Remember When Animal Crossing Bullied You?

In Animal Crossing: Wild World, I spent hours picking and choosing my favourite villagers and then deciding which of those I would annoy. If they were a villager I didn’t like, I would hit them with a net, leave pitfall seeds lying around, or just hit them with a fishing rod. I wasn’t fussy.

Now this wasn’t just me annoying villagers for the hell of it (mostly); in most cases, it was an act of vengeance. Some of the villagers could be absolutely terrible and they would go out of their way to ruin my character’s life. They would come into my home and insult my furniture. If I left my house, they’d insult my fashion sense. If I was in the wrong place at the wrong time? Bullied.

Yet no one could show nearly as much cruelty and terrify me as much as one character could. No, it wasn’t the infamous Tom Nook. It was a mole forced into early retirement by Animal Crossing: New Horizons and its autosave feature. Yes, I’m talking about Resetti.

One day my DS died while I was playing. Naturally, I panicked and rushed to charge it because I had some bugs to catch. However when I opened my game, I was met with the loudest screamy mole I have ever met in my life. I had never known true fear until that moment. I’m certain I nearly cried, which has to say something about how much rage he felt about me not saving the game.

Now, was I good and decided never to reset my game again? Oh no. The opposite. I’m sure this damn mole and I were trying to break each other. This battle would continue even when I got Animal Crossing: New Leaf, except not exactly.

Naturally, I built the Resetti Surveillance Centre, where Resetti would work. He would give you options, and the anger varied each time. In a way, he was merciful, and I do suppose we reached an impasse. I decided to give him a break because he’d become much more reasonable. As time went on, I moved back to taking revenge on certain other insulting characters.

Of course, Resetti wasn’t the only NPC who could ruin my life. Gracie was there too. Gracie was a giraffe who made it her goal to judge my fashion sense more than any other villager or NPC. Sure, she had moments where she was kind, but overall, she was a nightmare in Wild World. Like Resetti, she mellowed out in New Leaf, and I accepted this — though I still expected casual roasting from the NPCs every now and again.

So imagine my surprise when I bought New Horizons and found a completely wholesome game where everyone was disturbingly kind. Resetti was laid off. Gracie didn’t even visit the island. It was much more of a crafting game than I expected. However it wasn’t just that. When I first started playing it, there wasn’t the same character interaction from any of the villagers.

Talking to the villagers was more time consuming than it used to be and there was a lot more generic dialogue. I actually appreciated how much of an arsehole some villagers could be just because it was funny. New Horizons may have been a great release during 2020, and it certainly gave us the wholesome vibes that we needed, but sometimes I just miss the sass.

(I would also like to say that I miss how easy it was to get a pitfall seed because they were just… satisfying).