History VideoGame / AnimalCrossing

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[[caption-width-right:350:Population: growing![[note]]Pictured from left: [[HairTriggerTemper Mr. Resetti]], [[ThePollyanna Pelly]], [[HelloInsertNameHere Rover]], [[PlayerCharacter Male Villager]], [[SeriesMascot Isabelle]], [[PlayerCharacter Female Villager]], [[WanderingMinstrel K.K. Slider]], [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes Blathers]], [[SeriesMascot Tom Nook]][[/note]]]]
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->''"Yeah, living on your own, being free. It feels great. But living by yourself can be a real drag, too. Still, if you've got some really tight friends somewhere nearby, then you know it'll all work out."''
-->-- '''K.K. Slider'''

Originally released in Spring of 2001 for the UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 as ''Dōbutsu no Mori'' (lit. "Animal Forest") [[NoExportForYou in Japanese]], most English-speaking players are probably familiar with the [[UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube GameCube]] version, ''Dōbutsu no Mori[[UpdatedRerelease +]]'', which was [[RemadeForTheExport released in America in 2002]] as ''[[VideoGame/AnimalCrossing2001 Animal Crossing]]''.

''Animal Crossing'' is a simple but entertaining "life sim" game that takes place in a small town in the country. The game's player characters are [[TokenHuman the only humans]] in a town populated by eccentric FunnyAnimals. There are pelicans working at the post office, a pair of hedgehog sisters who run the tailor shop, a verbose owl who runs the museum but [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes is terrified out of his mind by bugs]], and a fox who acts as a shady traveling merchant. Your other, less permanent neighbors are likewise an eclectic assortment of other species, from dogs to cats, elephants to octopuses, and over thirty other species, with each of them having one of eight (six prior to ''New Leaf'') varied personalities.

In order to pay off the debt on your house to the local shopkeeper/real estate agent (a tanuki named [[PunnyName Tom Nook]]), you'll have to scrounge up things to sell for the local currency, Bells. You can hunt insects, catch fish, gather fruit, dumpster-dive for old furniture, or sell the stuff you earn running errands for your neighbors. You can also put some of your hard-earned money towards buying new clothes, or furniture for your home. Keep in mind though, the game progresses in real-time, according to your system clock: Your animal neighbors are either awake or asleep at certain times, and shops open and close on a set schedule. Most bugs and fish can only be caught at certain times of the year, and various events have time limits. While you can try to [[SaveScumming reset your game for better results]], [[NoFairCheating it's not recommended]], as [[ItMakesSenseInContext a mole will get very angry at you for doing it]].

The game received several sequels, starting with ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingWildWorld'' for the Nintendo DS. It added a few new features such as the ability to get haircuts, hats and accessories to wear, new items to collect, the ability to communicate with friends over Wi-Fi (though the servers for it have since shut down), and a limited increase in interaction with your neighbors. ''City Folk'', released for Wii, adds in the ability to visit the city, where most of the temporary shops that appeared in prior games (like Gracie and Crazy Redd) have taken up permanent residence. The game also allowed you to visit other people's towns and play with them online through Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection before the service was shut down. ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewLeaf'' for the 3DS has the first character you create become mayor of the town, and adds the option to upload your town to Nintendo's servers, allowing other players to visit even if you're not online. ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewHorizons'' for Nintendo Switch was released on March 20, 2020, and brought back the ability to visit other players' habitats online.

[[Anime/AnimalCrossingTheMovie An anime movie]] based on ''Wild World'' was released in Japan in 2006; there are currently no plans to show it elsewhere, but several fan translations exist.

The series is one of many represented in the ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros''. Initially, ''Animal Crossing'' was only represented with a few Trophies in ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosMelee Melee]]'', but in ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl Brawl]]'', they introduced a stage called Smashville along with more Trophies. Villager, a fighter based on the player characters of this series, was introduced in ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosForNintendo3DSAndWiiU 3DS/Wii U]]'', along with even more Trophies and a new stage in each version; the [=3DS=] version had a stage based on Tortimer Island from ''New Leaf'' while the Wii U version had a stage called Town and City based on the premise of ''City Folk''. They were followed closely by Isabelle, who was an [[AssistCharacter Assist Trophy]] and [[CharacterCustomization Mii Gunner costume]] in ''3DS/Wii U'' before getting PromotedToPlayable in ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate Ultimate]]'', in addition to several Spirits, including ones based on characters from ''New Horizons'' in a Spirit event after that game was released.

