burials and theorized to have housed the spirits of the dead.
19:00This has led to dark theories about Coco's origins, about how she's a spirit trapped inside a statue,
19:06operating it from within.
19:12Number 7, Robotic Villagers
19:22There are a few characters in Animal Crossing that, due to their design, arguably aren't animals.
19:29The thing you didn't know isn't that these robotic villagers exist, but what's interesting is that
19:36they are each branded with a number on the backs of their heads, implying that they're each one in a
19:41long line of animal-themed robots. Sprocket the robot ostrich has the number 04, Ribot the robot frog
19:49has the number 59, and Cephalobot the robot octopus has the number 083.
19:56That leaves a lot of room for future animal-themed robot villagers.
20:00We wonder what we'll see next.
20:05Number 6, The Russian Spy
20:15Some villagers come with more interesting backstories than others,
20:20they just might not be evident at first. Tasha the Squirrel, short for Natasha for instance,
20:26is clearly meant to be an undercover Russian spy.
20:30Although her name can be seen as another pun, a squirrel named Natasha,
20:35it's also a common Russian spy name a la Marvel's Black Widow.
20:40She's also described in several places as being secretive. Her e-card claims she's hiding something,
20:47her pocket camp description alludes to her having a secret, and her favorite phrase is,
20:52there's no such thing as a safe secret. Yeah, Russian spy.
21:01Number 5, Kiki the Cat
21:11One of the other deep cut nods, at least that younger players might not pick up on,
21:17comes with Kiki the Cat. She's one of the original villagers and has appeared in every game in the
21:22series including the spin-offs. Her appearance and name are a reference to the Studio Ghibli film,
21:28Kiki's Delivery Service, originally released in 1989. The film follows a young witch, Kiki,
21:35who moves to a new town and starts a courier service. With her is a talking black cat with a
21:40similar blank face, named Gigi.
21:43A place like this would be great to live in.
21:45But there may be some witches living here already.
21:48Number 4, Inspiration for Audie
21:55Each new installment of Animal Crossing brings new villagers. One of the additions with New
22:00Horizons was Audie, a wolf villager uniquely designed to look like a fox. Although it was
22:06never confirmed by Nintendo of America, many people believe she was named after Audrey Buchanan,
22:11grandmother to game designer Paul Hubbins, who went viral after he posted proof of her more than 3,500
22:18hours logged in New Leaf, where she named her character Audie. Studios have named or designed
22:25characters after fans before, and until Nintendo says otherwise, this is too heartwarming of a story to think is untrue.
22:40Number 3, A Controversial Greeting
22:43A lot less heartwarming is a story about a different villager, Barbara the Sheep. Prior to the release of
22:56City Folk for the Wii in 2009, Nintendo wanted to show off the connectivity feature with the DS's
23:02Wild World. It sent members of the press copies with preloaded towns to load into City Folk,
23:08and for MTV Multiplayer, they found a far less savory version of Barbara.
23:15Whoever Nintendo had hired to play through the game to build up a town had given her a custom greeting,
23:21love you long time, a reference to Full Metal Jacket, and a possibly offensive phrase to Asian people,
23:28along with the N-word, stylized to get around the game's sensors. Needless to say, it was a pretty awkward
23:34look for Nintendo.
23:41Number 2, Finding Meaning in Song
23:53Chevre and Nan are two goat villagers, and two others that have been in the series for years.
23:59But in New Horizons, they each have a picture of the other hanging on a wall inside their house.
24:05This connection, along with one of them being black and one of them being white, is a reference to a
24:10Japanese children's song, called Goat Mail. It follows two goats, one white and one black,
24:17who write letters back and forth, but can't help from eating every letter before they can read it.
24:22It's a cute little easter egg that Japanese players might pick up on, but which is likely lost on most
24:27others around the world.
24:39Before we continue, check out this single from SoundMojo's Aria, Songs from Iran,
24:45reimagining Persian melodies as modern rock, metal, and pop songs. Check out the full track and album below.
25:05Number 1, The Perfect Time
25:12New Horizons was an immense success, but what some may not realize is how rocky things were leading up to
25:20its release. Nintendo hit fans with a one-two punch of hype. Isabelle's announcement trailer for Super
25:26Smash Bros. Ultimate in 2018 was themed like an Animal Crossing game, and it was followed by an
25:32announcement of an actual new game coming in 2019. However, it was eventually delayed to March of 2020,
25:40for the noble reason of avoiding crunch, but it still came with consequences. As it was such a big
25:46title, the delay caused Nintendo's stock to drop 3.5%, amounting to around a billion dollars. The new date
25:55came with other complications too, as the world was entering the early stages of a global pandemic.
26:01At the time, Hisashi Nogami expressed how he was disheartened by world events, and how unfortunate it
26:07was that the game's launch coincided with them. However, he hoped it could be an escape for players,
26:12which, of course, it definitely turned out to be. Do you know of any other fun facts about Animal
26:24Crossing others may not? Share them with us in the comments!
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