Player Character | Main Town and Island NPCs | Other Special NPCs | Villager Types | Anime Characters
The Player Character
- Actually, I Am Him: In New Horizons, while talking to a peppy villager on a mystery island, they might ask if you know a cool person named "[player's name]".
- Ambiguous Gender: Averted in the first few games, but it starts to happen in New Leaf, as the gender of the villager isn't really something the game cares too much about (the mayor ID Lists it, but it's not used to restrict you in-game, so you can merrily ignore it). And while it does have distinctions between male and female clothing, the game doesn't admonish you for cross-dressing, with the only real effect in-game being the walking cycle of the villager being changed, with very few exceptions (such as the raincoat). Asides from that, you can have whatever hairstyle you see fit in whatever color you see fit, wearing whatever clothing makes you happy, the game follows Gender-Inclusive Writing for the most part, and none of the villagers or NPC's will bat an eyelid. You can invoke this fully in New Horizons, as your appearance is no longer being tied to male or female. You can be as masculine or feminine as you want to be, or somewhere in-between, and the game doesn't really question the character's identity.
- Artistic Age: Before the New Leaf redesign, where they look a bit more like heavily stylized young adults, the player characters were extremely Super-Deformed and looked like small children, despite the fact that they were homeowners living on their own.
- Benevolent Boss: In New Leaf, there's some optional dialogue choices that allow them to express appreciation for Isabelle's help and they can try to encourage Isabelle to relax and even suggest giving herself some time off for herself. Isabelle tends to either politely turn down the offer or at least say that she'll consider it.
- Brats with Slingshots: A slingshot is traditionally part of the player's arsenal in every game, used to shoot down floating presents attached to balloons.
- Cool Helmet: In New Horizons, they wear a white construction helmet while using the Island Designer app to terraform the town. Besides that, the games also have a large variety of cosmetic helmets that can be bought and worn.
- Everyone Calls Them Barkeep: In practically everything but the official games themselves, the player is always given the name of "Villager," "Mayor," or even just "the player."
- Exposed to the Elements: The player can wear any kind of clothing in any kind of weather with no ill effects whatsoever. Want to run around in a T-shirt and shorts in the middle of winter? Or a ballgown with multiple layered skirts in the middle of summer? Sure thing!
- Eye Scream: If stung by bees, their eye swells up and doesn't go back to normal until the next day or until they dab some medicine on it.
- Fingerless Hands: Despite the ability to pick up and store whatever you can in the game, the player characters have no visible fingers. Super Smash Bros. does give them thumbs, making them into mitten-like hands. Oddly enough, their toes are visible when taking their shoes off in New Leaf.
- The Ghost: Their role as the mayor is treated as this in Happy Home Designer and amiibo Festival, since the player works for Nook's Homes in the former, and the main animal characters are the starring characters of the latter (the E3 trailer for the latter shows a scene where Isabelle is at the mayor's office greeting Tortimer, who's still in retirement, while the mayor themselves is not shown). Isabelle points this out in her trailer for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate; between Super Smash Bros., Pocket Camp, and Mario Kart 8, the mayor's simply too busy to do their duty.
- Hammerspace: The villager's main "power" so to speak. The player has the ability to pick up and store safely away whatever the game allows, as long as they have enough pocket space, from things as small as fleas to enormous as whale sharks.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The player normally names them, so they invoke this by nature.
- Heroic Mime: Apart from dialogue options, the player character is fairly quiet. Some characters imply the player is chatty and loud while others find you quiet. Although, the copies of players that show up in dream towns and the Happy Home Academy are able to talk, and they speak in a pitch unique to them.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: Despite being only the "resident representative" in New Horizons, you are responsible for just about everything on your island, from funding and building infrastructure, courting residents, terraforming, etc.
- Informed Attribute:
- In New Horizons, Jock villagers seem to be impressed with your character's muscular build. The character models for player characters are similar to those used in past games, and thus don't exactly reflect a muscular build.
- Characters will sometimes comment on how big your head is, even though it doesn't look that big in proportion to your body.Lazy villager: I was just thinking about you... Thinking about seeing your face... Your big ol' adorable round head.
Gullivarrr: AHOY! You, with the whale-sized noggin! Will ye help a stranded sea bird find his lost communicator?
- Inner Monologue: Most of what we hear from them is this. It ranges from puns about catches to musing on the different exhibits in the museum (during the Museum Day event).
- An Interior Designer Is You: The bulk of the game allows you to collect and place furniture in your house. You can decorate the inside and outside of your house with whatever you have. Taken to its logical extreme in Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, where your job is to decorate the inside of other villager homes.
- Mistaken for Special Guest: In New Leaf the player doesn't do anything beforehand to become mayor aside from just moving into town and being mistaken for the actual inheritor. You get a letter later on from the actual mayor, who decides you're doing a good enough job and leaves you be.
- Nice Guy: One way to play, you can become best friends with all your neighbors, plus some of the special characters like Sable and Brewster.
- Permanent Elected Official: In New Leaf, the player character inherits this title from the mayor from the previous games, Tortimer.
- Pungeon Master: Sweet Jesus, what little dialogue they have consists almost entirely of puns. Just about every fish and bug you can catch elicits a pun from your character.
- Purely Aesthetic Gender: The gender of the player character makes very little difference gameplay-wise (in most games at least: the boy and girl have different stats in Mario Kart 8 for example). There's essentially no distinction between genders at all in New Leaf, and New Horizons, particularly outside of Japan; the gender can be switched at any time, and characters consistently use neutral pronouns to refer to the player (if the language the game is set in does not use grammatical gender that is, otherwise the corresponding pronouns will be applied to the player).
- Rose-Haired Sweetie: While most of the time, the player character starts off with brown hair, there's also an option to have a pink-haired female character from the start. Pink-haired female Villagers are also a common sight in official art and crossover appearances.
- Series Mascot: Shares this role with Isabelle and Tom Nook.
- Suddenly Speaking: Kind of. When you visit a dream island in New Horizons, you can meet the player character of that island walking around like every other villager, and if you talk to them, they will greet you with a "Welcome!" or whatever they wrote down as their passport's message, and nothing else.
- Token Human: The player characters are the only humans in the game. Oddly, should they put a TV in their house and turn it on, any non-cartoon show or commercial they'll see will only involve realistic (if heavily-pixellated) humans. They'll still talk in Animalese, though.
- Unlimited Wardrobe: Besides the wide array of outfits already available in the game, the custom clothing designer can allow the player to create and wear any outfit they so desire.
- Vague Age: The player characters resemble children, at least in earlier games, but given the art-style of the game and the fact that they've moved away from home to live on their own, and the fact that they are roughly the same size as most of the other animals, it's hard to tell how old they actually are. The New Leaf redesign pins them somewhere in the range of young adults, but there's still room for interpretation. New Horizons features new customization options such as wrinklesnote , facial hairnote , and graying hair colornote , with the intention of making it easy for players to project themselves onto their character regardless of age.
- Virtual Paper Doll: The player can choose what gender the player character is and has control over their facial features (which, in older games, depends on what your answers you give when asked some questions at the beginning of the game). Their clothing and hairstyle is also up to the player. Starting in Happy Home Designer and carrying forward into Pocket Camp and New Horizons, the player has complete control over what the player character looks like (you can pick and chose hair and eye color and even options for darker skin tones).
- You Have Researched Breathing: The player needs to learn basic emotions from other characters. (Or perhaps, more accurately, to learn to express such emotions on demand, as some reactions do happen automatically even if the player hasn't "learned" them—for example, the "shocked" reaction is the player's natural response to a wasp's nest falling from a tree.)