The series has a minigame based on it in ''VideoGame/NintendoLand'' called ''Animal Crossing: Sweet Day''. It also made its way into ''VideoGame/MarioKart8'', which features two Villagers and Isabelle as DLC characters, as well as a DLC track based on the series (all of which is included at launch in ''[[UpdatedRerelease Mario Kart 8 Deluxe]]'').
!!Franchise History:
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:First generation]]
* ''Dōbutsu no Mori'' (UsefulNotes/Nintendo64, 2001): Originally planned for the [=64DD=], an add-on for the Nintendo 64 which had an an internal clock and ran games from magnetic disks, development moved to the base console following the [=64DD's=] commercial failure. The cartridge included a battery-powered real-time clock, a unique feature among [=N64=] games. Due to being released late in the system's lifespan, it never left Japan.
* ''Dōbutsu no Mori+'' (UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube, 2001): A port of the [=N64=] game which added compatibility with the [=GameCube=]'s internal clock, more characters and activities, more furniture items (such as playable NES games), and basic e-Reader support. Save data could be transferred from the [=N64=] version through a special migration service.
* ''VideoGame/{{Animal Crossing|2001}}'' ([=GameCube=]; 2002 in North America, 2003 in Australia, 2004 in Europe): An extensively localized version of ''Dōbutsu no Mori+''. Additions include new holidays based on those of the United States, more substantial e-Reader support, and several other enhancements, along with changes to existing features to give them more international appeal.
* ''Dōbutsu no Mori e+'' ([=GameCube=], 2003): A Japanese re-release of the English ''Animal Crossing'' which kept most of its new improvements, reverted some changes back to their original Japanese forms, and included additional features on top of that. Save data could be moved from ''+'' to ''e+'' through a similar migration service as before, and the game also included support for taking snapshots which could be saved to an SD card.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Second generation]]
* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingWildWorld'' (UsefulNotes/NintendoDS; 2005 in Japan, North America, and Australia, 2006 in Europe, 2007 in Korea): A complete overhaul to the series formula, this installment stripped back several features in favor of portability and online play with friend codes. The first generation's holidays were removed in favor of generic ones. It introduced the "rolling log" effect that the series is now known for. The game also introduced the use of [[DownloadableContent DLC]] through Nintendo Zone, which has been seen in all future games. The various versions of the game are [[Usefulnotes/RegionCoding region locked]], even online, due to character encoding differences and different sizes of various data structures, making the Nintendo Zone content unavailable in regions where the service wasn't rolled out.
[[/index]]
* ''[[Anime/AnimalCrossingTheMovie Gekijōban Dōbutsu no Mori]]'' (Movie, 2006): Based on ''Wild World'', the movie centers around a human girl named Ai, who moves into a town full of animals, and follows her as she tries to adjust to her new life. It takes a suitably SliceOfLife approach to the source material. The film has only been released in Japan.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Third generation]]
[[index]]
* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingCityFolk'' / ''Animal Crossing: Let's Go to the City'' (UsefulNotes/{{Wii}}, 2008): The big new feature is a city full of different shops, which can be accessed by taking a bus from your town. Online play is once again included. This game is the first to allow cross-regional multiplayer, and also supports voice chat through a special peripheral. Local multiplayer is supported by downloading travel data to a DS, referred to in-game as the DS Suitcase; the DS Suitcase can also be used to transfer player data from ''Wild World''. Holidays return, with different regions having different sets of holidays; you can visit players from other regions to experience them.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Fourth generation]]
* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewLeaf'' (UsefulNotes/Nintendo3DS; 2012 in Japan, 2013 elsewhere): This incarnation of the series makes the most changes since ''Wild World''. This time, you're the mayor of your own town. Besides a complete redesign of graphics, the game boasts several new features and heavy changes in the game mechanics, allowing you to customize your town and character to a further extent than previous games. The city aspect from ''City Folk'' has been refined into the Main Street in this version, which can merely be walked to from the main part of town.
** ''Animal Crossing: New Leaf - Welcome amiibo'' (Nintendo 3DS, 2016): A re-release of ''New Leaf'' with an update built in. Players who already own the vanilla version of ''Animal Crossing: New Leaf'' (either physical or digital copies) can update to this version for free via an [=eShop=] download. Released November 2016, the update adds Toys/{{amiibo}} compatibility, including the amiibo cards, the ''Animal Crossing'' amiibo figures, and other amiibo, including ones for ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'' and ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda''. There are additional new features and refinements on top of that. [[/index]]
* ''Animal Crossing Plaza'' (UsefulNotes/WiiU, 2013): A companion app to ''New Leaf'' which connected the game to Website/{{Miiverse}}. An SD card could be used to post screenshots from ''New Leaf'', and you could also share Dream Addresses through the app. It would be discontinued in 2014 due to native Miiverse support being added to the 3DS in late 2013.
[[index]]
* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingHappyHomeDesigner'' (Nintendo 3DS, 2015): Reusing assets from ''New Leaf'', this spin-off puts you in the role of a [[AnInteriorDesignerIsYou home decorator]] who is tasked by the villagers to decorate their homes to their specifications. The game is compatible with special ''Animal Crossing'' Toys/{{amiibo}} cards that, when scanned, enable new villager requests and allow other villagers to visit the houses you've decorated.
* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingAmiiboFestival'' (Wii U, 2015): In this spin-off party game, you use amiibo figures to control famous ''Animal Crossing'' characters through a board game-styled map. The goal is to earn the most "Happy Points" by collecting money and participating in random events, ranging from bumping into each other and splitting your money in half to meeting a visiting character to initiate a special event.
* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingPocketCamp'' (Mobile, 2017): A free-to-play spin-off for {{mobile phone|Game}}s, where players manage and decorate a campsite for villagers to come visit. The game has seen continuous updates since its release, including content from the fifth generation.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Fifth generation]]
* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewHorizons'' (UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch, 2020): This installment makes even more changes to the gameplay mechanics than ''New Leaf''. You start on a deserted island, explore and gather resources to build tools and furniture, and eventually develop a thriving island community. You can travel to other islands through an airport, which allows you to gather more materials off-shore. Character and landscape customization has been greatly expanded upon; your look can be changed at any time with mirrors and wardrobes, and the island's landscape can be further modified to your liking as the game progresses. The game received periodic content updates through late 2021, with 2.0 serving as the final major update.
** ''Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Happy Home Paradise'' (Nintendo Switch, 2021): Paid DLC for ''New Horizons'', released alongside its 2.0 update, which serves as both a sequel to ''Happy Home Designer'' and a side campaign for the main game. ''Happy Home Paradise'' features an archipelago where you can design vacation homes for visiting villagers, with the option to give your own villagers vacation homes as well. Design techniques and items used in this side mode can eventually be unlocked in the main game, including the ability to redesign your villagers' homes on your island.
* ''Manga/AnimalCrossingNewHorizonsDesertedIslandDiary'': A {{Manga}} adaptation of the above-mentioned game by Kokonasu Rumba. The manga follows four humans who have come to an island and are tasked by Nook to build it up to their ideal homes. However, the humans are more concerned with goofing off and playing, much to Tom Nook's chagrin. It was published in July, 2021.
[[/index]]
[[/folder]]
----
!!The series as a whole features examples of:
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Tropes A to D]]
* AardvarkTrunks: The snouts of all anteater villagers wiggle when they talk.
* AcceptableBreaksFromReality: Realistically, orange and cherry blossoms (necessary for fruit) wouldn't be able to survive the snow, much less bear fruit during winter. But they do anyway; if they didn't, getting villagers these fruits during the winter would be far more annoying.
* AccessoryWearingCartoonAnimal: If a character isn't a HalfDressedCartoonAnimal, they're this. Mabel and Sable only wear aprons, as do Timmy and Tommy most of the time.
* AdamSmithHatesYourGuts: Your house's loan gets considerably more expensive every time you upgrade. The final improvement in any given game will probably cost enough money to buy three whole towns.
* AerithAndBob:
** Many villagers have common names, like Francine, Pietro, Sally, Bob, Becky and Mathilda, while many have [[PunnyName punny names]] based on their species or appearance, like Ankha (an Egyptian cat), Bones (a dog), Boots (an alligator), Camofrog (a frog with military-camouflage skin) and Pecan (a squirrel). Some can also [[ALizardNamedLiz combine both]], like Teddy (a bear), Aurora (a penguin), Lily (a frog), Savannah (a horse who looks like a zebra), and Victoria (a racing horse).
** Special characters also have theirs: Isabelle, Timmy, Tommy, Gracie, Mabel, etc. against Blathers, Jingle, Pelly, Tortimer, and others.
* AirplaneArms: The animals do this when they're running.
* {{Ageless Birthday|Episode}}: Many of the characters celebrate a birthday every year, but no reference is ever made to the characters' age. It helps that the characters [[ComicBookTime never seem to actually age]].
* AmazingTechnicolorWildlife: Blue, purple, whatever--there's a townsperson for every color of the rainbow (Bonus points go to Pietro for being a ''rainbow sheep'')! Of course, there are ordinarily-colored animals as well -- for example, Goose is a white rooster (which are often white in real life), despite being named after another bird, and Kitt is the only normal-looking kangaroo, being varying shades of brown.
* AmbiguouslyGay:
** With plumage like he's got (and the fact that he refers to himself as male), there's no denying that Pavé's a peacock... but with his sparkly white muscle tee, flamboyant dance moves, and ''female'' [[SpeakingSimlish voice]], well....
** Gracie. Because ShesAManInJapan, her snooty, fashionista attitude makes her come off as a flamboyant man in the Japanese dialogue.
** Similarly, Saharah also gets a gender change from being male in Japanese (where he is known as Roland), but the character itself is pretty androgynous, the change may simply be a result of Saharah's long camel eyelashes. [[note]]Wouldn't make much sense, as real life camels have long eyelashes, regardless of gender.[[/note]]
* AmbiguouslyRelated: Tom Nook, Timmy, and Tommy. They look like they could be related and have [[FamilyThemeNaming similar names]], however it's suggested that Tom is their [[ChasteToons adopted]] [[{{Nephewism}} uncle]]. Even ''that'' is vague because the Japanese term (''oji-san'') they use can also be used to refer to any man you respect. It finally gets cleared up later in the series, where it's revealed that... they aren't related at all. Tom started training them as his proteges after finding them on the street, seemingly orphaned and homeless, because of their [[TheArtfulDodger street-smart penchant for business]].
* AmericanKirbyIsHardcore: The original English installment is ripe so much with this, it's almost as if the localization team forgot what demographic the game was aimed at (which also extends to the Spanish, Italian, French and German versions, which were translated using the English version). It manifests mostly in the "edginess" of the dialogue, with the villagers using verbose vocabularies and occasionally making adult jokes (for example, Tom Nook telling you "feel free to browse, but try not to [[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/carouse carouse!]]"). The villagers, especially Cranky and Snooty villagers, also treat the player more harshly, and are much more prone to snap and get mad at you than the Japanese version (and later games, which skew closer to the Japanese text) no matter how small and petty the reason might be. That's not even getting into [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaOeX76DzK0&t=1m the English commercials]], which parody MTV's ''Series/TheRealWorld''.
* AncientEgypt: Ankha is a cat who has a design heavily-inspired by Cleopatra, and Lucky is a BandageMummy dog. Fittingly enough, both of them have had Egyptian-themed homes in all of the games they have appeared in (Except Lucky in ''New Horizons'', as his house is themed after a graveyard in that game).
* AnimalGenderBender: Averted most of the time.
** The female kangaroo villagers each have a pouch with a joey inside, while the only two male kangaroo villagers don't, just like real life kangaroos.
** Male deer villagers have a pair of antlers atop of their heads, while female deer villagers don't, just like real life deer. Shino is the only female deer with horns, but this is specifically meant to resemble a ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannya hannya]]'' mask from Noh theater.
** While Pavé definitely looks flamboyant and feminine, that's actually how male peafowl look; female peafowl have feathers of a darker color, usually brown. In a case where the trope is played straight, Julia is an ostrich villager with plumage resembling a peacock, but she's female.
** Downplayed in the case of Punchy, who is a male cat with calico markings. While male calico and tortoiseshell cats do exist in real life, they are extremely rare (only 1 in ''3000'' tortie and calico cats are male).
* AnimalsLackAttributes: Most of the characters either fall into AccessoryWearingCartoonAnimal or HalfDressedCartoonAnimal, but don't actually have anything to cover up anyway. K.K. Slider, being one of the very few genuinely naked characters, makes this noticeable.
* AnthropomorphicFood: Several villagers resemble foodstuffs:
** Zucker seems to be an octopus with a takoyaki head and sausage tentacles. What's really bizarre is that takoyaki is made of octopus, and Lazy villagers like him love food. ...{{Irony}}?
** Merengue is a pink rhino who has a strawberry for a horn, which makes her head resemble a slice of cake.
** Frita is a sheep whose woolly body resembles french fries, and the back of her head resembles a hamburger. Her ''New Horizons'' starting clothing is the Hot Dog costume on top of that.
** Chadder is a mouse who is colored like cheese (yellow with orange spots).
** Tangy is a cat whose head resembles an orange.
** Ketchup, a duck villager from ''e+'' who later reappeared in ''Welcome amiibo'', has a head that looks like a tomato.
* AndYourRewardIsClothes: The series is the TropeNamer. Villagers are very likely to give you clothing items if you help them or give them gifts.
-->"And your reward... is clothes!"
* AndYourRewardIsInteriorDecorating: Some villager rewards for errands can be furniture, carpet, and wallpaper.
* AndeanMusic: One of K.K. Slider's songs is "K.K. Condor", which is in the style of Andean music. It is heavily inspired by the folk song ""El Humahuaqueño". The album cover shows him in traditional Andean clothing in front of the Nazca Lines.
* AnimateInanimateObject: The Gyroids are this, small statues that move and make noises when interacted with. Lloid seems to be this for Gyroids as a whole, due to his apparent sentience.
* TheAnimeOfTheGame: TheMovie particularly picks up on the SliceOfLife elements of the games and manages to come up with an original story with its own central character, Ai.
* AntiFrustrationFeatures:
** In early games, if you wanted to switch tools, you had to open up your inventory, select the tool you wanted to equip, and close the inventory. If you switched tools a lot, this quickly became tedious. Especially bad in ''Wild World'', as the game didn't pause while you did this, making catching bees almost impossible. Later games would allow you to cycle through tools you have using the D-pad, saving some hassle.
** Watering flowers in early games was annoying if you had a lot of them and had difficulty keeping track. Later games made already-watered flowers sparkle, which came as a relief to players. ''New Leaf'' goes one further and made flower upkeep even easier by making the silver and gold watering cans water multiple flowers at once and introducing the "Keep Your Town Beautiful" ordinance. ''New Horizons'' takes this even further by removing the wilting mechanic altogether, only requiring flowers to be watered to propagate them.
** Fruit wasn't stackable in the beginning. If you had a lot of fruit trees, this meant a lot of trips back and forth to the store. Thankfully, the ability to stack fruit (one stack holds nine, ten in ''New Horizons'') was made possible in later games, cutting the number of trips down considerably.
** If you're trying to catch bees in ''New Leaf'' and ''New Horizons'', the swarm will ''freeze in place'' when you open your inventory. This eliminates the rush to equip your net, allowing you to focus on the timing of your swing.
** Buying an art item from Crazy Redd was basically a LuckBasedMission prior to ''New Leaf''. You never knew if the item was forged or not until you donated it to the museum. ''New Leaf'' onward turns this into a semi-easy challenge which changes the art piece in a minor way compared to original artwork, though [[ViewersAreGeniuses sometimes it takes a keen eye to tell]] (or a [[GuideDangIt strategy guide]]).
** If an animal wants you to deliver a package to another animal who is asleep, they'll say to wait until said animal wakes up, saving you the trouble of going to the animal's house and finding out for yourself.
** Normally, when talking to the villagers, the game allows you to quickly select the last option by hitting the B button. However, when making an important choice (such as deciding whether or not to release a catch or choosing what to put in someone's coffee in The Roost), pressing B doesn't select anything, preventing you from accidentally choosing the wrong thing.
** Looking for a specific villager for your village, but none of your friends have them, or they just don't want to trade? Don't feel like paying an arm and a leg of Bells to someone online to trade villagers with? Well, the ''Toys/{{amiibo}}'' functionality of both ''New Leaf'''s "Welcome Amiibo" update and ''New Horizons'' lets you use amiibo cards of villagers to have them move into your town/ island whenever you want them to, at which point you can convince them to move into your town.
** ''Toys/{{amiibo}}'' give you the opportunity to obtain a slew of previously unobtainable (or very hard to find) items, both new and old. For example, if Pavé is camping in Harvey's campground, not only will he have some Pavé furniture for purchase (normally only available through his frustrating game on Festivale) but he'll also have a Berliner (an item that's only available on New Years in the German version of ''New Leaf'').
* AntiPoopSocking:
** Stores shut down and villagers head to sleep when it gets late in the real world, giving you less incentive to play through the late hours of the night. There are ''some'' things that only happen at night, such as certain bugs and Wisp appearing, but it's overall much quieter than the daytime.
** In ''City Folk'', don't expect to see your grass a lot if you're an avid player, as continuous play and travel will cause the grass to wear away. It still happens in ''New Leaf'', but toned down to more manageable levels, and it can regrow outside of playtime.
** In ''New Horizons'', the Able Sisters shop closes at 9 pm, and the kiosk that is used to upload and download custom designs is inside it. If the design concerned is not a [=QR=] code design, you'll have to wait till the next day. A later update changed this by making the custom design portal an app on your [=NookPhone=], allowing you to access it at any time.
* ApatheticCitizens: Your villagers in the ''Animal Crossing'' games barely do anything to make the town better. All they do is stand or walk around and mooch off you by asking for things. As an example, in ''New Leaf'', your villagers will rarely contribute to public works funding, resulting in most of the funding coming out of your own pocket. ''New Horizons'' adds the mechanic of the higher the friendship level you have with a villager, the more they bells they will donate per day to projects. It would still take quite a while to pay off a bridge or incline depending on if you solely rely on villager donations, however.
* ApatheticClerk: Shows up a few times:
** Phyllis, who works at either Town Hall or the Post Office depending on the game, is a complete jerk who is crass, rude, and loudly complains about having to do her job when you come in. It's less that she's rude by nature (she's very protective of her sister, Pelly) and more that she's stressed out since she works the graveyard shift. She's a bit softer when you meet her during her off hours at the Roost.
** Played with at the Able Sisters tailor shop with Sable, who is quite dismissive and quiet to you when you first come in. If you keep talking to her every day, however, she'll slowly warm up to you, begin sharing intimate details about her life, and eventually become more friendly than her sister, revealing that she's just [[ShrinkingViolet incredibly shy]] rather than apathetic.
* AprilFoolsPlot: One of the holidays celebrated is AprilFoolsDay. They actually play it straight until ''New Leaf''.
* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: No more than four humans and 15 (GCN), 8 (DS), or 10 (Wii onward) animal neighbors per town, not counting the permanent residents such as Tom Nook et al. ''New Leaf'' allows 9 residents initially, then, with the addition of the campsite, by visiting friends' towns, or scanning an amiibo, a 10th can be obtained.
* ArtificialAtmosphericActions: Neighbors will sometimes talk to each other, and randomly end up happy, sad, or angry; in ''Wild World'' and ''City Folk'' you get to listen in on their conversations. Taken further in ''New Leaf'', where villagers are now able to actively visit shops, use tools, shake trees, etc.
* ArtEvolution: So far, there have been two major changes to the series' art style: ''Wild World'' added the now-famous "rolling log effect", and ''New Leaf'' features redone, slightly less SuperDeformed character models and a more "painterly" look to villagers and the outdoors. Over time the games have also changed villagers' general designs, such as pigs having floppier ears.
* ArtisticLicenseBiology:
** ''New Leaf'' and ''New Horizons'': [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana Banana plants do not look anything like palm trees, and in fact, aren't even trees!]] And the fruit grows in a large bunch whose stalk must be hacked up to be split into combs. [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality But that wouldn't have been as fun.]] The biological requirements are also backwards, where planting the fruit on brown soil would cause the sapling to die but planting the fruit in sand would allow the sapling to thrive. In real life, banana plants require brown soil, and will wither and die if you attempt to plant it in beach sand.
** The "bees" that occasionally chase after you when you knock over their nest are actually [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_giant_hornet Japanese giant hornets]]. Their nests resemble the typical football-shaped hornet's nests rather than the lotus pod-shaped wasp's nests seen in the game. The confusion likely stems from the Japanese word ''hachi'', which is an encompassing term for bees, hornets, and wasps. Also, on the Harvest Festival, Franklin might require honey for a recipe which you apparently obtain from the "bee" nests, all the more jarring since the game also features actual honeybees, which do not swarm after you. This was corrected in ''New Horizons'', where the bees were renamed wasps and the species changed from Japanese Giant Hornets to the Common Wasp.
** Throughout the series: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polemonium real life Jacob's ladders]] look nothing like the Jacob's ladders in-game. The "Jacob's ladders" in the games are actually [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lily_of_the_Valley lilies of the valley]]. This is due to a translation error; the Japanese versions correctly refer to the flowers as ''suzuran'' (the Japanese name for lilies of the valley), and ''Happy Home Designer'' finally uses their proper name internationally.
** In the real world, "bug" refers to (scientifically) [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemiptera a specific type of insect]] or (colloquially) any terrestrial arthropod (so spiders and scorpions would fall under this latter definition). What the term ''actually'' means for ''Animal Crossing'' is "any animal caught using the net", which can range from insects and spiders to ''hermit crabs'' and ''snails''. In a similar vein, frogs and tadpoles are "fish". Some dialogue will avoid using specific terms to mitigate this; for example, Celeste refers to the various aquatic donations as "sea and river species".
* ArtisticLicensePaleontology: The series tries to avert this with Blathers' lectures, and yet the museum display places ''Stegosaurus'' in the Late Cretaceous. Blathers himself makes a few blunders by claiming dinosaurs are cold-blooded, ''Dimetrodon'' lived alongside dinosaurs, ''Stegosaurus'' couldn't feel pain in its tail for a long time because of its tiny brain, and ''Apatosaurus'' lived in swamps. In ''New Leaf'', a museum plaque implies that ''Pteranodon'' was a bird ancestor.
* AscendedExtra:
** The island villagers in the [=GameCube=] version required a UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance connection to even get to before.[[note]]e+ does allow you to visit the island without GBA connection, but you still need to scan the islander's e-reader card in order to get them.[[/note]] In later games, many of them became standard villagers; so, extras [[DownplayedTrope promoted to a higher tier of extras]], basically.
** Timmy and Tommy, the tanuki twins, only originally appeared once you upgraded the store to its maximum level and were largely redundant as the furniture salesmen on the upper floor. In ''New Leaf'', they're the sole proprietors from the start.
** Kicks started out as a shoe shiner. In ''New Leaf'', he gets his own store, which sells shoes and socks.
** Blanca goes from a random character that visits your town every once in a while to being the Holiday Animal for AprilFoolsDay, and after the ''Welcome Toys/{{amiibo}}'' update, she might show up at Harvey's campground on vacation with her face already drawn.
** Even though K.K. Slider had a pretty big role already, his role was boosted even further in ''New Leaf''. Along with playing his guitar every Saturday, he manages a DJ system every other day and plays remixes of his songs.
* AscendedMeme:
** If you talk to Grumpy male villagers during the Festivale, they may tell you to [[VideoGame/StarFox DO A BARREL ROLL!]]
* AttractMode: Each game has an attract mode showing a random villager walking around town, possibly interacting with the environment. The original game features a few predetermined sequences of a generic PlayerCharacter doing things like fishing or chopping down trees. In the first game, the town wasn't prerecorded. It actually exists in the files, though it is glitchy and unfinished.
* AuthorAvatar: Composer avatar, in this case -- [[http://www.offworld.com/oimages/totakeke.jpg Totakeke/K.K. Slider]], who's based on Kazumi Totaka. They even have the same theme song, which is only available by request in the first game. The same song also appears in other games featuring Totaka's music.
* BadLuckCharm: The King Tut Mask item, starting from ''Wild World''. Wearing it will cause the player to suffer from bad luck, such as tripping.
* {{Balloonacy}}: There are presents attached to balloons that float in the sky, appearing every ten minutes. In earlier games you had to hope they landed in a tree for you, but later games let you nab 'em with slingshots. What they contain varies depending on the game; in ''City Folk'' it's Nintendo furniture, and in ''New Leaf'' it's balloon furniture (though the ''Welcome amiibo'' update adds regular furniture to the mix once the full balloon set is collected). ''New Horizons'' made it so that balloons drop most item types as well as Bells.
* BandagedFace:
** You have the option of wearing bandages on your head.
** Lucky the Dog has bandages wrapped around his face so that only a single eye is visible.
* BarelyChangedDubName: Most English names are nothing like their Japanese versions. Exceptions exist, though, such as Peliko to Pelly and Grace to Gracie (combined with a [[ShesAManInJapan gender difference]]).
* BearyFriendly: There are bear and cub villagers (the games treat them as separate species), and they're every bit as friendly as the rest of them. Even the Cranky ones are just cranky.
* BehindTheBlack: The "Hide and Seek" mini-game makes ''no sense'' without taking this into consideration. Most characters hide behind buildings or trees, meaning they would be entirely visible from any camera angle other than the one the game uses.
* BerserkButton:
** Giving villagers rotten fruit to eat when they ask for fruit. They'll give you a good verbal lashing for it ([[BewareTheNiceOnes even the Lazy and Normal ones!]]) and walk off in a huff, preventing you from talking to them for a while until they calm down.
** Also, during the Bug-Off, trying to talk to villagers while they're trying to catch a bug makes them ''furious''.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Don Resetti is more patient than his younger brother, but apparently he's known for giving persistent lectures that last for more than two hours. Even Mr. Resetti usually caps out towards ten minutes.
* BicolorCowsSolidColorBulls: All the bull villagers come in one color, while the only two cow villagers (Belle and Tipper) are white with black spots.
* BigFancyHouse: While the original game's aren't too big, they only grow from ''Wild World'' onward. They're at their biggest yet in ''New Leaf'', where you can have a two-story mansion with three rooms appended on the first floor and a basement, with 8 x 8 as the max size each. That's a lot of floor! With the "Welcome amiibo" update, you also get a secret storeroom that fits in a whopping 360 items on top of the 180 slots provided by closet space. The only problem is, the total cost to getting every single expansion is a whopping ''m'7,753,800 Bells''.
* BigNo: Peppy villagers will sometimes say that when they step on a pitfall trap.
* BirdsOfAFeather: Cranky and Snooty villagers get along well together, due to their more mature age and view on life than the rest and the fact that they both share a sense of [[DeadpanSnarker snarkiness]]. They're frequently seen together, which some villagers interpret that [[ShipTease they're dating]] although they both try to assure everyone that they're JustFriends. The movie plays with this by showcasing a Cranky and Snooty villager's relationship that had recently gone through a nasty break-up.
* BirthdayEpisode: Not only is the player's own birthday celebrated, but almost every date that's not a holiday is the birthday of one of the hundreds of villagers.
* TheBlank: Blanca the cat has no face by default, with drawing one yourself being possible in the first game and ''Wild World''.
* BlatantLies:
** The colours that you can choose from when customizing a lava lamp. For some reason, none of the colour options actually give what they say. Green gives red, yellow gives green, etc. Though every item other than this works just fine, for some reason.
** Some furniture will not be colored even after painting. For example, the potty will still appear white even after Cyrus paints it.
** The Regal Series' "body color" can be customized, but it only changes the color of the gold accents rather than the white body.
* BlushSticker:
** One of the player's face styles features these.
** Some villagers have these.
* BoringButPractical: Selling fruits, fish, bugs, sea shells, sea creatures, common clothing items and houseware doesn't feel anywhere near as rewarding as selling rare or expensive furniture or hitting it big in the stalk market, but it is the most consistent way to earn bells.
* BoxingKangaroo: Both Rooney and Walt, the only two male kangaroo villagers as of ''New Horizons'', are this. Rooney plays the trope straight, being dressed like a boxer and having both training equipment and a boxing ring at his home, while Walt is a more discreet example featuring HandwrapsOfAwesome.
* BraggingRightsReward: Various holiday items. But since there's no real goal to the game, nor an [[HundredPercentCompletion achievement counter]], ''every'' reward is for bragging rights, or at least for leading you to ''other'' rewards. Though the badges Phineas gives you in ''New Leaf'' plays this trope straight.
* BreakableWeapons: Axes wear down and eventually break after being used enough. The Silver Axe does too, at least in ''New Leaf'', but it lasts a lot longer. In ''New Horizons'', most tools (the only exceptions being the vaulting pole and ladder) will break after enough uses, even the golden ones; this makes ''New Horizons'' the first game where the golden axe has limited durability.
* BreakTheCutie: It's stated that back when he was young and idealistic, Tom Nook tried to enterprise in the big city. Which after many failures and betrayals broke him and in turn made him somewhat colder. In turn, this distanced him from his friend Sable, who also in turn had a huge fight with her sister Label. Label left. Her sister and best friend not part of her life anymore made her [[HeroicBSOD cold and distant]]. It's slowly being fixed in ''New Leaf'', as Sable and Label made up, and she and Nook are starting to patch up their friendship.
* BreakingTheFourthWall:
** In all versions, ''the Resettis''. They pop up and berate you if you don't properly save and quit the game, and it just gets longer and longer each time you do so. They'll even make you type out an apology letter, and at one point they'll even joke about ''deleting'' your game save. Inevitably, annoying rumors online complete with badly edited videos popped up after this prank by the Resettis was discovered.
---> '''Resetti:''' Look... Let's forget about other games for a sec, huh? See, we're talkin' about ''Animal Crossing: City Folk''.
** Occasionally a villager will say something along the lines of "The sky is so beautiful today, it just makes me want to press [up] and... wait... where am I?! *sweats nervously*"
** For the "In the Treehouse" preview discussion Website/YouTube videos. The in-game loading screen is modified, in which Isabelle [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYwPI9yjY_Q&list=PL2JiZAV5BmDVb6eg9Pq9ZQk5vTdeS7vKS&index=12 introduces]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OHer0wRYEs&index=1&list=PL2JiZAV5BmDVb6eg9Pq9ZQk5vTdeS7vKS concludes]] the videos. She also advertises her Twitter account and Nintendo's Website/YouTube account, and hints she may have a crush on Bill Trinen.
* BreakoutCharacter: Isabelle from ''New Leaf'' has become the ''de facto'' series mascot since her introduction. She's a DLC character in ''VideoGame/MarioKart8'', an Assist Trophy in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosForNintendo3DSAndWiiU'' and a fighter in the ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'' roster, while also being one of two of the pack-in Toys/{{amiibo}} figurine for ''amiibo Festival''.
* BrickJoke: Fishing up a squid in ''Wild World'' results in the player character saying "[[{{Pun}} Oh no you squidn't!]]" In ''City Folk'', when you catch a squid, you say "Oh yes I squid!". Then, in ''New Leaf'', you say "Yes I did!"
* BugBuzz: Due to their small size making them difficult to see, honeybees and mosquitoes make their presence known with a high-pitched buzz when the player is close to them.
* BugCatching: You'll spend a lot of time doing this. There are even seasonal bug-catching contests.
* TheBusCameBack:
** Several villagers that were missing from the series since the very first game and ''e+'' make a reappearance in ''City Folk'' and ''New Leaf''. ''Happy Home Designer'' returns 4 villagers that were previously exclusive to the first game; Carrie the kangaroo, Louie the gorilla, Claude the rabbit, and Maddie the dog (The latter 3 were limited DLC), while ''Pocket Camp'' reintroduced the Purple Butterfly, renamed to the Great Purple Emperor. ''New Horizons'' brought back an old bug; the Drone Beetle. The 2.0. free update for ''New Horizons'' brought back eight villagers that had been absent from the series for a long time; four from the original ''Animal Crossing'' and four from ''e+'', with these being Ace the bird, Faith the koala, Zoe the Anteater, Rio the ostrich, Azalea the rhinoceros (known as Petunia in Japan), Frett the Dog (known as Champagne in Japan), Roswell the alligator (known as Pironkon in Japan) and Chabwick the penguin (known as Nobuo in Japan)
* ButHeSoundsHandsome:
** Talking to Lyle in the Nook's Homes of someone else's town has him point out, logically enough, that his HHA doesn't cover your house and you should talk to the person (an {{Inexplicably Identical|Individuals}} copy of himself) who runs the HHA in your town. Then he'll say that he's sure that person is amazing and handsome.
** Talking to Isabelle in someone else's town hall causes her to wax poetic about the stunningly beautiful secretary (again, her {{Inexplicably Identical|Individuals}} copy) she's heard works in your town.
* ButThouMust:
** Whenever you pay off your current house, Tom Nook will insist on upgrading your house, and ''charging you for it'', whether you want him to or not. This continues until you fully upgrade your house. No longer the case as of ''New Leaf'', in which you are allowed to pay off a loan without upgrading your house afterwards if you want to.
** If you talk to Lyle in ''Wild World'', you HAVE to buy the insurance he's selling. The only way he'll let you go is if you don't have enough Bells. Probably a TakeThat against real life insurance salesmen.
** In ''City Folk'' and ''New Leaf'', Brewster will ''[[HaHaHaNo not]]'' allow you to let his coffee cool before you drink it.
* CampingEpisode:
** A campsite was added in the ''Welcome Toys/{{amiibo}}'' update for ''New Leaf'' with introduction of Harvey's campground, one of the many [=NPCs=] who normally appear randomly or during specific days will show up in a uniquely painted camping van every day, enjoying a leisurely time off with their appearance changed to reflect that they are on vacation. In addition to chatting up with them, you can buy unique furniture with MEOW coupons.
** The mobile spinoff VideoGame/AnimalCrossingPocketCamp, in which your character manages a campsite that [=NPCs=] can randomly visit.
** Much of ''New Horizons''. You begin the game camping on a deserted island, you can find villagers camping on Mystery Islands (if you have an open plot available on your island), and you build a campsite on your island at the end of the game's second tutorial phase, in which [=NPC=] villagers will randomly appear (and can be persuaded to stay on your island).
* CanineConfusion: Several dog and wolf villagers have [[AmazingTechnicolorWildlife unusual colors]]. Some are pink, green, or blue, just to name a few colors. They are anthropomorphic, though.
* CanonImmigrant: Lottie the otter, who first appeared in ''Happy Home Designer'', and then made her way back into the main series with ''Welcome amiibo'' and ''Happy Home Paradise''.
* CarnivoreConfusion:
** The game ''attempts'' to avert this in ''Wild World'' and ''City Folk'' by making sure the "random foods" the townspeople talk about are all either vegetarian or [[NoCartoonFish only contain fish]]. But some of the fish you can catch (which are edible) are frogs and octopuses, and some of your neighbors are... frogs and octopuses. Erm....
** There's also Franklin, a turkey who visits on Thanksgiving. Most of your townsfolk just want to meet him. The mayor, Tortimer, pretty clearly wants to ''eat'' him. Franklin is ''not'' pleased. Thankfully, from ''New Leaf'' onwards Franklin doesn't have to worry anymore; he's a chef, cooking up meals for the villagers. There is however a piece of furniture which is an actual cooked turkey.
** Blathers will {{Lampshade|Hanging}} this in ''City Folk'' when describing the Dynastid Beetle.
---> "Many species hunt this beetle. Examples include moles, crows, and owls... WOT WOT?!"
** It's also lampshaded in ''Wild World'' with a female octopus named Marina. Though the thought depresses her.
---> "Do you think it's weird that I like seafood? Since, if you think about it, technically I'M seafood?"
** In an example of AscendedToCarnivorism, Chip the beaver enjoys eating fish (especially ones caught by the player during Fishing Tourney).
** In the first game, your mother mentions in a letter that your father loves pork chops. Pigs can be villagers.
** Some of the furniture items can contain, be made of, or simply ''are'' meat. The smoker contains some rather delicious looking fish or meat depending on the game (and cheese), there's a roasted Thanksgiving-style turkey, and ''Happy Home Designer'' had a ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' crossover that included a spit roast with a Well Done Steak included. But the only things you or anyone else can eat are fruit, fish, or otherwise vegetarian.
* CarpeDiem: Every game up to ''New Leaf'' has your character make a pun on this phrase whenever they catch a carp.
* TheCatfish: The Coelacanth, which is firmly established as '''the''' most elusive and valuable fish in the series. Only found during the rain (or snow in winter) '''and''' extremely rare even within these circumstances, even the playable character will have a mini-{{Freak Out}} when angling one. And the player themselves will probably freak out just as much if not even ''more so''.
* CharacterDevelopment: Several of the special [=NPCs=] have backstory speeches that can only be triggered on certain days of the year. Sable has several that occur as your relationship with her grows. Sadly, all of these speeches were completely axed in ''New Leaf''. Though talking to [=NPCs=] in The Roost does give some juicy tidbits and depth to them, but barely much at all.
* CharacterCustomization: The dialogue tree at the start of each game determines your starting appearance, which can then be further modified through regular gameplay. ''Happy Home Designer'' forgoes this and instead lets the player simply edit their character's appearance directly.
* ChasteToons: Tommy and Timmy resemble Tom Nook in miniature, and he says they are his nephews. Various ''Animal Crossing'' websites list them as his sons, however. Some Lazy and Jock villagers will say that Nook found them in the street. Oddly enough, Tom Nook has also stated that the boys are not actually related to him, that he took them in as his apprentices and treats them like family, so it's unclear which account is accurate.
* CheckpointStarvation:
** A few of Tom Nook's tasks (but not all of them) have to be completed in the first game to be able to save using the Gyroid, but later games, which moved the save function to a menu that can be accessed anywhere, do not have this restriction, though they do have one for traveling between towns.
** The Island in ''New Leaf'' doesn't allow saving. It's understandable for the Club Tortimer online version, not so much for going there alone.
* CherryBlossom: The trees grow cherry blossoms every spring, and in the first game, there's even a festival dedicated to them.
* ChestMonster: The Walking Leaf insect in ''City Folk'' and ''New Leaf'' looks like a piece of furniture just lying on the ground at first. But if you go to pick it up, it turns into its true form. Later, in ''New Leaf'', a hermit crab looks like a regular shell until it's approached.
* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome:
** ''Many'' villagers were dropped moving from the original game to ''Wild World''. A good majority of them, however, were brought back in ''City Folk'' and subsequent installments.
** Katie's mom, Kaitlin, in ''New Leaf'', due to changes to the "traveling kitten" minigame mechanics (Katie is now old enough to travel on her own, and can show up in your town on any day so long as you have friends also playing ''New Leaf'' on your 3DS' friends list, and will ask you to take her to any of your friends' town).
** Also in ''New Leaf'', an monkey neightbor named Champ was removed, being the only character not brought over from ''City Folk''.
** All of the {{crossover}} villagers, other than the Sanrio ones, were removed in ''New Horizons'' after their debut in ''New Leaf - Welcome amiibo''.
* CityGuards: Well, Town Guards, but still. In ''Wild World'' and ''City Folk'', Copper and Booker guard your city's "gate" and open it up for visitors.
* ClingyJealousGirl: Reese shows this a little bit when Cyrus wakes up and your player, if they're a girl, meets him for the first time. By extension, Cyrus is quite the clingy jealous guy to Reese if you are male. "I better not catch you makin' goo-goo eyes at my wife, or [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou I'll make ya see things in 4D]]!"
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}:
** Most of the villagers have their moments, but ''particularly'' the animals with the "lazy" personality. It's best shown in ''New Leaf'' where villager petitions consist of things such as "Hair-ball Emergency Center" (suggested by sisterly villagers; only one of them is actually a cat), "Knit Sweaters for Trees" (suggested by normal villagers), and "Save The T-Shirt" (suggested by snooty villagers). In ''New Horizons'', they might mention talking to the bugs that live under their floor and in their walls.
** Pascal, the sea otter, is known for being a bit... out there with his metaphors.
* ComMons:
** The sea bass, to the point where your character {{lampshade}}s it by saying "What, you again!?" What makes it especially irritating is that they resemble coelacanth, ''the'' rarest fish, while in the water.
** The freshwater {{Com Mon|s}} is the black bass.
** In ''New Horizons'', the appearance rates of fish, insects, and fruit on your island are set when starting a new game. Bass are still among the extremely common varieties, but some islands may have crucian carp as their most common instead.
* CompanyCameo: Creator/{{Nintendo}} often makes minor cameos in this series, with one of the earliest being [[https://nookipedia.com/wiki/Item:Nintendo_Bench_(Animal_Crossing) a bench bearing their logo and website URL]].
* CompoundInterestTimeTravelGambit: If you "time travel" by resetting your system clock, you can actually pull this off in ''Wild World'' and ''City Folk.'' Your town will suffer for it, though.
* ComicBookTime: Albeit a very strange example. Even though the game operates on real time, nobody in the town ever seems to age a day. One could potentially play for years and years, and the characters would never bear any signs of age and decay. This is made weirder when characters make reference to the flow of time themselves.
* ConMan:
** Played straight with Crazy Redd (Jolly Redd in ''New Horizons'') in all games, who regularly sells forged artwork.
** Lyle in ''Wild World''; he's a fast-talker [[ButThouMust who doesn't take no for an answer]], but the insurance he sells is a scam that never pays out more than it costs to buy.
* ConsoleCameo:
** In the first game, you can buy playable NES games, each of which comes with its original console. This was removed, partly because [[SidetrackedByTheGoldSaucer because people would spend more time playing them than the actual game]], but mostly because [[RevenueEnhancingDevices Nintendo realized they could make money by selling classic games on new systems]].
** A [[UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube GameCube]]-styled drawer and a [=DSi=] bench were once offered as DLC in ''City Folk'', and return in ''New Leaf'' if the player scans a ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' Villager amiibo. The gaming shelf also contains a [=GameCube=], and so does the Pink Box.
** The UsefulNotes/VirtualBoy is a piece of furniture in ''New Leaf'', as well as a Wii Balance Board. The gaming shelf with the [=GameCube=] from ''City Folk'' also makes an appearance. The ''Welcome amiibo'' version of the game adds a Wii U and a New 3DS, which will allow you to play ''Desert Island Escape'' from ''amiibo Festival'' and ''[[VideoGame/PanelDePon Animal Crossing Puzzle League]]'', respectively.
** The original has the Nintendo 64 logo as an item. Spinning it even references the console's LoadingScreen.
** Also in the original, one of the items that a villager can ask you to deliver is a Pokémon Pikachu (though its menu sprite more resembles a Pokémon Mini).
** ''New Horizons'' gives players who download the 1.1.0 update a free Nintendo Switch item to decorate their home. Interacting with the console will cause it to light up and make [[SugarWiki/MostWonderfulSound a Joy-Con click noise]]. If you're playing on the special edition ''Animal Crossing'' Switch, [[DevelopersForesight you will receive that console instead]]. You can buy either version from Nook's ABD as well. The regular Nintendo Switch item even costs 29,980 bells, [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall the same retail price in yen]]. This one can be customized to make the Joy-Cons either gray, or blue and red. Version 1.5.0 would later introduce the [[VideoGame/RingFitAdventure Ring-Con]] furniture that would squeeze when interacted with.
* ContinuityNod:
** In ''New Leaf'', Pete will mention that he doesn't fly to deliver the mail any more because someone used to shoot him out of the sky, which was a gameplay element in ''Wild World''.
** In ''New Leaf'' on AprilFoolsDay, to uncover Blanca's disguise, the player uses a towel which the villagers wipe their faces with. In the original, it was stated that Blanca's face came off every time she washed it.
** Isabelle becoming the Residential Advisor in ''New Horizons'' is stated to be because of her "previous administrative experience," referring to her being the Mayor's aide in ''New Leaf.''
* CouchGag: Each game has at least one.
** In the original:
*** On the save file selection screen, a different villager in the town will greet the player. They even say their catchphrases, and each personality has different dialogue.
*** When using the train station to visit another town, either Rover or Blanca takes a seat across from the player.
** Similar to the original, Kapp'n's dialogue when going to the city in ''City Folk'' is different each time.
** In ''New Leaf'', the save file starts out with Isabelle. Before she loads up the save file, she often will announce something happening in the town. This includes a villager moving in, a villager moving out, a building opening, or a holiday.
** In ''New Horizons'', Tom Nook (tutorial phase) or Isabelle (rest of game) gives announcements for events and new villagers once every day.
* CreativeClosingCredits: Downplayed; it's not ''how'' the credits are played, but ''where'' they're played. The credits always roll during K.K. Slider's concerts, most likely because there's no other place to put them.
* CreatureBreedingMechanic: Hybridizing flowers fits the spirit of this trope, if not the letter. For example, if a red cosmos is planted next to a white cosmos, it may produce a pink cosmos. You can't use just any two different colors though; each hybrid has two or three possible combos that can produce it, and some hybrids are prerequisites for others.
* CreepyTwins: Tommy and Timmy, Tom Nook's assistants, may be an unintentional example. Their unblinking stares and single-mindedness are contributing factors. Not to mention the fact that they follow you around everywhere you go. Lessened as the series progressed, with later games at least having them blink and make a [[QuizzicalTilt Quizzical Head Tilt]] to show they're trying to be helpful.
* {{Crossover}}: Plenty to go around.
** Ever since the first game, you can unlock furniture and clothing themed to other Nintendo franchises, such as ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'', ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'', ''Franchise/StarFox''; later additions include ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'', ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'', ''VideoGame/{{Nintendogs}}'', and ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}''.
** ''Welcome amiibo'' adds several villagers based on other franchises that can be unlocked via Toys/{{amiibo}}. You can get Wolf Link, Epona, Medli, and Ganon from ''The Legend of Zelda''; Cece, Viché, and Inkwell based on ''Splatoon''; Felyne from ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter''; and Rilla, Étoile, Chelsea, Marty, Chai, and Toby based on Creator/{{Sanrio}} characters.
** Also in ''Welcome amiibo'', there were Japan-only events that allowed one to invite villagers and purchase furniture based on 7-Eleven and Fueki -- convenience store and glue store chains, respectively.
** The New Nintendo 3DS item in ''Welcome amiibo'' allows you to play ''Animal Crossing VideoGame/PuzzleLeague'', and reaching certain milestones in the game unlocks an outfit based on Lip, the flower fairy from ''Panel de Pon''.
* CrueltyIsTheOnlyOption: Yes, donating bugs to Blathers sets off his entomophobia[[note]]Fear of bugs[[/note]], but you have to donate them if you want HundredPercentCompletion for the museum and to complete some achievements. In some games you can get around this by donating multiple items at once including bugs, which leads to generic "thanks for donating a bunch of things" dialogue that plays out whether or not bugs are among your set of donations.
* CryingCritters: All the animals cry whenever, but the only human only cries when visiting Dr. Shrunk.
* CulturalCrossReference:
** Even though the Fourth of July isn't celebrated, the bald eagle Apollo's birthday is on July 4. Bald eagles are the USA's national bird.
** In the [=GameCube=] version, July 4 is celebrated as the anniversary of the opening of the train station, but there are fireworks, Redd giving out balloons, pinwheels, and hand fans, and Tortimer providing a model bottle rocket.
* CursedItem: The King Tut Mask grants the player bad luck. While wearing it, you will trip, villagers will ignore you, you'll earn less money, and so on.
* CyberGreen: The cover art for "K.K. Technopop" depicts a bright green wireframe render of K.K.'s head, tying in with the song title and doubling as a ShoutOut to the Music/{{Kraftwerk}} albums ''Music/ComputerWorld'' and ''Music/TechnoPop''.
* CycleOfHurting: By hacking, it's possible to place a solid object overlapping your house's front door. This will cause your character to pass out and wake up... at your house's front door. Where they will promptly pass out again, [[{{Unwinnable}} over and over, forever]]. Ironically, passing out like that was implemented to allow players to ''escape'' being trapped in the scenery. This is possible in any game, but was most infamous in ''Wild World'', as the relative novelty of online play meant that security against this sort of thing was less well-formed.
* TheDandy: The smug villagers tend to be well-spoken and dapper, and focus on being "cool."
* DeadpanSnarker: The grumpy animals qualify. They make snide, sarcastic remarks about things they dislike like modern fashion and trends.
* DemotedToExtra: Several of the constant characters in ''New Leaf''. Sable and Blathers have both been largely decharacterized. Mr. Resetti is entirely optional, because Nintendo acknowledged that Resetti scared and upset many younger players. Tortimer used to be the mayor in previous games, but since ''New Leaf'' gives that role to the player, he's retired to the Island and hosts tours there. Even Tom Nook could be seen as this. In previous games, he ran the general store and unless his shop was closed, chances are if you played the game, you would be seeing him. In ''New Leaf'', while he still features at the start of the game, he now runs a home improvement store and house upgrades are optional for the first time; it's possible after paying your first mortgage to never have to see him again. A few of these, but not all, returned to the forefront in ''New Horizons''.
* DesertSkull: This shows up as a furniture item in the "American West/frontier" set. ([[FurryConfusion Sometimes cows have them in their homes...]]) An item called the cow bone enables you to wear one on your head.
* TheDeterminator: Tarantulas and Scorpions fit this trope. Once they start chasing you, they do not give up until they got you.
* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: In ''New Leaf'', after you receive your fortune, Katrina will tell the player:
-->"And remember that bad times... are just times that are bad."
* DialogueTree: Albeit very simple ones. Lampshaded during the celebration after you complete a PWP in ''New Leaf'', when Isabelle announces "And now for an incredibly short speech from our very own mayor!"
* DirtyOldMan: In the original ''Animal Crossing'' Kapp'n will tease your character and sing more "love-oriented" sea ballads if she's female. In ''City Folk'', he outright hits on female characters. Relentlessly. And possibly the male characters if you read between the lines. It's largely gone by ''New Leaf'', as he is HappilyMarried, but he'll still occasionally sing love songs and ask couples about their relationships.
* DitzySecretary: Isabelle is clumsy and forgetful, but she's the mayor's faithful secretary. She's a little more together in ''New Horizons,'' but will sometimes fall asleep while working.
* DoubleUnlock: Public works projects in ''New Leaf''. First you have to unlock the PWP in the menu (usually by waiting for a villager to suggest it... [[LuckBasedMission which can take a while]]), and then you have to spend Bells to actually build it.
* DoWellButNotPerfect: Snowtyke will only give you a gift if he himself is well-built, but the condition of the rest of his family determines what kind of gift he'll give you. That means to get all of his gifts, you have to build all, some, or none of his family perfectly for each gift. The Fishing Tourneys and Bug-Offs, for catalog completion, require you to place in first, second, and third place (on different events, not on the same day) if you want to have the gold, silver, and bronze trophies for each competition.
* DownloadableContent: You can download free stuff in ''Wild World'' onward. ''New Leaf'' also has items exclusive to "Nintendo Zone" locations.
* TheDriver: Kapp'n, whether it be a boat, taxi, or bus.
* DubNameChange: It's easier to count which villager names ''didn't'' get changed from the Japanese to international versions. Nearly every villager with a Japanese name had their name changed to one more common in the target language (e.g., Miyabi -> Annalisa), with the notable exception of Genji. Some villagers also have many different names across languages; for example, Francine is [[GenderBlenderName Francois]] in Japanese, Nadine in French, Franca in Italian, Natacha in Spanish, and Manu in German. In a couple of situations, mostly due to accidental oversights when the localization team had to rename most of the characters, this has led to multiple villagers having the same name, although only across versions/games; there are [[OneSteveLimit no cases of two characters in the same version of the same game having the exact same name]].
* DubSpeciesChange: Tom Nook and his nephews are {{Tanuki}} in the Japanese version, but raccoons everywhere else. Similarly, Redd has been changed from a [[AsianFoxSpirit Kitsune]] into a fox, and Kapp'n and his family from {{Kappa}} to turtles.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Tropes E to I]]
%%* EasingIntoTheAdventure: But without the adventure.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: A lot of features that have become mainstays of the series weren't introduced until later games, while other features from earlier games would be retired as the series progressed. For instance:
** The original ''Dōbutsu no Mori'' on the [=N64=] required players to set the clock when playing the game for the first time, since the system didn't have a built-in clock. Since the cart's RTC was battery-powered, this also meant that if the battery died, the game would not be able to keep time anymore. Starting with the [=GameCube=], every installment syncs with its respective system's built-in clock.
** Blathers, the Able Sisters, and Tortimer were not introduced until the [=GameCube=] iterations of the series. Similarly, features tied to them were not available: there were no seasonal gifts that players could earn from the mayor, clothing could only be purchased at Tom Nook's shop (which would still be the case until ''Wild World'' gave this role to the Able Sisters), there was no way to make your own clothing, and there was no museum in the town (only a Faraway Museum for identifying fossils, which could still be used as decorations). ''New Leaf'' would phase out Tortimer, having him retire to a private island with the player taking his place as mayor.
** The original Japanese iterations had a unique rotary-dial system for inputting characters. The English version used a more standard keyboard, which came to Japan starting with ''Wild World''.
** The [=N64=] original, as well as the first [=GameCube=] iteration in Japan, had only a small handful of Japanese holidays. Additional holidays, such as "[[YouMeanXmas Toy Day]]" and Halloween, were added in the North American and European releases, then retroactively added to the Japanese version in the UpdatedRerelease ''Dōbutsu no Mori [=e+=]''. Other holidays were changed, such as the Shinto-style Bell Shrine being replaced with a wishing fountain for New Year's.
** CharacterCustomization was highly limited in earlier games, with the player's appearance being dictated by a questionnaire at the start of the game. In addition to that, the player's character came with a hat that could not be removed (a horned hat for boys and a pointed hat for girls). Later games would include more options for players to alter their appearance, with ''New Horizons'' eventually allowing players to dictate their appearance using an in-depth customization system at the very beginning, as well as allowing players to alter their appearance with certain furniture later.
** Emulations of NES games were a popular feature in earlier games, but would be retired after the [=GameCube=] iteration with the advent of the Wii's Virtual Console.
** Earlier games separated a town's acres with a distinct scrolling that would occur when crossing over from acre into another. Later games would feature seamless transitions between acres, though they are still counted internally.
** The first games took placed from an overhead perspective, while ''Wild World'' coined the unique "rolling log" perspective that has become a trademark of the series. ''New Horizons'' has the option to use the original overhead perspective as an alternate viewpoint, however.
** Mr. Resetti, the ornery mole who would chew players out for resetting or not properly saving the game, was a mainstay of the series until ''New Leaf'', where he reveals that he had been laid off due to the Reset Surveillance Center closing down. Although players could help reopen the center and get Resetti his job back, the advent of auto-saving in ''New Horizons'' means that Resetti's old career is over (although, for a mercy, he has found a new job with rescue services).
** Villagers, particular the Snooties, the Crankies, and surprisingly, the [[OutOfCharacter Peppies]] in the [=GameCube=] game could be outright ''visceral'' with how they treated the player, ranging from snarking at them to downright insulting them. The aforementioned personality types would lash at the players for the most petty reasons, and in some cases, they'd get mad just because they assumed you said something to offend them. It also was fun being forced in exchange with an item that took a lot time and effort to get, or have bells stolen by Peppy villager such as Rosie who "wants to make life better for everyone". Jock villagers also wouldn't shy away from insulting the player's name when introducing themselves, Lazy villagers [[YouAreFat could call the player fat out of nowhere]] and mock them if they got defensive, and even the Normal villagers, who are the nicest of the bunch, could shrug off the player for just trying to make conversation [[BewareTheNiceOnes or even steal their items for no reason]]. [[AmericanKirbyIsHardcore This hostility was only in the overseas localizations]] while the Japanese version used the usual nice animals that the rest of the games after ''Wild World'' are known for.
* EasterBunny: Zipper T. Bunny, who shows up every year on Bunny Day, and apparently [[StepfordSmiler hates his job]]. He'll politely ask you to ignore the zipper on his back....
* EasterEgg: Where to begin....
** Totaka's Song appears in the game as "K.K. Song", but there are even sneakier inserts of that song. [[spoiler:If you have a very slow Internet connection while connecting to the Club Tortimer island in ''New Leaf'', Kapp'n will whistle the tune while you wait. In ''City Folk'', he'll whistle it if the player waits a while. It's even on ''[[http://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-3DS/Animal-Crossing-New-Leaf-273841.html the official European website]]'', where it can be accessed by clicking on K.K. Slider]].
** If you hit a rock with a shovel or axe, sometimes bells will come out of it. If you hit it with a silver shovel in ''New Leaf'', there's a chance that some ores and gems will come out of it instead.
** In ''New Leaf'', at 3:33 AM on a Sunday or Monday, if the player turns on their TV, an alien will appear on the screen. It will then deliver a gibberish message before leaving a minute later. In ''New Horizons'', it only occurs on Saturdays.
** While the Famous Mushroom in ''New Leaf'' (which only grows near stumps with special patterns on them) is best sold for a large amount of money, the fact that it resembles a ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' Super Mushroom is acknowledged in-game, as eating one causes the player character to temporarily grow in size, complete with a matching sound effect.
** If you press A while holding a Dandelion Puff, you'll blow the seeds away. This also removes the item from your inventory.
** In ''New Leaf'', if your birthdate is the same as Isabelle's (December 20th), she will react accordingly.
** If you ring a judge's bell with the Ringside Seating wallpaper put up, the audience will cheer, and several cameras will flash. This is the only wallpaper that does this.
** In ''New Leaf'' and ''New Horizons'', if you interact with an instrument item multiple times, any nearby villagers will clap for you.
* EccentricFashionDesigner: Gracie is a giraffe who absolutely lives up to the trope, being very egotistical and 'artsy', as well as [[AmbiguouslyGay very]] [[CampGay camp]] (as ShesAManInJapan). One of the Able Sisters, Labelle, used to work for Gracie before reuniting with her family.
%%* EccentricTownsfolk: Your neighbors are a colorful sort, in more ways than one.
* EdgeGravity: The tools, along with bugs and snowballs, are about the only things in game that can cross over a cliff edge. The player can do it in ''New Leaf'' when wearing a wetsuit, however, provided that there's water below to dive into.
* EmoteAnimation: Originally exclusive to [=NPCs=], ''Wild World'' and later games added Dr. Shrunk and later Frillard so the player can use them as well.
%%* EruditeStoner: K.K. Slider and Pascal. '''Especially''' Pascal.
* EternalEquinox:
** Most of the games have sunset and sunrise always occurring at a set time, regardless of latitude or time of year.
** Averted in ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewHorizons'', where sunrise and sunset times do vary with the season. For instance, 5 PM in the summer still has the sun up, while 5 PM in the winter will be dark.
* EverythingsBetterWithRainbows: A rainbow can appear after raining. In ''New Leaf'', a double rainbow can appear as well. Seeing either one increases the chance of bells dropping from shaken trees.
* EvolvingTitleScreen: Starting with ''Wild World'', title screen shows a preview of the player's actual town, so it's different for every save file.
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: A sisterly villager in The Roost may ask Brewster what his upcoming Winter Blend of coffee is going to be called. Brewster says its name will be "Winter Coffee".
* ExecutiveBallClicker: A Newton's Cradle is one of the items your Villager can collect. When placed in his/her house, your Villager can activate the cradle by touching it. Raymond the business-man style cat also has one in his office.
* EyeScream: The result of being attacked by bees is rather gruesome. Fortunately, some medicine can fix that right up.
* FaceDoodling: Blanca has no face, and will let you draw her one up until ''New Leaf''. ''New Horizons'' adds make up so you can do this to yourself.
* FakeDifficulty:
** In ''New Leaf'', if you work at The Roost long enough, the customers will stop telling you what they want to order. You have to remember what they usually order yourself. To make matters worse, even villagers ''who have never ordered from you before'' (and, thus, have never given you any hints) will ask for "the usual" at this point. (The game is fair enough to have visiting villagers give you a fairly complete order at least.)
** In ''New Leaf'', the fact that Katrina, Gracie, and Redd will show up on random days each week, and that they sometimes won't show up for the week at all. It adds this trope to achieving HundredPercentCompletion in the museum art exhibits, upgrading the Nookling store, getting Main Street fully populated.
** Similarly, in ''New Horizons'', Redd, Gulliver, Flick, Label and CJ must all compete for two available spots in a week, presenting challenges to HundredPercentCompletion in art (Redd) or catalogue items (the rest). Made worse because Redd has a 20% chance of not selling any genuine artworks when he shows up. This was later fixed in an update that removed the guaranteed visiting spots for Sahara, Kicks and Leif.
* FeatherFingers: [[AvertedTrope Averted.]] In ''New Leaf'', Pete will occasionally talk about the villagers sloppy handwriting, pointing out how most of them don't have opposable thumbs.
* {{Feelies}}: The [=GameCube=] version came with a 59-block memory card with a special ''Animal Crossing'' sticker and a bonus gift save file. {{Enforced}} since the original game took up a whopping ''57 blocks'' (with a separate 1-block save for NES save data, which makes ''58 blocks''), which necessitated its own card since the 1019-block card was years away and the game easily took an enormous bite out of the 251-block card. Similarly, the original Nintendo 64 version included a Controller Pak.
* FellOffTheBackOfATruck: Crazy[=/=]Jolly Redd's goods aren't exactly legitimate. Originally he often sold goods Nook sold but at higher prices, while ''Wild World'' and every game after that added counterfeit paintings to his inventory.
* FetchQuest: Getting back loaned items, finding exotic fruit, and delivering packages.
* FictionalConstellations: In ''Wild World'' and ''City Folk'', players were allowed to create and name their own constellations via Celeste's part of the museum. At a certain date (at nighttime) they're visible in the sky. Sadly, this mechanic is removed in ''New Leaf''.
* FishingForSole: Not only do you find boots and tin cans, but ''tires'' as well.
* FlushingEdgeInteractivity: The "toilet" and "super toilet" [[AndYourRewardIsInteriorDecorating chairs]], which make a flushing sound when the player leaves them, as well as the "men's toilet", a urinal that flushes when the player presses the use button.
* FlyingSaucer: Gulliver flies one in ''Wild World'' and ''City Folk''. The player can shoot it down with a slingshot.
* ForcedTutorial: In earlier games, Tom Nook would have you run errands he didn't have time to finish, which has the convenient effect of teaching you things. One of his first jobs requires you to greet everyone in town, which mandates exploring the map, and later jobs force you to write letters or run errands for the villagers. One side says "damn you, Tom Nook!" for forcing it on the player in the first place, while the other side is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDpL2vloKxg miffed that it lasts only a half hour]].
* FoulMedicine: When giving a sick villager medicine, they will often comment on how foul-tasting or icky it is, but still take it anyway and be thankful for the player's help.
* FourIsDeath: After the funky 4 AM theme in the [=GameCube=] game and the minimalistic equivalent in ''Wild World'' and ''City Folk'', Nintendo decided to reference this by giving the hour an eerie tune in ''New Leaf''.
* TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou:
** The Resetti scenes are designed to make you believe that Resetti knows you personally, and is yelling ''directly'' at you. Sometimes he'll face the camera directly to make a point. In the original, if you quit your game without saving enough times, Resetti would pretend to reset your game in order to scare you straight. In ''City Folk'', he does something similar by making you think he turned off your Wii.
** In ''New Leaf'', if the player is male, Cyrus warns the player not to have him catch the player "makin' goo-goo eyes at [his] wife, or [he'll] make ya see things in 4D!" Reese will make a similar threat if you are female.
* FriendlyShopkeeper:
** Tom Nook is the main source of goods and furniture in town in nearly every game in the series until Tommy and Timmy take over. Nook has something of a reputation of being a sleazy businessman, but he's actually extremely generous, offering interest-free loans to get you your first house and allowing you to work off part of it instead of paying up front. He's also eager to upgrade and provide new features and services to you as you continue to frequent his store.
** The Able Sisters are the recurring clothing specialists throughout all the games. Mabel in particular is happy to serve any customer, cheerfully greeting you on your way in and allowing you to try on any garment you want for free. She even offers access to the store's sowing machine to make designs of your own. All of this is contrasted by her comparatively shy and withdrawn older sister, Sable.
* FungusHumongous: The Mushroom furniture set -- which is found disguised as regular fungi in early games and is crafted using regular fungi in and after ''Pocket Camp'' -- consists of mushrooms large enough to serve as furniture items. The smallest, the low mushroom stool, is "only" the size of a small chair; the mushroom table is only half the height of the player but a good couple meters wide; the tallest item, the mushroom parasol, is the same height as the games' trees. One item, the mushroom lamp, is also [[GlowingFlora luminescent]].
* FunnelMouthedCephalopod: Octopus villagers have the stereotypical funnel-shaped mouth.
* FurryConfusion:
** One of the [[NoCartoonFish fish]] you can catch is a frog, and you can have frogs as townsfolk. If one of your froggy townspeople asks to have a fishing competition with you, and asks for a frog--for sushi--it gets kind of creepy. Lampshaded in ''New Horizons'':
---> "I caught a frog! Or it's a new neighbor... and I have some apologizing to do."
** In ''e+'' onwards, one can also catch an octopus -- and yet a rare few potential neighbors are also octopi. ''New Leaf'' even introduced Zucker, an octopus based on takoyaki (a dish made from fried octopus). There is also the birdcage item... which comes with a little songbird inside. To add to that is how one duck neighbor, at least in ''Wild World'', actually has one of these birdcages in his house to start out with.
** The doghouse item has a growling dog in it.
** Gyroids are actually living creature seen hanging out in front of your house or running the auction house depending on which game you play. Yet, you can still dig them up out of the ground as an item.
** Some cow villagers may even have cow skulls in their home. Yikes.
** ''New Leaf'' gives us hamster villagers, and there has been an item of the same name ever since the first generation. It also introduced Tucker, a villager who is obviously based on the woolly mammoth (a collectable fossil since the first game), and two new "fish" that can be caught: tadpoles and soft-shelled turtles. Being juvenile frogs, tadpoles add an extra layer of creepiness to the same scenarios that frogs are already subject to. As for turtles, Tortimer is an old tortoise NPC that has been in all games except ''Dōbutsu no Mori'', and depending on your localization Kapp'n and his family might all be classified as turtles. In some island tours, which are hosted by Tortimer and are on the island Kapp'n apparently lives on, you can even catch turtles for fun and profit.
** Invoked in a picture quote by Goldie, a dog villager, who considers the Lab on the cover of ''{{VideoGame/Nintendogs}}'', which is an actual dog, to be dreamy.
** In ''New Leaf'', a sisterly villager may ask you what kind of pet would suit her best. The options? Hedgehog (a la the Able Sisters), raccoon (Tom Nook and the Nooklings), pelican (Pete, Pelly, and Phyllis), and ''the actual species of the villager''. If you choose the villager's species, she asks if they bite.
** In ''New Leaf'', the player character's mom may write a letter mentioning that the neighbors' cat had kittens. The only cats you see yourself are anthropomorphic.
** As of ''City Folk'', a yellow bird perches on the bulletin board when there are messages you haven't read. In ''New Leaf'', it reappears and is replaced by an owl (the same species as the anthropomorphic Blathers and Celeste) at night. These birds also appear around town.
** In ''New Leaf'', Gulliver's rantings about other countries mention animals. From the way he discusses them, they sound more like non-anthropomorphic ones.
** The rice maker item in ''New Leaf'' can be edited to feature chicken rice despite the fact you can have chicken villagers. In the original game, your father enjoys pork chops despite pigs also being villager options.
** There are numerous furniture and clothing items with leather and fur patterns, including of species that can be your neighbors. The later games are careful to specify that ItsFakeFurItsFine, although it's still a bit strange that people in-universe would be making these items to ''look'' like they're made from what in this setting [[GenuineHumanHide would be other people's skin]].
* FurryReminder:
** A literal example in ''New Leaf''. Sometimes Cranky villagers may ask you "If I were an animal, what would I be?". If you choose the first option, their actual species, they'll say that they get that a lot, then remember that that's what they actually are.
** Frog villagers don't use umbrellas in the rain because they're amphibians who require water on their skin to survive.
** Sometimes when you talk to Pete in ''New Leaf'', he'll mention that when he gets off, he's going to eat a fish that he's been storing in his bill pouch. Other times he'll complain about the fact that the rarity of opposable thumbs leads to a lot of illegibly written addresses.
** A few special characters enjoy eating animals suitable for their species, such as scallops or bugs.
** Blathers and Celeste are found asleep during the day, but awake during the night as owls are nocturnal animals.
** Villagers' default houses occasionally reference their species. One duck villager frequently has water-themed houses, with his house in the first game literally just being a pool and sprinklers.
* GameplayAndStoryIntegration: The infants that female kangaroo villagers have are generally not treated as actual characters. They're not named or even referred to in-dialogue. They are simply an extension of their mothers' model and mimic the same expressions as them. Despite this, a few of the kangaroo villagers base households relate to them being mothers. For example, in ''New Horizons'' Mathilda has a rocking horse and children toys in her house. Also, all of the female kangaroo villagers, except Sylvia, have catchphrases that relate to their children, and most of their official villager descriptions do acknowledge the babies.
* GameplayAndStorySegregation: The museum's blurb for the piranha claims that they're actually fairly docile. You may have a hard time reading the placard--the loud tapping as the piranha slams into the aquarium glass trying to kill you can be a little distracting.
* GenkiGirl:
** The villagers with the "peppy" personality all qualify, due to acting like very energetic, perky {{Valley Girl}}s.
%%** Isabelle, the mayor's assistant, also qualifies with how excitable she can get.
* GhostlyGape:
** In the first game, forgetting to save while in another save file's town will render the character without their possessions... including their face. The poor villager will be stuck with holes where their eyes and mouth used to be until the game is started up again.
** The Gyroids and the NPC rabbit named Coco all permanently have this expression in all games.
* GiveMeYourInventoryItem: Happens ''a lot''. For unknown reasons, your neighbors may want whatever random item you have (be it clothing or furniture) in your pockets. On the other hand, you'll either get another item or they'll buy it from you.
* GlobalCurrency: Bells are used no matter what town you're visiting.
* GlobalCurrencyException:
** Tortimer Island's gift shop in ''New Leaf'' only accepts medals, which are earned by going on tours.
** The R.V. camp in ''New Leaf'' uses MEOW Coupons instead of bells, which are earned by completing daily tasks.
** ''New Horizons'' has Nook Miles, which are also earned by completing daily tasks, as well as reaching specific milestones. The islands occasionally use them in place of bells, due to the lack of a functioning economy on a deserted island.
** ''Happy Home Paradise'' has poki, which acts as your salary for working at Paradise Planning. They're only usable within the submode, but are otherwise more-or-less the same as bells.
* GlowingFlora: The Mushroom series of furniture items includes a lamp option in the form of a tall, thin mushroom that glows when activated. In most games, it glows blue; in ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewHorizons'', it may be white, red, yellow, green, or blue depending on how it's been customized.
* GoldMakesEverythingShiny:
** Watering dried up black roses with a golden watering can will turn them into unwithering gold roses.
** In ''New Leaf'', you can refurbish some pieces of furniture to have a nice and shiny gold finish should you find a gold nugget. If you have ''three'' of them, you can commission a piece of the Golden Series (which was originally ''City Folk'' DLC) at Re-Tail. This will set you back 10,000 Bells, though.
** Also in ''New Leaf'', getting high scores in the HHA theme challenge unlocks golden exterior decorations for your house.
** The best tools in the game are the Golden Tools, which are only obtained by accomplishing difficult tasks, which varies from game to game.
* {{Gonk}}: ''Many''. If a villager averts GenericCuteness, then chances are they're this. Resetti is so Gonk (especially when he's enraged) that his appearance apparently ended up distressing several young children in real life.
* GoodCapitalismEvilCapitalism: There are two similar businesses run by Tom Nook and Redd, a raccoon and fox (tanooki and kitsune in the Japanese version) with Redd having a distaste for Nook. Tom, and his successors Timmy and Tommy, always sell exactly what they advertise and while they do give a debt for housing, are surprisingly lax about the due date and the interest fees (none), while Redd is implied to smuggle his wares and sometimes scams players with forged paintings.
* GoodLuckCharm:
** The Celebration Hat and [[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Tingle]] Hood from Katrina in ''New Leaf'' eliminate bad luck.
** There's also the rare FourLeafClover, which has a 1 in 40 chance of being obtained.
* GossipyHens: Snooty villagers provide the main source of gossip in your town, and some of them are ''literally'' hens.
* GottaCatchEmAll: Fish, bugs, paintings, and fossils need to be collected to fill the museum. You also need to fill most of the catalog if you intend to get every badge from Phineas in ''New Leaf''.
* GreenAesop: Downplayed; catching [[FishingForSole garbage]] usually prompts a less-than-enthusiastic pun or reaction from your character, ranging from outright saying "keep our waters clean" when catching a boot in ''Wild World'', to saying "it was just treading water" when catching a tire in ''New Leaf'' or "you CAN't litter" when catching a can in ''Wild World''.
* GreenGators: Boots and Drago (a lazy and jock villager, respectively) are green alligator/crocodile villagers.
* GridInventory: Constant size variant, thanks to the ability to transform furniture into leaves for easy transport.
* GrinOfRage: The villager Static is normally a PerpetualFrowner, though in cases where he would be expected to frown such as when upset or angry, his mouth always did the opposite and smiles instead.
* GrowsOnTrees: You can grow a money tree. They don't always bear bells, however, to prevent the player from literally farming bells.
* TheCynic: Phyllis tends to be rude to post office customers and is so grumpy that even Cranky villagers will often [[HypocriticalHumor complain about how grumpy she is]].
** Cranky villagers are these, some of which are actual bears. Since they're implied to be older, they often act more irritable and bitter towards the player and other villager types. They mellowed out a bit over the years, though.
* GuideDangIt:
%%** Villagers may sometimes ask you for a rare bug that didn't spawn that day, like a centipede or a bagworm.
** Trying to discover new fish and bugs has been a long-standing offender of this, especially since some of the species are incredibly rare, seasonal, caught in specific locations, times, or circumstances, or a combination of all of those. Unless you looked it up or asked a friend about the rare fish or bug you saw in their museum or room, it likely won't take a single cycle of seasons to catch every single one in the game.
** There are a handful of K.K. airchecks you can only get by request. Most of them don't follow the "K.K. ____" format, so you would have to have seen a walkthrough to even know they existed. ''New Leaf'' remedies this by having the request-only airchecks being sold occasionally at the Nookling stores upon enough upgrades, and in ''New Horizons'', interacting with a radio will tell you what song is currently playing (allowing you to potentially learn the request-only ones). The villagers will also occasionally tip off the request-only ones to you.
** Obtaining the Golden Axe in ''Wild World'' involves a long trading quest that sometimes ends prematurely due to the randomness of it. You would need to first obtain a red turnip from Joan, have it ready for Wendell to eat and hope he gives you a turban in exchange. Next, you give the turban to Sahara, and hope you get a massage chair. Then take that massage chair to Tortimer for a scallop, which finally goes to Pascal, and hope you get the tool in question. Now, every time the word "hope" was written, there's a chance you won't get the item in question, stopping your quest cold until those events align again. The quest itself is incredibly obtuse on paper, as not a lot of players would think it'd be a chain of trades beyond giving Wendell a turnip that could sell for a good amount of bells for diligence.
** Working at The Roost in ''New Leaf''. You have to get all three aspects of an animal's coffee order correct, but they'll only tell you ''one'' aspect before you make it, or might not even say anything. They do tell you what was wrong with it afterwards if it's not correct, though, so it potentially becomes TrialAndErrorGameplay. This can be countered somewhat by talking to your neighbors while they're in the cafe, and they may describe how they like their coffee. Exaggerated when random villagers that don't even live your town pop in for a cup. They may be helpful and tell you both clues, but sometimes they only give one. While there is a concession that regular villagers always have their milk and sugar in equal amounts (if someone asks for no milk, then they also want no sugar), the same doesn't apply for some important [=NPCs=] like Tom Nook, who wants a lot of milk but only a little sugar.
** Getting the highest town rating in any main-line game since ''Wild World'' is this. Often, the NPC involved will only give you some vague comments as to what to do, without any indication of the specific thresholds required to achieve it. Particularly bad in ''New Horizons'', because of its rather complex island grading criteria relative to earlier titles[[note]]Two scores, one simpler one for "nature" (quantities of trees and flowers) and one much more complex one for "development" (based on what furniture you place outside), which must ''both'' cross certain thresholds[[/note]] and the need to raise your island's rating to three stars out of five to unlock terraforming!
** Distinguishing authentic art from forgeries in ''New Leaf'' and ''New Horizons''. The forged paintings have a slight difference from the real thing if you carefully look at Redd's wares, unlike in previous versions where you won't know if you're getting the real deal until you try to donate it to Blathers. It, however, requires knowledge of the real-world equivalent in order to succeed, and some of the forgery clues are more subtle than others. ''New Horizons'' does allow you to examine the pieces closely to catch those differences, but if you're not into fine art, this will likely have you looking up a guide like Website/GameFAQs regardless.
** In ''Wild World'', you can change your bed by pressing "A" in front of the foot of the bed, and then selecting a bed item from your inventory. Does anyone ever tell you this? No.
** Ever since flower hybrids were implemented, Blue Roses were quite difficult to cultivate. While it's justified that true, cultivated blue roses are a legend in real life (the family roses belong to naturally lacks the pigment needed to make blue petals), let's break down how convoluted growing them is...
*** In ''Wild World'', it requires Black[[note]]Two red roses.[[/note]] and Purple[[note]]Two white roses.[[/note]] roses. Though the combination is simple, you're still banking on luck that one will sprout, which can mean months of multiple non-blue roses before you get a single bunch growing.
*** ''New Leaf'' still requires hybrids, but changed it to something more ridiculous. You would need to pair Purple and Orange[[note]]Yellow and red roses.[[/note]] roses, and they produce a special type of Red rose that creates the Blue rose. ''They look no different from a regular Red Rose.'' Unless you looked it up, you would never have guessed that. Even if you have two special red roses to hybridize, there's still a one-in-seven chance that it'll actually produce a blue rose, as they can produce all the other colors as well.
*** And in ''even more'' ridiculous fashion, ''New Horizons'' introduces flower genetics that can be quickly summarized as basic Mendelian genetics. As in the kind that may have been in a school science class. Each flower has a set of genes coded into the plant itself, and they vary between wild-grown flora and store-bought seeds. There is a very specific set of genes that produce the coveted blue roses, but unless you carefully plan out a garden and can hypothesize your odds via Punnet Squares, you'll more than likely brute force your way to get them, or not get them at all because your roses don't have the right genes.
** Unlocking Gracie's store "[=GracieGrace=]" in ''New Leaf'' can be a pain. What does she ask? She asks you to wear an ensemble consisting of one particular style, as part of the Fashion Check. Simple, right? '''Not really.''' Gracie herself only appears once a week like Saharah and Redd, except she starts making appearances once you spend enough at TIY. Secondly, the only source of clothing style in-game is what the storekeepers at Able Sisters and Kicks tell you. While you're allowed to mix styles to pass, they don't tell you which styles clash, garnering an instant-fail. You have to get four passes to unlock the store. Expect yourself to be a RummageSaleReject. In ''New Horizons'', Label has a similar challenge to give her insight on her budding fashion brand, but she thankfully gives you a piece of clothing that's part of her theme to give you some coordination ideas.
* GuiltBasedGaming:
** If you go a while without playing, the next time you get on, the villagers will be worried because you were absent, or have moved away because you haven't spoken to them for so long.
** Don't want to wait through Kapp'n's song as he's ferrying you to/from the island? Just tap B a few times to skip it... but not before he makes you feel bad about doing so, however.
* HalfDressedCartoonAnimal: The majority of characters never wear pants or skirts of any kind. Only a few villagers wear full-body suits that include leggings; normally, a villager who wears clothing that would cover their legs has it convert into a dress when they put it on. Snake, Kid Cat and Tiansheng seem to be the exceptions. Nook also starts wearing pants later in the series, but not many others change their various levels of having-clothesedness.
* {{Hammerspace}}:
** Your houses appear bigger on the inside due to the SpaceCompression.
** The containers that you buy (drawers, dressers, refrigerators) can hold many more items than your actual house, and is even lampshaded when you try to rummage through a neighbor's drawers.[[note]]Well, except in the [=GameCube=] version, where they hold three items each. And they only take up one space.[[/note]]
** Your personal inventory. Furniture is kind of {{Hand Wave}}d since it turns into leaves when picked up, but what about that shark ''bigger than yourself'' you just caught?
** For the ''Welcome amiibo'' update in ''New Leaf'', Tom Nook provides you with with an upgrade to your house known as a "Secret Storage". This new space to store items is far larger then the standard container space. The standard storage can hold 180 items, but the secret storage upgrade allows you to store up to '''360''' additional items. However, you can only access it from anywhere in your house and only your house.
** Played more literally than before in ''New Horizons'': you can now store items... ''somewhere'' in your home with the number available being tied to the number of upgrades you've added. You can change your clothing from any wardrobe, chest, or ''refrigerator'' that you own regardless of whether it's in your house or somewhere else on your island. But you can also store almost anything that you can carry in your pockets (except plants and money). Where is it? Who knows?
* HappilyMarried:
** Cyrus and Reese. Nook even mentions that when he sees those two, getting married doesn't seem like it would be bad.
** Kapp'n is married to a lady named Leilani as of ''New Leaf''.
* HappyBirthdayToYou: In ''New Leaf'', on your birthday or the Saturday just before it, you can listen to "K.K. Birthday", a song that sounds ''kinda like'' Happy Birthday, but is distinct enough to evade copyright troubles. This despite the fact that it's the ''lyrics'' which were protected[[note]]Though it was actually ruled to be public domain in 2016 (four years after ''New Leaf'' was released), since it was originally creates in 1893[[/note]] and K.K. [[SpeakingSimlish only sings in Animalese]]. Even in ''New Horizons'', released after the public domain ruling, "K.K. Birthday" remains distinct from the original tune.
* HelloInsertNameHere: One of the very first questions Rover or Kapp'n ask you is your name. You're the one moving into the new town, after all.
* HeroicMime: What your character says to other characters is never shown. Several villagers in ''New Leaf'' ("[[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Peppy]]" villagers especially) have a tendency to [[LampshadeHanging lampshade]] this at times.
* HitodamaLight: In the [=GameCube=] game, when wandering the town between 12 and 4 AM you can sometimes be disturbed by an unknown presence whispering, which reveals itself to be a ghost named Wisp if you walk in his direction (or tells you you're walking the wrong way if you're walking away from him). He explains his dire situation: He needs to retrieve five hitodama, which slowly float around the town. If you don't, his master (whose name changes every time) will be very displeased. If you collect them for him before 4 AM, he will perform a favor for you, one of which is simultaneously plucking every weed in town for you. This was dropped in Wisp's later appearances; in ''City Folk'' he instead behaves more like a genie (with his headgear changed to match this) and requires you to find his missing lamp, or else he is stuck in town for the night, while ''Welcome amiibo'' (in which he reprises his genie role) has the wishes he grants come in the form of summoning characters from amiibo cards or figures, as Leif already provides a weed-pulling service in ''New Leaf''. ''New Horizons'' returns to his original role, though the hitodama are now actual pieces of his spirit and his hat has changed to a ''Hitaikakushi'' and changes his gift to be either an item the player doesn't own or one that's very expensive (which the player is unlikely to own either, early on at least).
* HolidayMode:
** Conifer and non-fruit trees get lights during the December holiday season.
** In ''New Horizons'', trees will have their leaves replaced with cherry blossoms for the first ten days of April and eggs will grow on Hardwood Trees for two weeks leading to [[YouMeanXmas Bunny Day]].
* HolidayMotif: Each game in the series features sets of furniture themed after various in-game holidays, themselves analogous to real-world holidays in the western world (e.g. Toy Day for Christmas, the Harvest Festival for Thanksgiving, and Festivale for Mardi Gras). In most games, this themed furniture is only obtainable during their respective holidays, while in ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewHorizons'', most of it is instead purchasable during the ''leadup'' to each celebration.
* HollerButton: Equipping the megaphone tool in ''New Leaf'' gives you one of these, letting you press A and yell into the 3DS microphone in order to find out where a specific villager is, although it only works if the character you're looking for is in the main village and not indoors or on Main Street. It's also the easiest way to wake up Gulliver.
* HolyHalo: A wearable item from ''Wild World'' onwards.
* HonestAxe: Subverted--Serena, goddess of the fountain, is a {{Cloudcuckoolander}}. She's very fickle about giving you an upgrade to your axe, whether you're honest with her, you sweet talk her, or even flat out say you hate her. More often than not, your axe will simply be returned to you, if that.
* HonestJohnsDealership: Crazy[=/=]Jolly Redd sells artwork which may be counterfeit. He also sells real artwork for inflated prices, all while calling you "cousin". And he makes a point in his thank you cards that there are no refunds.
%%* HotBlooded: Any of the characters with the "jock" personality, particularly in ''City Folk''.
* HouseInspection: The HRA are never seen actually rating your house, but leave you a message in the mail with your score. "City Folk" has an actual building for them, where you can get a more detailed score plus a view of a house/room that can currently get you more points. The trope's commonly used plot point is sometimes lampshaded by the townsfolk.
* HugeGuyTinyGirl: The Snowman and the Snowmam, as the Snowman is the largest snowperson while the Snowmam is the second smallest.
* HypocriticalHumor:
** In ''City Folk'', if a Cranky neighbor is moving away, they may give you a good piece of advice:
---> '''Roscoe:''' Never take advice from anyone about anything.
** In ''New Leaf'' Reese tells you not to wake her soundly sleeping husband. By yelling as loud as possible.
** Even cranky villages may complain about Phyllis, even though she's not that much worse than them.
* INeedToGoIronMyDog: If a villager asks to visit your house, one of the refusals you can give is "My hair hurts".
* IceCreamKoan: The fortunes in the fortune cookies in ''New Leaf'' comes across as this. There are also Pascal the otter's "deep truths" he drops on you every time you get a piece of furniture from him. Finally, the "favorite saying" that's on the back of every villager photo that you can receive from the villagers can veer into this.
* IdeaBulb: The "Inspiration" reaction has a cartoonish light bulb will appear with a "ding dong" sound effect.
* IdenticalGrandson: All of the female kangaroo villagers have little joeys who peek out from inside their pouches. Cute, except that not only are the joeys identical to their mothers, but they also ''[[BabySeeBabyDo mimic their facial expressions at all times]]''.
* IfItTastesBadItMustBeGoodForYou: After giving a sick villager medicine, they often comment about how bad it tastes, and thus, it must be good for them.
* InexplicablyIdenticalIndividuals:
** If you leave your town and go to another one, there will ''still'' be a Tom Nook, a Mayor Tortimer, etc.
** If you travel from one village to another and they have the same villager as you, a minor lampshade will happen as they comment on you looking very familiar.
* InformedSpecies: Many villagers may be classified as one kind of animal but may resemble another. The ostriches especially get hit by this. For example, Flora greatly resembles a flamingo in design; Phil looks like a pheasant, and Julia looks like a peacock. They all still refer to themselves as ostriches.
* InGameBankingServices: You earn interest on the money in your bank account every month.
* InSeriesNickname: ''Wild World'' onwards, your neighbors may come up with nicknames for you. Whether it's embarrassing or affectionate is up to you, but you're given the ability to suggest your own if you don't like theirs.
* InsomniaEpisode: In ''New Horizons'', a villager may occasionally be seen outdoors past their usual bedtime and if talked to, will mention having trouble trying to sleep. They will go back inside after a while, however.
* IntercontinuityCrossover: The series has had many references to ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'', ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'', and a few other first-party Nintendo series, but the ''Welcome Toys/{{amiibo}}'' update to ''New Leaf'' really takes the cake with the new villagers you can invite with the appropriate amiibo. The update has characters based on four series:
** ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'': Epona the peppy horse, Ganon the cranky pig, [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker Medli]] the normal bird, and [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess W.Link]] the smug wolf.
** ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'': Cece and Viché (normal and peppy squirrels who cosplay as Callie and Marie) and Inkwell the jock Octopus.
** ''Creator/{{Sanrio}}'': Six characters that are inspired by Sanrio's various properties which include: Rilla the peppy Gorilla with a Hello Kitty theme, Chelsea the normal deer with a My Melody theme, Toby the smug rabbit with a Keroppi theme, Chai the peppy elephant with a Cinnamoroll theme, Marty the lazy cub with a Pompompurin theme, and Etoilie the normal sheep with a Little Twin Stars theme.
** And finally there's Felyne, a lazy cat who is a reference to the Felyne from ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter''.
* AnInteriorDesignerIsYou:
** Furniture and other items can be placed, moved, rotated, etc. in your house. You can also change the wallpaper and flooring using any number of preset (or even custom) designs in every room except your basement, which has a permanent wood wall and stone floor. ''New Leaf'' allows the basement to be fully customizable like the rest of the rooms and adds wall-hung decorations to the mix.
** In ''New Leaf'', Timmy and Tommy run the general store from the start and Tom Nook is a real estate agent with a separate store that sells various exterior items including different styles of fencing, roofs, doors, exterior walls, and ground paving (for the area inside your house's fence), as well as complete shape changes for your house's exterior, and as Mayor you can place decorations around town, so An Exterior Designer Is You too.
* InUniverseGameClock: Tied to the system clock and moves in 1:1 time to the real world clock from the [[UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube GameCube]] re-release onwards.
* IrisOut: ''Animal Crossing'' uses this as a transition when entering/exiting buildings, aimed to the center. It is followed by an Iris In in the new scene.
* {{Irony}}:
** Resetti telling you to "SCRAM" after his lectures before leaving, even though he's in front of ''your own home''.
** Resetti, again, since his job is to discourage you from quitting without saving, but in ''New Leaf'', you ''have'' to do that at least once in order to unlock the Reset Surveillance Center. You can't get OneHundredPercentCompletion without breaking the ''one rule'' the game shoves down your throat.
* ItemCrafting: Features in ''New Horizons''. You can gather wood, stone, and other resources to craft new tools and furniture.
* InvisibleParents: The players parents are never seen and only communicate with the player through letters. Villagers will also mention their parents as well, but you never meet them.
* ItWasADarkAndStormyNight: Said by lazy villagers if it's raining at night in your town. Then they say that it's still a dark and stormy night.
* {{Iyashikei}}: The series is designed to be this trope in video game form. It ''mostly'' works, though trying to catch a rare bug/fish or complete a particularly obtuse sidequest can send many a player reaching for their follicles.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Tropes J to N]]
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold:
** The male animals with the "Cranky" personality type. Deep down, they're real softies. If you become good friends with them, they'll even say things like, "I may not be your dad, [[HelloInsertNameHere <Insert Name Here>]], but I do want the very best for you!"
** Resetti yells at you until he's blue in the face if you don't save your game, but, as his brother Don tells you he only does it "because he cares". His full depth is exposed in ''New Leaf'': The first time you quit without saving, you find out that [[spoiler:the Reset Surveillance Center's been closed and he's been ''put out of a job'']]. He's obviously very distraught, and you can't see him again until you manually install a Reset Surveillance Center using your mayoral power. When you do so, he even comes out to thank you!
** Phyllis comes off as an aloof, grumpy Jerkass at first, but if you talk to her at the right moment, you discover she's just like that due to being overworked and that deep down she's a very caring person, especially towards her sister Pelly. In ''New Leaf'' dialogue with her in the cafe reveals that if you had become mayor much earlier, work would have been much easier for her and she probably wouldn't be so grumpy.
* JokeItem: Some items serve no purpose and are just for the player to hold. These include bubbles, balloons, pinwheels, and glow wands. The toy hammer, despite being a rarely sold item from Tortimer Island's shop, also has no practical use and can only be used to hit things for fun, in contrast to how the other tools are necessary for certain tasks.
* JustifiedTutorial:
** Your tenure at Nook's store at the beginning of the game has him showing you the ropes of living in the village, while working off the debt you've accrued from purchasing a house.
** In ''New Leaf'', there are optional tutorials from Isabelle while you're settling in. If you're the mayor, the "approval rating" sidequest acts as one, too.
** In ''New Horizons'', you're moving to a deserted island, so the tutorial naturally progresses as you try to make the island more habitable, establish infrastructure, forage fruit and materials, and so on.
* KangaroosRepresentAustralia: The kangaroos Walt and Mathilda are named after the famous Australian song "Waltzing Matilda". However, koalas are more associated with Australian stereotypes.
* {{Kappa}}:
** Kapp'n; the pun in his name makes it obvious. The translated versions try to call him a turtle, but ''City Folk'' also has kappa-branded outfits. He is also referred to as a ''parrot'' in the Player's Guide.
** In ''New Leaf'', Kapp'n has an extended family; his wife, daughter, and grandmother all run the island tours.
* KinderAndCleaner:
** Kinder, because villagers from ''Population: Growing!'' could be... to put it neatly, "crude", at times. This extends somewhat to Wild World, as well, because some of the crudeness was still present in that game.
** Cleaner, as ''New Leaf'' allows the player to use an ordinance that'll keep their town free from cockroaches, weeds, and trash.
%%* {{Kawaiiko}}: The "peppy" villagers.
* LastOfHisKind: In ''Wild World'', Rocco is the only hippo villager in the entire game (even the [[FishOutOfWater Octopus]] has more villagers). It's especially noticeable since in the original, hippos weren't exactly a rare species. Averted since ''City Folk'', since more hippos from the original games did come back.
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall:
** Starting up the ''New Leaf'' after the "Welcome amiibo" update has you run into Isabelle on the train home. She asks if you've been away on vacation, which is a knowing wink to players returning to the game after years to see the update.
** The Nintendo Switch item in ''New Horizons'' costs 29,980 bells, the same price as a real one in yen.
* {{Leitmotif}}:
** Each game has a ThemeAndVariationsSoundtrack that uses the main title theme as a leitmotif.
** Every town can have a unique tune, as the player character can customize it. It plays every time you speak to a character, among other instances.
** The Tom Nook stores in older games and Nookling stores in ''New Leaf'' all have their own leitmotif.
* LifeSimulationGame: One of the more successful examples, ''Animal Crossing'' is a simplified life sim. There's no dating, eating is for cosmetic reasons, and you cannot die, however it is still a life simulator nevertheless.
** The entire series is this when compared to Nintendo's other franchises like ''Mario'' and ''Zelda'', which tend to be grand adventures or action-packed romps.
* LighthousePoint: Lighthouses are in the original and ''City Folk'' and are part of a SideQuest. It's also a Public Works Project in ''New Leaf'', but lacks the side quest. In ''New Horizons'', it's a piece of "furniture" redeemable for Nook Miles.
* LionsAndTigersAndHumansOhMy: You are the TokenHuman in a world of [[FunnyAnimal Funny Animals]].
* LiveActionCutscene: The original game had multiple ads that featured real people in full-body suits that resembled the in-game characters.
* LoveTriangle: Pelly at the post office is in love with Pete the postman, who is in love with Pelly's dour, sarcastic sister Phyllis.
* LuckBasedMission: Most of the game is randomized, so pretty much everything can be considered this to one extent or another, but some examples stand out more than most:
** The Fishing Tournaments, as long as they only ask for one kind of fish. In ''Wild World,'' you could at least try to catch fish that were somewhat bigger to try and get the biggest fish... but in ''City Folk'' and ''New Leaf'', you've got to just keep fishing and hope the fish of type X you angle is the biggest, as their actual measurement is randomized.
** Trying to get a silver or golden axe in ''City Folk''. It seems to make absolutely no difference what you say; you lose your axe, get your original axe, get a silver axe or a golden axe pretty much at random. So you just have to stock up on axes and keep trying every day.
** The paintings, specifically the usually forged ones you get from Redd. Averted in ''New Leaf'', where forged works of art (which now includes statues and sculptures) now have visible differences, while some works of art are never forged. To balance things out, however, each player character can only buy one item from Redd per week.
** Gracie's car washing minigame in the first generation. It acts like you just have to mash the A button enough times, but it's possible to fail ''using a turbo controller''.
** The Bug-Off (prior to ''New Horizons'' where it was simplified), for similar reasons as the Fishing Tourney. However, the Bug-Off is even more luck-based; instead of relying solely on the size of the bug, Nat also judges bugs by their rarity and their "color and luster." While you can control the rarity by only giving up rare bugs, the only way you can find out how good the color and luster of your bugs are is by giving them to Nat, and the results are completely random.
* MakeAWish:
** In several games, a shooting star named Wishy sometimes shoots through the night sky, and one can make a wish by pressing the A button fast enough. If successful, the player receives a letter from Wishy the next morning with a rare item inside.
** ''New Horizons'' changes this to instead have star fragments appear based on how many shooting stars the player wished upon. There is always at least one, but the actual number received is somewhat random. A player could wish on 40 shooting stars and get anywhere from 15 to 25 fragments of varying size.
* MarketBasedTitle: The Wii installment has the subtitle ''City Folk'' in North America and ''Let's Go to the City'' in PAL countries. The entire series is also called ''Animal Crossing'' (a PunnyName based on road crossing signs) in Western territories, with its title in its original country being ''Dōbutsu no Mori'' (or ''Animal Forest'').
* MascotMook: OK, so there are no {{mook}}s to speak of in ''Animal Crossing'', but the Gyroids are almost as iconic of the series as the villagers.
* MeaningfulName: The dodos who run the airport in ''New Horizons'' are named Orville and Wilbur, as in fellow flight enthusiasts UsefulNotes/TheWrightBrothers.
* MechanicalAnimals: The series has a robot ostrich villager named Sprocket, a robot frog named Ribbot, and ''[[VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewHorizons New Horizons]]'' introduced a robot octopus named Cephalobot. In ''Animal Forest e+'' there were also E-Reader card exclusive villagers named Bow and Meow who were a robotic dog and cat, respectively.
* MessageInABottle: An item the player can receive in ''Wild World''. The player can write a letter inside it and throw it out into the ocean, and may occasionally find one themselves. It could either be a randomly generated message, or another player's via Tag Mode. The mechanic returns in ''New Horizons'', where they appear on your island once per day. In addition to a brief letter (this time from one of the many villagers), each bottle contains a DIY crafting recipe.
* MessyHair: Starting with ''City Folk'', the player can get a bedhead if they haven't played the game in over a week. In ''New Horizons'', doing so makes the hairstyle unlockable.
%%* {{Metaphorgotten}}: Villager conversations can end up like this on occasion.
* MiniMe: The "Mini" Gyroids are this when you compare them besides their Tall, Mega, and regular counterparts. Averted in ''New Horizons'', as all gyroids in that game are the same size and small enough to fit on a shelf.
* MischievousBodyLanguage: One of the facial expressions that you or another villager can make is the "mischief" emote, which shows them smirking and chuckling to themselves as a shadow appears on their face.
* MisplacedWildlife:
** The animal neighbors might be justified as immigrants, but the ''fish'' and ''bugs'' you can catch? There are ''piranhas'' in your river. And ''coelacanths'' in the ocean. As for the bugs? You can catch birdwing butterflies, the largest in the world. And the ''plants'' are wacky, too--if your town is particularly unkempt, a rafflesia will grow there. These towns are weird.
** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d slightly when you actually catch a piranha in the [=GameCube=] game--your character asks "What river is this, anyway?"
** In a paleontological case, the player digs up an ''Archaeopteryx'', a European genus, in ''Wild World'' along with North American fauna like ''Tyrannosaurus'' and ''Stegosaurus''. And then ''City Folk'' introduces the Asian ''Velociraptor'', and ''New Leaf'' the African ''Spinosaurus''.
* MissionPackSequel: Most of the earlier games were this to each other. The first generation mostly consisted of iterated versions of the original [=N64=] game-- though only one of these was released outside of Japan-- while it became more apparent overseas with ''Wild World'' to ''City Folk'' (which is essentially just a Wii port of ''Wild World'' with most of the [=GameCube=] holidays restored and most of the traveling characters moved to the city). As the developers realized this was a common complaint for the franchise, ''New Leaf'' shook up the series formula considerably, and ''New Horizons'' deviated even further.
* MoonRabbit:
** Ruby, known as Luna in the Japanese version, has a moon-themed house with a mochi pestle.
** There's also Mira, a rabbit whose house is themed to a space station, and her catchphrase in the Japanese version is "the moon". Her appearance and name reference Sailor Venus from ''Franchise/SailorMoon'', with her species being a nod to Sailor Moon herself, Usagi Tsukino.
** Sasha's request in the ''Happy Home Paradise'' DLC of ''New Horizons'' is "a place that reminds [him] of the moon".
* MundaneMadeAwesome: How do villagers change clothes? They flip in midair or spin in place and suddenly the new shirt is on them! Same thing for the player.
* MuseumLevel: Every mainline entry since the [=GameCube=] installments has a Museum building, where the player can donate caught fish, bugs, and deep sea creatures (the latter from ''New Leaf'' onward), appraised fossils, and works of art. These items can then be seen on display in the various exhibits.
* MusicalNod: The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXG9zU2Lb6g 5 PM theme]] in ''New Leaf'' is a bossa nova tune, just like the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wqu5UfBFUW8 5 PM theme]] in the first generation games.
* MythologyGag:
** A tradition for each game is to have the "fake" songs that K.K. plays when requesting an invalid title become genuine hidden songs in later games. The [=GameCube=] installment had "Forest Life", "My Place", and "To the Edge", which became real songs in ''Wild World''; ''Wild World'' had "Spring Blossoms", "Stale Cupcakes", and "Wandering", which became real songs in ''City Folk''; ''City Folk'' had "Hypno K.K.", "K.K. Island", and "K.K. Stroll", which became real songs in ''New Leaf''[[note]]oddly, ''City Folk'' ended up only having two truly new K.K. songs, "K.K. House" and "K.K. Sonata"[[/note]]; and ''New Leaf'' had "Animal City", "Drivin'", and "Farewell", which became real songs in ''New Horizons''.
** A few of K.K. Slider's songs are also derived from the background music of older games; "Forest Life" is based on the recurring theme from the first game, while "Spring Blossoms" comes from the Cherry Blossom Festival theme from the Japanese versions of the original. ''New Leaf'' introduces "Animal City" (the city theme from ''City Folk'') as one of his "fake" songs, and ''New Horizons'' does the same with ''Wild World''[='=]s title theme.
** ''New Leaf'' has quite a few of these:
*** Rover mentions he hasn't ridden the trains much since 2002, referring back to the first game's mode of travel.
*** When discussing your first down payment, Tom Nook mentions how much easier it is to make money on your own than to get low-paying part-time employment, lampshading the errands he would force you to do as part of the tutorial in the older games.
*** Timmy and Tommy sometimes say that their store does not have a points system, referencing the one present in ''City Folk''.
*** Gulliver will occasionally mention that he has a hard time convincing others that he's been to space. In ''Wild World'' and ''City Folk'' he flew in a spaceship, instead of being washed ashore, as in this game and the first one. In addition, in ''New Horizons'' one of the things he might say after being woken up is that he refuses to go back to space.
*** Pete says he doesn't fly to deliver letters because [[PlayerCharacter someone]] at his old job would shoot him with a slingshot.
*** Some characters will also talk about the game in terms of trains, like how the train is the fourth generation version and unlike the last two generations, is completely different, and that it had inherited some of the "DNA" of the first generation. ''New Leaf'' brought back several elements from the original version of the game, such as trains and the island. It also shook up the series formula after complaints that the last two installments of the series were too similar to each other.
*** [=TVs=] in the original ''Animal Crossing'' would only play one program based on what the TV was (for example, the Apple TV would have apples rolling across the screen). At certain times in ''New Leaf'', the TV will play a moment of classic programs (the show that plays [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWcvbLpJhbI in this video]] comes from the Retro TV in the original).
* NationalAnimalStereotypes: A fair amount of animal villagers have designs and/or names that evoke countries stereotypically associated with their species. For example:
** Several of the koalas and kangaroos are named after Australian locations or concepts. Alice, Canberra, and Sydney are all named after cities in Australia; Melba is named after Melba toast, and probably takes inspiration from the city of Melbourne too (and her Japanese name is Adelaide, yet another city in Australia); Ozzie's name is a pun on the word "Aussie"; and Walt and Mathilda are named after the popular Australian song "Waltzing Matilda". In addition, Gonzo's catchphrase is "mate".
** Apollo, a bald eagle whose birthday is on [[UsefulNotes/AmericanHolidays the Fourth of July]]. Additionally, he’s named after Apollo 11, the spacecraft that first landed humans on the Moon; the Apollo 11 moon landing is widely considered one of the United States' greatest achievements.
** Chow, a panda whose catchphrase is "aiya" and whose house's furnishings are very Chinese-looking. His name is even a variant of the common Chinese surname "Zhou", which is in turn derived from the Zhou dynasty, the longest-lasting dynasty in Chinese history.
** Cousteau, a frog with a mustache whose catchphrase is "oui oui", playing off the stereotypical association between France and eating frog legs. His name is likely a reference to the famed French oceanographer, Creator/JacquesCousteau.
** Deli, a monkey named after New Delhi (the capital of India), whose coloration resembles that of a gray langur, a species of monkey native to India. Additionally, in ''Happy Home Designer'', he asks for a curry-themed home (curry being a well-known Indian dish).
** Elina, an elephant with a bindi (a red mark worn by many women in India) on her forehead. In the Japanese version, her catchphrase is "Namaste", a customary greeting in India.
** Jitters, a bird with a color scheme based on the flag of Brazil, wears a yellow soccer jersey, plays K.K. Samba in his home, and has a home in ''New Horizons'' based on a soccer pitch. His Japanese name, Zinho, may possibly be a homage to Ronaldinho, while his English name likely refers to a side effect of coffee consumption, referencing Brazil being the largest producer of coffee.
** Rio is an ostrich who is named after the Brazilian city Rio De Janeiro. Her colorful plumage and her love for upbeat music and dancing, according to her ''Pocket Camp'' bio, is a nod to the dancers at the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro.
** Pekoe, a cub who resembles a panda, looks like an AnimeChineseGirl, has a very Asian-looking home, and is even on the cover of Imperial K.K. (a Chinese-style song by K.K. Slider).
** Vladimir, a cub with a stereotypically Russian name whose catchphrase, "nyet", is the Russian word for "no".
* NatureLover: Leif. He detests weeds and offers weed-pulling services once he is partnered with the Nooklings (T.I.Y.). On Grass Day he hands out flower-themed furniture for pulling weeds.
* {{Nephewism}}: The Nooklings to Tom Nook, depending on which story you agree with (see ChasteToons).
* NeverSayDie: Actually averted, which sticks out in such a childlike E-rated game. When Sable discusses her life story as she opens up to you, she doesn't dance around saying her parents died when she was young. In most other cases, the actual term is avoided (the owl Blathers says "cross my heart and hope to molt," for example), which leaves more of an impact when Sable uses the terms "die" and "death" directly.
* NewGamePlus: After the ''Welcome amiibo'' update, this became an option in ''New Leaf''. If the player chooses to start a new town after putting enough effort into their previous town, Tom Nook will offer to buy the old town, depositing a large number of Bells into the new character's bank account to speed things up. Players may choose to receive the money gradually instead of all at once, which includes interest as a bonus for choosing that option.
* NiceGuy: Lloid the Gyroid is an incredibly nice guy who's more than happy to help you with equipment or public works projects. He tends to end sentences with chummy phrases like "my special friend" and "my wondrous buddy".
* NiceMice: There are mouse villagers, and even the grumpy and snooty ones can be friendly towards the player.
* NoAntagonist: Unless you view Nook as a greedy bastard, no one is really against what you try to do. Though Crazy[=/=]Jolly Redd is closer to being a villain, he's outright admitted to being a sleazy crook, and Lyle in ''Wild World'' is implied to be his scamming partner with a "Forgery/Insurance" ring.
* NobodyPoops: There is no requirement to use the toilet, and a lot of the villagers don't have toilets in their homes.
* NoCartoonFish: While most of the characters are depicted to be as cartoony as possible, nearly all the fish, bugs and sea creatures are depicted as realistically as possible (the only possible exceptions being the dab and olive flounder, who have googly-eyes). There are also frog and octopus villagers, which are just as cartoony as the others.
* NoodleIncident: Whatever happened that caused the fallout between Tom Nook and Redd, as mentioned in ''Happy Home Designer'':
--> '''Tom Nook:''' I worked with a fox once in my life. Never again. Not after...the incident.
* NoFairCheating: In a few ways:
** Earlier games discourage SaveScumming by having Mr. Resetti chew you out any time you quit the game without saving. His speeches berating you for doing such an act get longer each time you do it, and eventually he'll force you to write an apology as well! He's mandatory until ''New Leaf'', where he accosts you the first time, and can only continue if you build a Reset Surveillance Center- which actually is something of an inversion, as you don't get the option of building the Reset Surveillance Center until you've reset at least once!
** Time traveling, the act of manually setting your system clock ahead or back to take advantage of certain features, is heavily discouraged. Along with turnips automatically rotting, setting the clock too far ahead or back at once can result in wilting of trees and flowers, cockroaches in your house, and villagers moving away. In ''New Leaf'', your villagers will also tell anyone who visits your town that you're quite a time traveler.
** In ''New Horizons'', while you can catch new creatures by either way of time travel or visiting other people's islands, you absolutely cannot have other players catch creatures and then donating them directly to you or your museum.
* NoFlowInCGI: This is presumably the reason why all hairstyles are either short or tied-up, and why all dresses only go down to the knees (and even then, they're stiff as if they've been starched). It's finally averted in ''New Horizons'', which features longer dresses and hairstyles that sway and bounce appropriately. Also, some items may react with semi-realistic physics near each other, such as clothing on the drying rack swaying when near a fan.
* NoHuggingNoKissing: Despite being a life simulation game, there are absolutely no relationships, besides rumors and Pelly, Phyllis, and Pete's LoveTriangle. However, later games in the series have implied and explicit marriages, like Kapp'n and Leilani or Reese and Cyrus. What few relationships actually occur are between members of the same species, or never go any further than an implied one-sided crush (Isabelle toward the Mayor, Tom Nook toward Sable).
* NonIronicClown: Pietro, a clown sheep villager introduced in ''[[VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewLeaf New Leaf]]''. Earlier there was Pierre the cat, who was exclusive to the Japan-only ''e+''.
* NonStandardCharacterDesign:
** While most characters in the series are based on real-life or mythological animals, Jack and Wisp in particular veer toward {{cartoon creature}}s (the former resembles a PumpkinPerson, the latter a BedsheetGhost).
** Farley, the spirit of the wishing well in the first game, has never had his species clarified. He seems to be some sort of troll or dwarf.
** Blanca has no face. However, she uses the standard cat body model.
** Coco, a bunny villager, has a Gyroid face that doesn't change facial expressions, and uses ceramic-like texture for her skin. It's implied she's a living ''haniwa'' statue like a Gyroid.
** Zipper T. Bunny looks far more like a cartoon mascot costume than any of the other characters, including a zipper on his back. [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial Which, he assures, isn't part of a costume, and is in fact his normal appearance. Definitely not a mascot costume.]] His unusual look has gotten him compared to the Toy Animatronics from ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys''.
* NonLethalKO:
** If the player character is attacked by a scorpion or tarantula, they pass out and wake up in front of their house. This also happens if you use a glitch or cheating device to collide with the scenery in certain manners the game recognizes as impossible.
*** In ''New Horizons'', a player who has been stung by wasps will pass out if stung again, doing so with every consecutive attack until the player uses medicine.
** In every game, when you find Gulliver, he's knocked out and you have to wake him up.
** If the player goes for a swim in ''New Leaf'', coming in contact with a jellyfish only stuns you momentarily.
* NotCompletelyUseless: While the only purpose of the beehives in ''New Leaf'' is to be sold, essentially a free extra 2500 bells from trees, even if you fail to catch the bees, is a nice counter to the failures. The wasp nests in ''New Horizons'' are actually even more useful, as besides being able to be sold, they can be used to craft not only medicine, but bee and wasp-related items such as a honeycomb wall or a beekeeper's hive!
* NPCAmnesia: Shopkeepers will never question you if you get to buy an item just after you reject it. Also, villagers temporarily feel bad when you insult them or refuse to help them. After some minutes, they act as if it never happened.
* NPCScheduling: Mostly played straight. Many characters will appear at specific places throughout the day. Taken to literal levels in that you can actually schedule a time to visit a NPC in his/her house, or schedule a time where a NPC can visit your house. Averted with Redd and Gulliver in ''New Leaf'' though, where both characters seem to appear on random days in the week, and sometimes never at all. Others like Katrina and Gracie also show up randomly at first but can be convinced to settle in the Shopping Area eventually.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Tropes O to S]]
* OffScreenTeleportation:
** All outdoor [=NPCs=], including bugs and fish (but not the static ones such as Tortimer, Gracie, et al), possess this ability. Rarely occurs in ''Wild World'' but happens often and particularly jarring in ''City Folk'' since townsfolk rarely run around like they did, and often stand in one place at a time... before warping ahead of you from the other side of town.
** In the [=GameCube=] version, villagers will sometimes be at their house (location notwithstanding), and then be waiting for you at the Wishing Well despite you going straight there. It's quite jarring when the villager in question is on the other side of town. They also sometimes enter the acre you're in with no warning, even when last sighted on the other side of town. It's rather unsettling.
** In ''New Leaf'', this can happen for you when you save and continue. And sometimes, villagers will already be inside a store when you walk in, even if you enter the instant they open.
* OhCrap: Your character visibly freaks out whenever they shake a beehive out of a tree.
* OldSaveBonus:
** Save data from the original [=N64=] game could be transferred into ''Dōbutsu no Mori+'', and from that game into ''e+''. This would keep your player's appearance, catalog, and caught bugs and fish, but otherwise basically act as creating a new character. The service for doing so ran up until the release of ''Wild World''.
** When you copy your ''Wild World'' character into ''City Folk'', you also copy the character's catalog, and can mail-order some relatively rare items, should you have them.
** ''New Leaf: Welcome amiibo'' lets you order giant furniture items if you have ''Happy Home Designer''.
** Design QR codes are cross-compatible among ''New Leaf'', ''Happy Home Designer'', and (with help from a smartphone, since the Switch has no camera) ''New Horizons''.
* OnlyOneName: Every single character is only known by their first name. The only exception is Tom Nook.
* OneGenderRace: All the lion villagers are male, with female lions nowhere to be seen. Previously, all the kangaroo villagers were female until ''New Leaf'' introduced two male ones (Walt and Rooney).
* OneSteveLimit: Generally avoided, though there are some exceptions:
** There's Tom Nook and one of his assistants, Tommy. There's also a cranky cat villager named Tom as well. The issue here is avoided since Tom Nook is always referred to [[FullNameBasis by his full name]] or [[LastNameBasis last name]] (only very rarely is he just called "Tom"), while the other two are OnlyOneName.
** In the original game, there were two female squirrel villagers, Hazel and Sally. In ''Wild World'', Sally was removed while Hazel stayed. However, for reasons unknown, Hazel was renamed "Sally". When the original Sally came back in ''New Leaf'', she was renamed "Cally". ''New Leaf'' also saw the introduction to a new squirrel villager named..."Hazel".
** There are also two villagers named "Carmen". One is a mouse that only appears in the original game, while the other is a rabbit that has appeared in the series since ''City Folk''.
** Tammi the monkey debuted in ''Wild World'', while Tammy the bear cub debuted in ''New Leaf''. Tammi's name was not changed to avoid confusion with Tammy either.
** In the first game only there's a kangaroo villager named Marcy, while ''New Leaf'' saw the introduction of a kangaroo villager named Marcie.
** There are two villagers named Petunia, a cow and a rhino; both are also Snooty villagers. Petunia the cow is only named as such in English (her Japanese name is "Shimofuri"), while Petunia the rhino was only seen in the Japanese ''e+'' for many years, and she was given the name "Azalea" for her overseas debut in ''New Horizons''.
** Similar to the Tom / Tom Nook situation above, there's a dog villager named Daisy, and ''New Horizons'' introduced the special character Daisy Mae, who is a boar.
* OnlyShopInTown: Nook's shop was the only place to buy items in original game, not counting temporary locations like Redd's tent. From ''Wild World'' onward, the Able Sisters sell pre-made hats and shirts, making it no longer the case. In ''New Leaf'' you have Re-Tail, which is a pawnshop where you can also sell your stuff, in addition to the general store, run here by Timmy and Tommy Nook (though Re-Tail buys back old stuff for more than the Nooklings' store).
* OralFixation: Wearing a rose or the Leaf accessory item results in the player sticking it in their mouth.
* OverlyLongGag: Mr. Resetti's speeches just seem to drag on and on and on and on...
* PainfulPointyPufferfish: Implied when catching one in every game pufferfishes appear (except ''New Horizons''): instead of inspiring a {{Pun}} to the character, they elicit a yelp of pain.
* PaintingTheMedium: Throughout the series, stereo furniture will affect the way that airchecks play back depending on what device they're modeled after. For instance, tape decks sound thin and tinny, hi-fi stereos sound rich and full, and record players add audible surface noise, clicks, and pops.
* PaletteSwap: A number of insects in earlier games are recolored versions of one another due to technical limitations. ''New Horizons'' does away with this by giving each insect a unique model, designed after the real-life creature.
* PandaingToTheAudience: Chow, Pinky, and Chester are pandas.
* PaperThinDisguise:
** During Toy Day in ''New Leaf'', the player is given the mission to dress up as SantaClaus, the items for which are sold during most of December, including that day. The player has to wear ''at least one'' of the Santa items in order to do the mission, and the villagers will fall for it anyway. Not that the whole outfit is any better... normal villagers will sometimes {{lampshade}} this by saying that "Santa" reminds him or her of the cosplaying player. You can also wear the full Santa outfit in the season leading up to Toy Day, and none of your villagers will have any trouble recognizing you.
** This trope is {{Downplayed|Trope}} in the original game and ''City Folk'', where the player has to change clothes BehindTheBlack for Jingle to give the player multiple presents. It's eventually {{Subverted|Trope}} when Jingle realizes the player has been getting multiple presents by doing this.
* ParlorGames: Residents sometimes play the parlor game Shiritori (or first letter, last letter). Although some commit a foul because "exercise" starts with an X rather than an E.
* PeninsulaOfPowerLeveling:
** The island in ''New Leaf''. Selling exotic fruit and nocturnal beetles can net the player hundreds of thousands of a bells in a relative instant, especially if they have the Bell Boom ordinance in effect. Beetle-farming was even [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeEbtz55XYI directly recommended]] as a bell-making method by Reggie Fils-Aime, the president of Nintendo at the time.
** Mystery islands in ''New Horizons'' also provide opportunities to make a tidy profit. For only 2000 Nook Miles, players can fly out to procedurally generated islands with additional fossils to dig up, fruit that may not be native to your island (which not only sell for more bells than native fruit, but can be grown on your island for additional revenue), as well as exotic fish and bugs. Even the dreaded "Tarantula Island", with continuously-spawning [[SpidersAreScary tarantulas]], can be profitable: an adept bug catcher can easily make a killing snagging hairy arachnids that can fetch ''8,000 bells each'' (or a whopping ''12,000'' apiece if Flick is visiting).
* PermanentElectedOfficial: Tortimer in the first three games. You replace him in ''New Leaf'' (he's retired in that game) and you can let your town become infested with weeds and treat all your neighbors like crap, and you'll ''still'' remain the mayor at the end of the day.
* PersonalRaincloud: An abstract raincloud appears over sad villagers' heads.
* PieEyed: Some female villagers feature this. They are Poppy and Blaire the squirrels, Twiggy the bird, Merengue the rhino, Rosie the cat, and Ellie the elephant.
* PiggyBank: You get one from the bank after depositing enough bells in the ABD. Interacting with it lets you insert bells one at a time, which is good for shaving off uneven numbers (though once you do this, you can't get them back).
* PinkGirlBlueBoy:
** In ''New Leaf'', the pajamas you wear when visiting dream towns are this, as are the Town Pass Cards.
** Reese and Cyrus are pink girl and blue boy, respectively.
* PikePeril: Pikes are relatively uncommon fish that can be found during winter.
* PiranhaProblem: The player can catch piranha in the games (and lampshade this trope when they catch one). And when it is donated to the museum, it proceeds to bash against the walls of the tank to attack the player. The descriptions, however, claim [[ShownTheirWork they are actually quite timid]].
* PlayEveryDay: You have events and items that you can get each day, shops change their stock daily, some events happen weekly, and there are special holidays on top of that. The game heavily encourages you to check in every day.
* PlayerDataSharing: The Happy Home Academy Showcase and the Dream Suite in ''New Leaf'' are implementations of this. The Showcase allows you to buy furniture from the homes of other players you've [=StreetPassed=] and the Dream Suite allows you to get new patterns from other players' towns over the Internet.
* PlayingGamesAtWork: In ''Happy Home Designer'', should you make a Smug villager the boss of the office facility you can build and then position him in front of a computer, he may tell you that he can't speak to you at the present time, as he is currently in a raid in "Dragon Punchers" and is running all the healing spells.
* PolarPenguins: Many penguin villagers have cold-themed names (eg: Friga, Aurora), and almost all of them have ice furniture in their houses in ''New Horizons''.
* PopQuiz: In ''New Leaf'', Gulliver will ask you to help identify his original destination by giving you a few factoids about it. Get it right, and he'll send you a souvenir.
* PrecisionFStrike: In the original game, sometimes Resetti will tell you to [[RepeatAfterMe repeat after him]]. You can either do as he says, type whatever you want, or even offend him. Two phrases for the latter category are "You suck!" and "Moles suck".
* PreviousPlayerCharacterCameo: Defied if the ''Super Smash Bros.'' Villager (who uses the ''Wild World'' and ''City Folk'' design) amiibo is scanned in ''Welcome amiibo''. Wisp tries to bring him to town but is unable to. To compensate, he brings a trailer with a load of hard-to-find Nintendo items and the Statue of Villager from ''Happy Home Designer''.
* ProductPlacement: In ''New Leaf'' and ''Happy Home Designer'', there are items based on the convenience store chain 7-Eleven. They're Japan-only in the former -- though you can get them through [[SocializationBonus trading with others]] -- and they're made generic in the latter outside of Japan.
* PronounTrouble: When villagers are referring to others, the parser is usually smart enough to use the proper pronouns. However, sisterly villagers are sometimes referred to with male pronouns, despite all sisterly villagers being female. With this in mind, ''New Horizons'' has completely GenderInclusiveWriting, unless referring to static characters like Tom Nook or Isabelle.
* PumpkinPerson: Jack, host of the Halloween event, wears a pumpkin on his head (or may just ''be'' a pumpkin; it's unclear). On Halloween other villagers will dress up like Jack, though in ''New Leaf'' their pumpkins come in colors other than orange and have carved facial expressions different from the one on Jack's own pumpkin, making it easier to tell who the real Jack is.
* {{Pun}}: All of the phrases for catching bugs and fish. Some are just bad...
** LamePunReaction: There are a few examples throughout the series.
--->"I got a chambered nautilus! Who loses? Not us! [-[[LampshadeHanging Just go with it...]]-]"
** RhymesOnADime: Sometimes it's this instead of a bad pun.
--->"I didn't catch a pike! PSYCH!"
* PunnyName:
** Villagers often have names related to their species (like Kidd the goat and Wolfgang the wolf). In addition, Mr. Resetti and his brother Don have a last name that references the action that players do to make them appear (which happens to be huge pet peeve of the former, though the latter is more mellow about it). Some also have one relating to their appearance, such as Camofrog.
** As befitting two squirrels {{Cosplay}}ing [[{{VideoGame/Splatoon}} Callie and Marie]], Cece and Viché's names put together are a reference to ceviche, a spicy Peruvian fish dish.
* TheQuietOne: Sable, at first. If you keep speaking to her, she'll open up eventually. Same deal with Brewster, the barista at the café.
* QuirkyTown: Self-explanatory, and may account for some of the game's appeal.
* RagsToRiches: You start off living a cramped and shabby house with a significant debt, but once you've paid it off, you have the biggest house in town and an ever-growing bank account.
* RandomDrop: Trees can give all sorts of goodies when shaken. Most trees in the town drop 100 Bells when shaken, three or four trees a day usually have a beehive in them, one or two may drop furniture, and occasionally a bug may fall out for you to catch. On a new day, the trees will reset and give something else.
* RandomizedTitleScreen: The precise manifestation changes depending on which game:
** The original game's title screen shows a generic player character doing an activity in the town.
** Starting with ''Wild World'', if there's an existing save file the title screen is centered on one of the villagers in your town.
* RealMenTakeItBlack:
** Discussed. A "lazy" villager will sometimes say "Is it true that "real men" like bitter coffee? I guess I'm just a regular guy then, 'cause I like my coffee [[SweetTooth light and sweet]]."
** Averted in-game. Incredibly cute female villagers can like their coffee black while some of the toughest male villagers like a lot of sugar in their coffee.
* RealTimeWeaponChange: ''City Folk'' and ''New Leaf'' allows you to quickly change tools with the left and right button on the Control Pad thanks to alternative methods of controlling the character's motion (the former owing to the nub on the nunchuk and/or the Wii's point-and-click interface, the latter owing to the presence of an additional analog nub on a 3DS). Previous versions required you to go into the items screen to change tools. ''New Horizons'' improves on this even further, with an unlockable tool ring allowing you to select the exact tool you want without having to press left or right until the tool is equipped.
* RecurringRiff:
** Some of the background songs in the game are rearrangements of each of the games' respective title theme (e.g., 8 A.M. for the [=GameCube=] game and 8 P.M. for ''New Leaf'').
** You can create your own recurring riff with the town tune feature. In ''New Leaf'' and ''New Horizons'', the town tune plays whenever the clock bell rings, when you talk to a villager, and when you enter a building.
* RegionalBonus:
** A few holidays are actually specific to different versions of ''New Leaf''. They can be accessed in other versions via SocializationBonus though. Some of the items obtained on these days are available through the campground, albeit at random.
*** The American version has Groundhog Day (February 2), Earth Day (April 22), Labor Day (the first Monday in September), and Explorer's Day (the second Monday of October).
*** The European/Australian version has Naughty or Nice Day (December 6).
*** The Japanese version has the Bean Throwing Festival (February 3), Girl's Day (March 3), Children's Day (May 5), Starcrossed Day (July 7), and Obon (August 15 or 16, depending on the year).
*** The Korean version has Arbor Day (April 5) and Teacher's Day (May 15).
* RenovatingThePlayerHeadquarters:
** In the original game and all of its sequels, the player is provided a small one room tent at the start of the game. Paying [[HonestCorporateExecutive Tom Nook]] a few thousand bells will have him replace the tent with a small one room house with storage. Paying more will have him expand the room size, and even more has him add on another room to the back of the house. From then on he will instead add more rooms via building a basement and second floor.
** ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewLeaf'' and ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewHorizons'' allows players to customize their town/island, the former game with public works projects and the latter game with normal furniture.
* ReplacementGoldfish: This can occur with villagers that move in and out of your town. In ''New Leaf'', the game tries to maintain a mix of all the villager types while cycling out older villagers for newer ones. If a villager of a certain type moves out, the next random move-in will never be the same type as the villager who moved out (unless he or she was invited from the campsite, [=StreetPass=], or another player's town).
* {{Retcon}}:
** ''City Folk'' retcons a third Able Sister into the hedgehogs' backgrounds, managing to add quite a soap opera element to the story. In ''New Leaf'', the three apparently made up because Labelle is now part of the Able Sisters' store and works in the room next door, in the same building.
** Some of the older villagers in the previous games had their personalities changed to the new Smug and Sisterly personalities in ''New Leaf''.
** Three of the catchable bugs have been renamed; the Birdwing Butterfly is now the Queen Alexandra's Birdwing, the Raja Brooke Butterfly is now the Rajah Brooke's Birdwing, and the Longhorn Beetle is now the Citrus Long-Horned Beetle.
* RevenueEnhancingDevices: A series of collectible e-Reader cards was released to coincide with the original game, and could be used to obtain items in the game. ''New Leaf'' has a modern interpretation of this idea with the ''Welcome amiibo'' update, which allows ''Toys/{{amiibo}}'' cards and figures to be scanned in for items and even exclusive villagers.
* ReverseCerebusSyndrome: The series has lost a bit of its edge over the years. In the earlier games, several villagers were mean or even outright insulting, which has mostly been done away with; most characters in ''New Leaf'' are [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold abrasive at worst]]. Note that most of its "edge" was [[AmericanKirbyIsHardcore added during localization]]. ''New Leaf'' does imply the passage of time since the earlier games, so CharacterDevelopment may also be a possibility.
* RiddleForTheAges:
** While based on ''haniwa'' burial statues, the exact nature of gyroids in the game's world is deliberately vague, with not even the game's cast knowing what to make of them. The catalog groups gyroids into the "other" category, and ''New Horizons'' indicates that they can be regrown from buried and watered shards. Additionally, the villager Coco resembles a gyroid in the shape of a rabbit, and in the first game, the player character's face turns into that of a gyroid if you quit while traveling without saving, deepening the ambiguity as to just what gyroids are.
** Who or what is Zipper T. Bunny? The fact that he looks quite clearly to be a rabbit costume is one thing, but it's never fully confirmed he ''is'' a costume and we're never given conclusive indication of who could be the character wearing the costume or if it's even a character we already know from elsewhere in the series. There are also the far weirder possibilities that he's a costume inhabited by some other kind of being, which are neither supported nor denied.
* RockPaperScissors: One of the possible mini games with a camper in your town in ''New Leaf''. Also played on Halloween for Candy rewards.
* RuleOfCute: The Nooklings say that the wrapping paper in ''New Leaf'' is to "cutely wrap presents".
* RunningGag:
** The Sea Bass. It's a very common ocean fish, not worth a lot, and in most games, the player says "Not again!" whenever one is caught from ''Wild World'' onward. In ''New Leaf'', the gag begins after the first catch, with the player saying "What, you again!?" whenever it happens.
** Between ''Wild World'' and ''New Leaf'', player characters have trouble distinguishing a dab from an olive flounder, as pointed out in the text for catching them (more so with the latter).
* {{Samba}}: One of K.K. Slider's songs is "K.K. Samba", which is obviously an example of samba. The theme that plays during Festivale, a Carnival-inspired holiday, is also fittingly samba.
* SaveGameLimits: Technically, you're never supposed to have more than one save file, to facilitate the SocializationBonus inherent in the game's concept. In actuality this has become more stringent owing to the technical aspects of saving on each system -- in the original game you could have as many towns as you had memory cards that could fit them; in ''Wild World'' and ''New Leaf'', there are no memory cards so you have to get another copy of the game in order to have multiple towns (and need two DS systems to have the towns interact); ''City Folk'' and ''New Horizons'' save directly to the system and don't allow you to copy the file to an SD card (or cloud save, for ''New Horizons'') so you'd have to get a separate console to have more towns in the same house.
* SaveScumming:
** [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded.]] In ''City Folk'' you're warned the first time you load a saved game by an NPC, Mr. Resetti, to not even consider quitting the game without saving. If you do reset the game (by dropping out to the Home Menu, pressing the Reset button on the console, etc.) without saving, expect him to come by and give you an earful, and at one point in all versions, even feigns deleting your save game!
** In ''New Leaf'', Mr. Resetti was made an optional feature, resetting the game the first time will prompt him to appear and suggest the Reset Center as a Public Works Project (so you actually need to do this once to get it). ''New Horizons'' outright {{autosave}}s, so Resetti's role has been switched to rescue helicopter operator (he resets your position if you get stuck).
** In ''New Leaf'', there's a form of save scumming known as "The Villager Reset Trick". On a day you think a villager will move in to set up a plot of land, you need to create a new save file (loading an old one will make the game save and lock the location, which may not be ideal). Once you've gone through making a new player character, you can scout around to see if they've set up their plot in a location you like. If they didn't, reset and make a new save file. If they chose a location that you like, you can set up your house location and save the game from there. Then you can delete the save file and the villager will move into the right spot. Of course, there will now be a bare spot...
* ScareChord: Some piano chords would play if something bad happens, like if you shook a tree and a beehive drops or if your house is filled with roaches. This is the main sound effect of the Shocked emotion in later games.
* ScaryStingingSwarm: Every tree you shake has a chance of dropping a beehive or wasps' nest on your helpless character. They will chase you relentlessly until you either duck into a building or catch it (which can be tricky, but if you want that HundredPercentCompletion...). If they catch up to you, they will sting you and leave a hideous bump on your face, which all of the animal characters will insist on commenting on. If you get stung twice in a row without using medicine, you will black out and wake up in front of your house. Notably, this is the only way in which a player character can be damaged in the game.
* SchrodingersQuestion: The questions at the beginning of all games prior to ''Happy Home Designer'' determine your appearance.
* ScoldedForNotBuying: Crazy Redd is a rather eccentric figure in the black market, and he seems a bit miffed if you leave his shop without buying anything.
* {{Sentai}}: The "Zap Suits" let you dress up like one. There are also currently five villagers (Kid Cat, Agent S, Big Top, Rocket, and Filly) that wear sentai suits.
* SeasonalBaggage: The seasons gradually change in real time. Not only do the grass and foliage shift hues, aquatic life and insects are rotated out accordingly. You have to be extremely diligent on catching your insects and fish before they go away for the season to complete your encyclopedia.
* SetBonus: There are several distinct themes of furniture (plus flooring and wallpaper) present in the game, like "Fruit", "Space", and "Snowman". Collecting and decorating your house with all pieces of a given furniture set results in a nice bonus to your [=HRA=] score.
* SexyBacklessOutfit: While none are actually shown, "Snooty" villagers may recommend that the player wears one so they can be more daring.
* SharkFinOfDoom: Sharks and the like are easier to spot than other fish because they always have their dorsal fins sticking out.
* ShesAManInJapan: Saharah and Gracie are both male in Japanese. Blanca, too, [[TheBlank but it's]] [[WholesomeCrossdresser hard to tell]]....
* ShopFodder: The mushrooms which grow in the fall in the original game literally serve no other purpose than to be sold.
* ShoutOut: The mystic statue of ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewLeaf'', ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingHappyHomeDesigner'', and ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewHorizons'' is the Art/NefertitiBust. It can be used for personal decoration and donated to the museum. In two of the aforementioned games, there are also forgeries to identify. In ''New Leaf'', the forgery has a round crown cap, while in ''New Horizons'' the forgery has one earring.
* ShownTheirWork:
** Everything in the museum gets some trivia spouted about them by Blathers when they're donated. The only mainline game in which he doesn't do this is ''New Leaf'', but the exhibits themselves have a bit of text describing them, including details like how the coelacanth tastes different compared to normal fish and contains a fat indigestible by humans. ''New Horizons'' has him give the trivia if the player donates the items one at a time and says "yes" when he asks if they want to hear.
** The Rare Mushroom item is based on the real life truffle, a rare and prized fungus that is only found underground near trees. Not only are you supposed to dig them up, they sell for a good 16,000 bells!
* SingleMindedTwins: Tommy and Timmy, the kids who work in Tom Nook's store once it becomes fully upgraded and who run the general store themselves in ''New Leaf''.
* SliceOfLife: ''"...The game!"'' The main purpose of the series is to go through a day of chores while interacting with the villager animals, with no overarching stories or conflicts. The closest the game gets is setting up your town over the course of the first few days, adding shops and houses. From there, it's just day-to-day life.
* SlidingScaleOfAnimalCast: Type 4, animal cast with human protagonist; the {{Player Character}}s are the only humans in the games.
* SlidingScaleOfAnimalCommunication: Type 8, most animals can talk. Though the cast is made up of sapient {{Talking Animal}}s, the ''Animal Crossing'' universe does have non-talking animals, most notably [[NoCartoonFish fish]]. Strangely, there also seem to be non-talking birds, hamsters, and dogs ([[FurryConfusion that you can basically keep as pets]]), even though there are also bird, hamster, and dog villagers and [=NPCs=]. The museum in ''New Horizons'' implies that sapient animals diverge from non-sapient species in this universe's evolutionary tree.
* SlidingScaleOfLinearityVsOpenness: Level 6--the only stated "goal" you have is to pay off your mortgage, and you don't even have to do ''that''. ''New Horizons'' is a bit lower on the scale, having a number of public works projects that need to be completed to properly advance the game to full openness.
* SlidingScaleOfVideoGameWorldSizeAndScale: Real-time ([[InUniverseGameClock literally]]), small-scale. The games take place entirely in a single, [[ThrivingGhostTown improbably small]] town.
* {{Snowlems}}: You can create them, but unless the proportions are perfect, they will not be happy about it. You can create a whole family of them in ''New Leaf'', but only one is as picky as the ones from previous games.
* SnowySleighBells:
** The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUwkx7vQiFM Christmas theme]] from the first game makes a heavy use of sleigh bells. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aCYkAOvmFo The]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ3v579wzAo remixes]] from the song from ''City Folk'' and ''New Leaf'' do as well, but with less emphasis on the bells.
** Several hourly music tracks include sleigh bells when it is snowing.
** So does the theme when playing Snowman's bingo in ''New Leaf''.
* SocializationBonus: Interacting with people in real life has many benefits, like being able to get non-native fruit which sells for more, and getting the furniture you want more quickly, by being able to visit shops in other towns, or ordering furniture from [=StreetPassed=] houses in ''New Leaf''.
* SoleEntertainmentOption: Speak to a neighbor when an event is coming up in-game, like a fishing contest. It's all they'll ever talk about. They also tend to complain when there aren't any events that week.
* SongsInTheKeyOfPanic: Of the Warning variety, should you shake down a beehive/wasp nest. The usual hourly theme stops and is replaced with an alarming jingle that basically tells you "hurry up and escape unless you wanna get stung!" until the swarm goes away.
* SpaceCompression: Most buildings' interiors are drawn roughly four times the size of their exteriors in each direction.
* SpeakInUnison: Timmy and Tommy do this, however one always lags behind the other.
* SpeakingSimlish:
** The language the characters speak is called Animalese. In the English versions of ''City Folk'' and ''New Leaf'', the characters read the text in speech bubbles one letter at a time, which is sped up and slightly garbled. This is because unlike Japanese, where each kana glyph neatly maps to a syllabic sound (such as "da", "o", "ke", or "tsu"), languages written using the Latin alphabet (including and ''especially'' English) use phonemes and thus require letter sequences to be analyzed and mapped to specific sounds, taking extra computational power in the process.
** They had a different sort of sound and were a little less garbled in the original English game, and some sentences can even luck their way into being audibly intelligible. When saving your game, for example, your Gyroid really does sound like it's saying "Please enter the house."
** In ''Wild World'', Animalese appears to sound like generic gibberish; it is unknown if the game is reading out the text with a text-to-speech program like in other games or if it genuinely uses gibberish. ''Wild World'' changed the sound of Animalese to be more like the Japanese version of Animalese.
** There's also a second "language" called Bebebese that can be selected up until ''New Leaf''; it sounds like a series of generic text-scrolling noises rather than any specific language. When Animalese is selected, Bebebese is used for a character muttering or whispering, as well as the snowmen and the human character speaking to themselves or reading signs.
** The speech sounds in ''New Horizons'' have been updated to sound more like babbling, but [=NPCs=] may have their catchphrases spoken audibly like Tom Nook's "oho" and "yes," or Blathers's "Hoot".
* SpotTheImposter: ''New Leaf'' adds two examples:
** On April Fool's Day, [[TheBlank Blanca]] appears and will take on the form of one of the villagers, leaving the player to guess which is the correct one.
** Crazy Redd's art works are on display before you buy them, and the forgeries have a [[ImposterForgotOneDetail noticeable difference]] with the real art. Sometimes the difference is blatant (e.g., the Robust Statue depicts a discus thrower holding a U.F.O.), while other times it's more subtle (e.g., the Wistful Painting has a woman in a yellow head-wrap, which is supposed to be blue).
* StayInTheKitchen: Played with in ''Wild World''. Sometimes the player can eavesdrop on conversations between two animals, and a conversation between a lazy villager (always male) and a normal villager (always female) gives us this:
-->'''Lazy:''' Yesterday, I had the most amazing dream. I was this HUGE movie star! And I got invited to all these parties! There were all these famous actresses, and we all ate sponge cake together! By the way, you were in my dream, too.\\
'''Normal:''' Goodness! Really? Was I a famous actress, too?\\
'''Lazy:''' Actually, you were in the kitchen cooking the sponge cake. Yeah, you were really sweating up a storm! Yep. As usual, you were the star of the party!\\
'''Normal:''' I guess I could take that as a compliment... yeah, if I were a total idiot! You're a stupid, sexist jerk! And I thought we were friends!
* StepfordSmiler:
** Zipper T. Bunny is a cynical, bitter grouch in a bunny suit who ''really'' hates his job and how "perky" he has to act.
** Lyle in ''City Folk'' works at the Happy Room Academy; when not acting professional, it's obvious that he's not happy with his job. In ''New Leaf'' and ''Happy Home Designer'', however, he appears much more content with his position at the Happy Home Academy.
* StinkyFlower: If the player abstains from controlling a weed infestation, a stinky flower called rafflesia may sprout in the village. The villagers sometimes comment on the plant's foul smell, which is further highlighted by the flies that start spawning near it.
* StockBeehive: If you shake a tree, a beehive resembling a paper wasp nest could possibly fall out, and the swarm will try and get you.
* StockMarketGame: ''Wild World'', ''City Folk'' and ''New Horizons'' emulate the stock market with the Stalk Market. Every Sunday you can buy turnips from Joan/Daisy Mae, which can be sold for fluctuating prices depending on the day and what town you're currently in. Turnips do start to rot after a week, so you only have a limited time to cash in before they go to waste.
* StockMoneyBag: Large amounts of the game's currency, Bells, are depicted as brown canvas bags with tied-off tops and marked with star symbols.
* StopPokingMe: If you talk to your neighbors several times in succession, they'll get upset and tell you to go away. Pushing villagers and hitting them repeatedly with nets or toy hammers will also cause them to snap at you.
* SugarAndIcePersonality:
** Sable has one. Shown if she warms up to you.
** Cranky and Snooty villagers also have these. {{Downplayed}} in later games.
* SugarBowl: Your town is a beautiful setting where nothing can go wrong. The worst that can happen is a rafflesia growing in, if you're neglectful, a mean mole yelling at you if you try and cheat, or your best friend unexpectedly moving away.
* SuperDrowningSkills: Ground-borne insects will immediately drown if they fall into the water.
* SuperPersistentPredator: Aggressive arachnids such as the tarantula and scorpion will chase you to the ends of the earth if you unwittingly provoke them. Even if you manage to trap them behind a barrier, these critters will only run around in circles until they find an opening to resume the chase.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tropes T to Z]]
* TacticalDoorUse: The easiest way to escape bees is to run into the nearest building, assuming that there's a building near you. ''New Leaf'' ends up providing an even easier alternative in the form of simply pressing "save and continue", though the old way still works.
* TanukiKitsuneContrast: Tom Nook and Crazy Redd's rivalry. Tom is honest and straightforward, while the shadier Redd has rare stock, but at a higher price.
* TemporaryOnlineContent: Nintendo shut down Wi-Fi functionality in Nintendo DS and Wii games on May 20, 2014. You can technically still get those games' DownloadableContent items if you know someone in real life with the items who's willing to trade locally (good luck with that, especially because ''City Folk''[='=]s local multiplayer requires at least one player to also own a DS or 3DS[[labelnote:Explanation]]It uses the Download Play feature on the DS to store travel data, hence the feature being called the DS Suitcase[[/labelnote]]).
* ThatRussianSquatDance: The album art for K.K. Steppe features this.
* ThreateningShark: You can fish up sharks from ''Wild World'' onward, and your character expresses fear... right before stuffing it into their pockets. And they sell for 15,000 bells a pop, too!
* ThrivingGhostTown: Your town does quite well for a city with less than 20 inhabitants.
* TimedMission: Starting in ''Wild World'', you generally have a defined time limit in order to complete a task for a villager; in ''New Leaf'', usually they just want it done within the day, but they may sometimes ask for it to be done in an hour. ''City Folk'' and ''New Leaf'' have your villagers offer to play hide-and-seek with you, where you have 10 minutes to find them all. The island minigames in ''New Leaf'', as well as ''New Horizons'' incarnations of the Bug-Off and Fishing Tourney are also timed.
* TimeSkip:
** ''Wild World'' is implied to take place after the original games. Blathers mentions how he couldn't identify fossils in the past.
** It's implied that ''New Leaf'' takes place a few years after ''City Folk''--Tortimer and Shrunk have retired (the former from his post as mayor to host tours on the island, and the latter from his job as a comedian to open a nightclub), Katie is now old enough to travel on her own, Kapp'n is married and has a toddler-aged daughter, and even Kicks appears to have aged, now owning a shoe store and occasionally addressing the player as if the player is younger in the coffee barista minigame. Tommy and Timmy seemed to have matured to the point that not only do they not need Tom Nook to supervise them, but are fully capable of handling the store with only one of them at a time. They seem like assertive teenagers compared to the shy little kids in previous games.
** This is also the case with ''New Leaf'' to ''New Horizons'', as more series mainstays have retired and passed the torch to newcomers: Joan's stalk market is handled by her granddaughter Daisy Mae, Chip's fishing tournament is now run by C.J. (implicitly "Chip Jr."), and the Bug-Off is now handled by Flick rather than Nat. Isabelle has resigned from her work as the Mayor's secretary to assist Tom Nook on the island, with her "prior experience" being explicitly mentioned.
* TimeTravel:
** The term players use for setting the system's clock just to do different events and holidays on the same day.
** [[AscendedMeme Used in-universe]] in ''New Leaf''. If a player time travels too much, the villagers will mention rumors of you being a time traveler.
* TokenHuman: Almost every NPC is a FunnyAnimal. Only player characters are confirmed human.
* {{Tomboy}}: The "Sisterly" villager type is this, talking about beating up bad guys and the like.
* TookALevelInJerkass:
** Though they're still friendly, Peppy villagers became more [[ItsAllAboutMe narcissistic]] in ''New Leaf''.
** As of ''New Leaf'', T-Bone and Dobie are now Cranky villagers, when they were Lazy villagers in the Gamecube version. However, since this is ''New Leaf'', this trope is Defied, because of how nice every villager is in the game.
* TookALevelInKindness: Snooty and Cranky villagers become less mean with every game.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood:
** Every town starts with a default fruit that becomes the ''de facto'' trademark favorite food of the locals.
** Chip loves fishing. More specifically, he loves ''eating'' fish -- any kind will do.
** Kapp'n often talks about his fondness for cucumbers, which is a nod to the {{kappa}} of folklore.
** Jack, the host of Halloween, loves candy. In ''New Leaf'' he has a particular taste for lollipops.
* TropicalIslandAdventure:
** Tortimer Island in ''New Leaf'', reachable by Kapp'n's boat.
** A tropical island is the main setting of ''New Horizons''. The player can still visit other islands, either those inhabited by other players or smaller ones meant for resource gathering or hunting for new villagers.
* {{Tsundere}}: The "Snooty" and "Cranky" villagers start off a bit abrasive to player before warming up to them.
* TuftOfHeadFur: Some of the villagers have tufts of fur instead of hair.
* UncannyValley: An in-universe example. On [[YouMeanXmas Bunny Day]], some of your villagers will note that they're ''seriously'' creeped out by how "not right" Zipper T. Bunny looks. It doesn't help that he looks noticeably different from the rabbit neighbors.
* UndesirablePrize: Receiving a shirt can be a nuisance at times, especially when given to you without being asked, as you may be more comfortable in the shirt that suits you, it uses up space in your inventory and it usually sells for a low price.
* UnknownItemIdentification: The game does this with the fossils. Originally you had to dig the raw fossils out of the ground, mail them off to be identified, then get them back to give to the museum. The later games simplify this by simply allowing you to take them straight to Blathers to be identified right away. A similar thing goes on with [[BlackMarket Redd's art sales]] in the earlier games (with the exception of the first, which lacked forgeries); while you know what you're buying, until ''New Leaf'' (which gives forgeries differing appearances), you have no way of knowing whether the painting/statue you just bought is real or fake until you try to donate it to the museum.
* UnintentionallyUnwinnable: A strange example, considering that the games don't have a traditional "win condition" in the first place. ''New Leaf'' has bamboo, which can reproduce and spread across town without the player's input, but which (once it's grown) can only be removed by cutting it down with an axe. There are reports of people having to restart their towns after not playing for several months due to bamboo effectively trapping the PlayerCharacter inside their house without an axe. This is changed in ''New Horizons'', as bamboo shoots now only grow underground.
* UpdatedRerelease:
** The first game (originally for the UsefulNotes/{{Nintendo 64}}) got a couple on the UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube, with the first of the two being released internationally and the Japan-only seconding Japanese players access to things added to the international release with some extras. Incidentally, at least the first of the two ended up not using much of the GCN's larger storage, as they turned out to be direct ports of the Nintendo 64 version with added features -- the entire game is loaded into RAM around the time the Nintendo logo fades out the first time, and can be played without the disc after that.
** ''New Leaf: Welcome amiibo'' was released in late 2016 and adds features like new items and villagers, as well as amiibo support. Unlike the [=GameCube=] rereleases, however, owners of the vanilla version can update to this version by downloading a free update from the [=eShop=], with the standalone release being intended for players who didn't previously own the original version of ''New Leaf''.
* VagueAge:
** Your neighbors: They're old enough to be living on their own, but the various birthday messages they get say things like "One step closer to being an adult!" Although this could just be sarcastic humour. About the only characters with even an ''implied'' age are the "Cranky" animals, who are at least suggested to be a bit older than anyone else.
** Joan. She claims to have been selling her turnips 'round these parts for ''over'' sixty years. Assuming she was maybe fifteen when she started her business, she must be pushing the high end of the [=70s=] when you start the game. She's probably an octogenarian in most established games. In ''New Horizons'', she's retired and her granddaughter Daisy Mae has taken over. Even she's a bit vague; her design and runny nose imply that she's ''very'' young, but she's traveling on her own to run the Stalk Market.
** The protagonist themselves. They look prepubescent (though that could be ArtisticAge), but have moved out and are implied to be at least teenage. The fourth generation makes their appearances look older, and also has them working full-time in all future games (as mayor in ''New Leaf'', at a home agency in ''Happy Home Designer'', and as a Resident Representative in ''New Horizons'').
* VariableMix: The hourly themes have unique variants for snowy days, the cherry blossom festival (in the first generation only), and rainy days (starting in ''Wild World'').
* VerbalTic: The various "neighbor" animals; you can even give them new phrases, bucko. Permanent [=NPCs=] occasionally have this trait as well (with the exception that their {{Verbal Tic}}s can't be changed), with the owl siblings, Blathers and Celeste saying "hoo" and "hootie-toot", respectively, and Brewster, the pigeon coffee shop clerk in the basement of the museum the owls work in, tending to say "coo" often. Tom Nook also tends to say "yes, yes" and "hm?" often, but unlike the previous examples, this is unrelated to his species. However, he and Timmy and Tommy share "oho!" as their tell-tale laugh, which is likely due to him training them as businessmen.
* VideoGameCaringPotential: It's hard not to care when your villagers refer to you with such {{Affectionate Nickname}}s as "Cupcake" and "Powderpuff". There are also their joyous reactions when you give them what they asked you for.
* VideoGameCrueltyPotential:
** You can push your neighbors into holes or hit them with a butterfly net or an axe, deny them medicine when they're sick, let garbage stack up all over town without pulling weeds, and send rage-inducing mail in LeetLingo or a foreign language. You can also teach them insulting or embarrassing things to say... you will never, EVER be punished for it either. Unfortunately, this also doesn't affect a neighbor's likelihood to move away. Later games seem to at least have ignoring them or hitting them make them more likely to leave, though it can still take quite some time.
** You can release fish into any body of water, no matter where they would normally be found. This means you can put a freshwater fish into the ocean, and vice versa. Where the cells of the fish will shrivel up/burst and most likely be fatal, causing a slow and painful death for the fish. For an E-rated game... that's pretty damn cruel. [[ButtMonkey Unless it's a Sea Bass.]]
** You can also do the same with insects, such as releasing a flea into a body of water and watch it immediately drown. Even if you aren't releasing them, you can chase them into the water by running close to them to make them flee.
** ''New Leaf'' introduced the Toy Hammer, which can be bought at the Island Shop. Despite rarely showing up, it serves no other purpose outside the minigame you use it in, other than to smack your neighbors or friends senseless.
** ''New Leaf'' also gives the player a box of Setsubun beans that can be thrown at people -- even when it isn't even Setsubun. There's nothing stopping you from throwing limitless handfuls of beans at your neighbors just for the fun of it, or throwing them at fish to scare them off.
* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment:
** If you jerk the medicine away from sick villagers, it's positively heartbreaking at times, with the [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold cranky]] villagers' reaction especially being a cruel sight.
** In ''New Leaf'' villagers may ask you to bring them fruit. Usually when you are giving something to a villager for an errand, irrelevant items in your inventory are grayed-out and unselectable, however for fruit errands you also have the option of giving bugs. If you do try that, the villager will either comment on how unappetizing the bug is or that it's not a fruit and give it back to you, with no reward. A much nastier scenario can occur if you decide to give them rotten fruit. They eat it none the wiser (because it looks exactly like perfect fruit on the outside) until it's too late. They get angry at you for trying to feed them garbage and give you a good yelling before walking off in a huff with no reward.
** If you push around the villagers too much, they'll eventually tell you off for it and be depressed or angry for a while afterwards. The same can be said with hitting a villager with a net repeatedly. Normal villagers, for example in "New Leaf", will start crying after they're hit with a net three times and then be sad afterwards.
* VideoGamePerversityPotential:
** Blanca. Said guest shows up in your town either faceless and asks you to give it a face, or walks around with a face that the game downloaded from Nintendo's servers (but allows you to change it) if internet connectivity is available. Now, the game doesn't perform checks to see if you really did draw a face onto Blanca instead of random scribbles (or worse, offensive images). Also, what you draw on Blanca inadvertently gets uploaded onto Nintendo's servers if the console has Internet connectivity. And apparently, Nintendo doesn't do random sampling checks on the faces uploaded into their servers, and there is no way to report offensive images. Hilarity ensues.[[labelnote:Protip]]Turn off Blanca visits in the game if you're giving it to a kid.[[/labelnote]] Thankfully, Nintendo finally caught on and removed this aspect of the game in ''New Leaf'', which gives Blanca a completely different role.
** Making a design at the tailor with offensive content in mind, and hope that a NPC buys clothing with said design on it. It's even possible to "nude" an NPC by making a shirt using the NPC's skin color as the base and adding the usual things you would see on a bare chest, be it male or female. Hilarity ensues also.
* ViolationOfCommonSense: The only way to catch bees/wasps in all of the games is to anger a beehive/wasp nest and swing your net at the flying bees/wasps coming to sting your sorry ass. You somehow only catch one of them but this causes the rest of the bees/wasps to flee. Try this in real life and see how well it goes for you.
** The fact itself that your character always holds up the fish or bugs they catch. Yes, even blowfish, tarantulas, scorpions and so on.
* VirtualPaperDoll: In the original, you can buy both pre-made clothes and design your own clothing patterns. In ''Wild World'', you can change your hairstyle and hat, while masks and other accessories were added into the mix. ''City Folk'' made it so you could change your shoes, and wear a Mii's face as a mask. In ''New Leaf'', clothing was separated into tops, bottoms, dresses, socks, and shoes; additionally, it's no longer gender-locked, allowing males to wear skirts and dresses and females to wear shirts and pants. ''New Horizons'' goes even further by allowing the player to freely customize their character's face and skintone, and no distinction is made between genders (now referred to as "style", which can be changed at any time).
* VisibleSigh: The "Deep Sigh" emotion.
* VocalDissonance:
** The Snowtyke of the Snowman family uses the Peppy voice, despite being a male too. Although, this may be because Snowtyke isn't at the point where his voice matures. Timmy and Tommy similarly have normally female voices, but are also half the height of anyone else and are likely still children.
** Some villagers have species/personality combinations that can cause this. Boone is a big, hulking gorilla villager colored to look like a mandrill, but speaks in the same high-pitched voice all jock villagers speak with. Then there's Hamphrey, who looks like a cute little hamster, but speaks with the same baritone warble used by all cranky villagers.
* VocalEvolution: [[SpeakingSimlish Animalese]] sounds different in each entry of the series:
** In the UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 original and its various re-releases, Animalese is somewhat high-pitched, but is much deeper in the English version for the UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube.
** In ''Wild World'', Animalese is noticeably higher-pitched in English, sounding like the Japanese variant of it; it also sounds more like gibberish in this game, rather than synthesized speech.
** ''City Folk'' offers a combination of the original games' Animalese and ''Wild World''[='s=], being higher-pitched but still discernible.
** ''New Leaf'' takes ''City Folk''[='s=] version of Animalese and adds the gimmick of it varying in pitch based on a character's personality, much like how certain [=NPCs=] throughout the series[[note]]Joan, Farley, Luna, and (in ''New Leaf'') guest player characters[[/note]] feature uniquely pitched voices.
** ''New Horizons'' builds off of ''New Leaf''[='=]s Animalese, with a somewhat softer tone. The voices are also pitched up or down within personality types for additional variety.
* VoluntaryShapeshifter: Blanca in ''New Leaf'', as part of the AprilFoolsDay minigame mechanic, can transform to look like other villagers.
* WallsOfText: Mr. Resetti never really goes through with any of the threats that he levies towards you should you reset and incur his wrath. However, the real punishment is time wasted on him going through his spiel. Exactly the thing many players wished to save by resetting the game for better results.
* WarmHeartedWalrus: Wendell is a friendly walrus who loves art, and travels far and wide selling his artwork. When he comes to the player's town, he is so worn out and hungry that he will gladly give you patterns (used to decorate clothes, walls, and other objects) in exchange for some food!
* WeBuyAnything:
** Tom Nook, naturally. He doesn't technically ''buy'' [[FishingForSole the garbage you might fish up]], but he will take it off your hands for free.
** In ''New Leaf'', you can sell your items to either Reese at Re-Tail or the Nooklings' shop. The Nooklings don't take everything, though, and give you 20% less than Re-Tail does for things they do take. You can also sell items to Kapp'n's daughter, but she only buys them at 5% of their normal value. Additionally, there are certain items you can't sell to Reese, who will instead make you pay a fee to dispose of them (or you can dispose of them in a garbage can for free).
** In ''New Horizons'', Tom Nook specifically mentions that Timmy will now accept absolutely anything including trash and weeds, lampshading that it's not the kind of business decision ''he'' would make but there might be merit to it anyway.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Kaitlin, Katie's mother, is absent in ''New Leaf''. No one seems to directly mention her, and we only have very vague hints of her presence from Katie.
* WhatTheHellPlayer:
** The villagers will call you out if you treat them badly in a few ways like the following:-
*** Giving them the wrong fruit, a bug, or rotten fruit when they ask for something to eat.
*** Pushing them around too much or repeatedly hitting them with a tool, such as a net.
*** Missing a scheduled visit to your or their house.
** In ''New Leaf'', if you press the B Button enough while Kapp'n is singing his song through your boat ride, he'll stop singing for you and you'll immediately cut to your destination. Although he ''will'' express his annoyance about you not letting him finish his song. Tapping the touch screen has the same effect. Kapp'n even pretty much says "Taptaptap!! Cut it out!".
** If you refuse to take Katie to another friend's town, the poor girl will look like she's ready to start crying for her mother.
** Make a snowman by putting a bigger snowball on top of a smaller one, and you'll get a Snowtyke that is none too happy about how it turned out:
--->Huh?! Did you put this head on me? You did, didn't you? Did you even think about the consequences of your actions? Sigh... Everyone's going to make fun of me!
* WholesomeCrossdresser: This becomes more possible in each game, and is equally available for any gender. From the beginning, some clothing items (such as the Sailor Uniform) that seem to be made for one gender have been openly available, though for most of the series the clothes would be altered based on the character's gender (boys would always wear clothes as shirts, girls would always wear them as dresses). ''Wild World'' and all games released afterward allow you to unlock the ability to have either gender's haircuts after you get your hair cut enough times, ''City Folk'' adds the ability to wear either gender's shoes, and the 3DS game simply makes skirts, dresses, pants, shirts, and shoes different kinds of items rather than altering clothing based on gender. So it's possible to start a game as one gender and eventually work your way to the point where the only way to tell the character's true gender is to look at their face (which may not help, since some faces are gender-neutral, and are able to be covered up), or the color of their ID card (PinkGirlBlueBoy, naturally). They even facilitate it by altering the character's running style based on their clothes--if a boy is wearing a dress, they'll still do a GirlyRun. By ''New Horizons'', it's no longer "crossdressing" so much as it is PurelyAestheticGender, since all clothing and dialogue is gender-neutral and the player's actual gender can be changed whenever.
* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: Blathers is NOT pleased by the fact that the museum has a bug wing. Sometimes he makes attempts to overcome his fear of bugs, such as opening the insect encyclopedia and forcing himself to touch every picture of a bug in it. Thankfully, his sister Celeste put a stop to his self-torture, telling him to just accept himself for who he is.
* WideOpenSandbox: A relatively small one compared to most games of this genre, considering that all the games take place entirely in a tiny village, but the lack of endgoal and emphasis on doing whatever you want means the series still falls into this genre.
* WindmillScenery: When donating 1,000,000 Bells to the City Hall in ''City Folk'', the player can choose to build a decorative windmill on the town's peninsula (if they don't chose the [[LighthousePoint lighthouse]] instead). The windmill returns in ''New Leaf'' as a Public Works Project.
* WintryAuroralSky: The series is a big offender of misplacing northern lights: in both ''City Folk'' and ''New Leaf'', auroras can appears several times during the cold winters, even though if the summer is to be believed, the town's climate is nowhere near polar.
* WorkOffTheDebt: The first three games downplay this as part of the JustifiedTutorial. When you arrive with not nearly enough money on-hand to pay off your home, Tom Nook hires you as a part-time worker. However, once you've completed all of the odd jobs he had yet to get to, in spite of the end result being not nearly enough to pay off the whole loan, Nook lets you loose anyway, trusting that you'll get the money to him eventually. In ''New Leaf'' and ''New Horizons'', the framing device of working for Tom Nook is removed, and the tutorial instead takes the form of Isabelle's mayoral orientation and Nook's push to develop the island, respectively; the player still has to pay off their debt themself.
* WorldOfFunnyAnimals: With the PlayerCharacter as the TokenHuman (visiting friends notwithstanding).
* YouHaveResearchedBreathing:
** Laughing? Frowning? Waving your hand? You'd have to learn these emotions through Dr. Shrunk. In ''Wild World'' and ''City Folk'' you could only have four of them at a time and would have to forget one if you want another. Fortunately, you get to keep all of them in ''New Leaf'' onwards, with the last one you unlock being Dr. Shrunk's trademark dance. In ''New Horizons'', you learn them randomly from villagers instead, though you get a basic set of "starting" emotions the first time you do.
** Some of the unlockable Public Works Projects in ''New Leaf''. You can build things like street signs and face-cutout standees right from the get-go, but public trash bins and drinking fountains are unavailable until suggested by villagers.
** Some of the DIY recipes in ''New Horizons''. For example, the DIY item "coconut juice" is basically a cut-open coconut with a straw in it. You can't make one until you get its DIY recipe. Special mention also goes to the Cardboard set, whose furniture items are basically piles of cardboard boxes, some with a flap or two taped upright to form backrests or armrests - all of which cannot be made until you acquire the relevant DIY recipe.
* YouMeanXmas:
** Toy Day, in the [[UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube GameCube]] version and ''New Leaf''; in ''City Folk'', the day is officially referred to as "the night Jingle comes to town", and referred to with a variety of {{Unusual Euphemism}}s by various characters.
** Less literally, Easter is referred to as Bunny Day in non-Japanese versions. Earth Day is also called Nature Day. Most others are referred to by their actual names.
** There's also Turkey Day for Thanksgiving and Festivale for Carnaval/Mardi Gras.
[[/folder]]
----

* ''Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival'' (Wii U, 2015): In this spin-off party game, you use amiibo figures to control famous ''Animal Crossing'' characters through a board game-styled map. The goal is to earn the most "Happy Points" by collecting money and participating in random events, ranging from bumping into each other and splitting your money in half to meeting a visiting character to initiate a special event.

** ''amiibo Festival'' allows you to import villager houses from ''Happy Home Designer''.

* PopQuiz:
** In ''New Leaf'', Gulliver will ask you to help identify his original destination by giving you a few factoids about it. Get it right, and he'll send you a souvenir.
** ''amiibo Festival'' has a pop quiz about the series itself; for example, it'll ask you to identify a villager based on their catchphrase or appearance.

* WormInAnApple: In ''Amiibo Festival'', one of the outcomes that can happen if you land on a space where you lose both Happy Points and Bells is you and your friends picking apples, only to find that all of the apples have worms in them, and having to pay to recycle the spoiled apples.

[[index]]

* DoesNotLikeShoes: With the freedom to change your shoes in ''New Leaf'' and ''New Horizons'', you can ditch shoes altogether to invoke this.

* FashionDesigner:
** The Able Sisters are country hedgehogs who avert the typical tropes for a fashion designer. Sable is quiet and prefers to absorb herself in her work, while Mabel is more sociable and does most of the talking for the two.
** Gracie is a giraffe who absolutely lives up to the trope, being very egotistical and 'artsy', as well as [[AmbiguouslyGay very]] [[CampGay camp]] (as ShesAManInJapan). One of the Able Sisters, Labelle, used to work for Gracie before reuniting with her family.
** The player has the ability to design their own patterns for shirts, dresses, or even hats for a small materials fee. From ''New Leaf'' onwards, a QR code reader can be used to save and share designs from other players, and other player's patterns can also be obtained via the Dream Suite.

* PronounTrouble: When villagers are referring to others, the parser is usually smart enough to use the proper pronouns. However, sisterly villagers are sometimes referred to with male pronouns, despite all sisterly villagers being female. With this in mind, ''New Horizons'' has completely GenderNeutralWriting, unless referring to static characters like Tom Nook or Isabelle.

* TheThingThatGoesDoink: The "deer scare" is available as a furniture item. You can give it to your deer neighbors but they don't seem to be afraid of it.

* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewHorizonsDesertedIslandDiary'': A {{Manga}} adaptation of the above-mentioned game by Kokonasu Rumba. The manga follows four humans who have come to an island and are tasked by Nook to build it up to their ideal homes. However, the humans are more concerned with goofing off and playing, much to Tom Nook's chagrin. It was published in July, 2021.

* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewHorizonsDesertedIslandDiaries'': A {{Manga}} adaptation of the above-mentioned game by Kokonasu Rumba. The manga follows four humans who have come to an island and are tasked by Nook to build it up to their ideal homes. However, the humans are more concerned with goofing off and playing, much to Tom Nook's chagrin. It was published in July, 2021.

* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewHorizonsDesertedIslandDiaries'': A {{Manga}} adaptation of the above-mentioned game by Kokonasu Rumba. The manga follows four humans who have come to an island and are tasked by Nook to build it up to their ideal homes. However, the humans are more concerned with goofing off and playing, much to Tom Nook's chagrin. It was published in July, 2021.

* PainfulPointyPufferfish: Implied when catching one in every game pufferfishes appear (except ''New Horizons''): instead of inspiring an IncrediblyLamePun to the character, they elicit a yelp of pain.

* ArtisticLicenseTechnology: In ''Happy Home Designer'', a Jock villager working on a computer may hit Alt and F4 out of curiosity, accidentally deleting his work in the process. In real life, unless you're using a really badly programmed word processing software, you'll get a popup asking if you really want to close without saving if you were to try and shut down the software.

** Blathers, the Able Sisters, and Tortimer were not introduced until the [=GameCube=] iterations of the series. Similarly, features tied to them were not available: there were no seasonal gifts that players could earn from the mayor, clothing could only be purchased at Tom Nook's shop (which would still be the case until ''Wild World'' gave this role to the Ables), there was no way to make your own clothing, and there was no museum in the town (only a Faraway Museum for identifying fossils, which could still be used as decorations). ''New Leaf'' would phase out Tortimer, having him retire to a private island with the player taking his place as mayor.

** Villagers, particular the Snooties, the Crankies, and surprisingly, the [[OutOfCharacter Peppies]] in the [=GameCube=] game could be outright ''visceral'' with how they treated the player, ranging from snarking at them to downright insulting them. The aforementioned personality types would lash at the players for the petty reasons, and in some cases, they'd get mad just because they assumed you said something to offend them. It also was fun being forced in exchange with an item that took a lot time and effort to get, or have bells stolen by Peppy villager such as Rosie who "wants to make life better for everyone". [[AmericanKirbyIsHardcore This hostility was only in the overseas localizations]] while the Japanese version used the usual nice animals that the rest of the games after ''Wild World'' are known for.

** There are two villagers named Petunia, a cow and a rhino; both are also Snooty villagers. Petunia the cow is only named as such in English (her Japanese name is "Shimoforu"), while Petunia the rhino was only seen in the Japanese ''e+'' for many years, and she was renamed "Azalea" for her overseas debut in ''New Horizons''.

** Several of the koalas and kangaroos are named after Australian locations or concepts. Alice, Canberra, and Sydney are all named after cities in Australia; Melba is named after Melba toast, and probably takes inspiration from the city of Melborune too (and her Japanese name is Adelaide, yet another city in Australia); Ozzie's name is a pun on the word "Aussie"; and Walt and Mathilda are named after the popular Australian song "Waltzing Matilda". In addition, Gonzo's catchphrase is "mate".

* AmericanKirbyIsHardcore: The original English installment is ripe so much with this, it's almost as if the localization team forgot what demographic the game was aimed at. It manifests mostly in the "edginess" of the dialogue, with the villagers using verbose vocabularies and occasionally making adult jokes (for example, Tom Nook telling you "feel free to browse, but try not to [[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/carouse carouse!]]"). The villagers, especially Cranky and Snooty villagers, also treat the player more harshly, and are much more prone to snap and get mad at you than the Japanese version (and later games, which skew closer to the Japanese text) no matter how small and petty the reason might be. That's not even getting into [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaOeX76DzK0&t=1m the English commercials]], which parody MTV's ''Series/TheRealWorld''.

** You can push your neighbors into holes or hit them with a butterfly net or an [[AnAxeToGrind axe]], deny them medicine when they're sick, let garbage stack up all over town without pulling weeds, and send rage-inducing mail in LeetLingo or a foreign language. You can also teach them insulting or embarrassing things to say... you will never, EVER be punished for it either. Unfortunately, this also doesn't affect a neighbor's likelihood to move away. Later games seem to at least have ignoring them or hitting them make them more likely to leave, though it can still take quite some time.