YMMV / Animal Crossing: Wild World

• Broken Base: Wild World was revolutionary for its time, being a massive 3D game with online play designed on a handheld in an era when those aspects on portable devices were a fresh concept. However, there's a divide on whether the game has held up today.
  • One aspect praised a lot is the writing, which many people feel is the best of the series. Villagers still have that GameCube snark and edge without being needlessly cruel, the Able Sisters backstory is expanded upon, and there's more discussion to be had with them than with any other iteration. There's a sort of love triangle between the Post Office Pelicans, and we get a rather extensive view of Tom Nook's backstory. The Roost and its owner, Brewster, were a fan-favorite addition to the series. Each time the player paid for his services, the bond between him and the player grew closer and closer, a beloved feature through the entire series. When Brewster was removed in the base game of New Horizons, there was a massive outcry, and his return was a much-touted feature of the 2.0 update.
  • At the same time, other aspects of the game can feel somewhat barren, such as the tiny number of unique villagers, all players sharing one house, and the lack of real-world holidays. Wild World also removed the ability to directly ask villagers for favors^note at least in the international versions, as the Japan-only e+ was the first game to do so, and it's been the new standard going forward. This annoyed many players, as it essentially just comes down to chance whether they'll ask for a favor or not. However, the favors you do in this game pertain to the hobbies and interests certain villagers have, and this adds more character to the neighbors you're living with, making them feel a bit more life-like and less like fetch quests.
• Contested Sequel: Wild World to Animal Crossing (2001) gets a lot of polarized views within the fandom. Wild World introduced many things, but at the same time, removed a lot of content: the real-life-based holidays from the first game were replaced with generic and "less interesting" holidays and certain villagers didn't make a comeback until City Folk. Detractors also cite the clunky implementation of touch controls (owing in part to the DS's lack of an analog control stick/pad), the downgrades to music carried over from the first installment, and the fact that all four players are forced to share a house instead of each getting their own. Luckily for these detractors, a lot of these issues would be amended in Animal Crossing: City Folk and onwards, but in the case of Wild World, the amount of sacrifices made cause some to regard it as the qualitative nadir of the Animal Crossing series in hindsight.
• Everyone Is Satan in Hell: A number of news outlets picked up K.K.'s statement that "Those industry fat cats try to put a price on my music, but it wants to be free," and interpreted it as Nintendo advocating that Digital Piracy Is Okay, at a time when online piracy was a hot-button issue. Nintendo of America had to put out a statement clarifying that K.K.'s line was not meant as an endorsement of piracy, and was simply supposed to reflect his free-spirited nature.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In one of his lectures if the player resets in Wild World, Resetti mentions that he will "go a few rounds" with his cousin, "Vicious Vole Vinnie", if the player keeps it up. Several years down the road a particular Internet comedian created a joke game called Vinnie Vole's Existential Nightmare.
  • Marina isn't the only Nintendo octopus with that name anymore.
• Older Than They Think: Several "new" features, such as the ability to pick up flowers and join in villagers' conversations, were introduced in Doubutsu no Mori e+ before making their international debut here.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The 10-minute time limit on certain favors means it is possible to locate a villager in one of the emotional states that precludes interaction and have them remain in that state until after the time limit is up. In later games, like New Leaf, the time limit is extended to the end of the day (6 a.m.) or even into the next day if it's late enough, alleviating this greatly.
  • The method to unlock Nookington's. Population: Growing! required a player from another town to shop at Nookway, which was one of two prerequisites of the expansion. A second memory card had to be used in order to work. Wild World altered this by requiring either "Local Play" or the now-defunct Wi-Fi Connection to do the same thing. This was frustrating for players, since while it's easy to get a second memory card for a GameCube, it's significantly more difficult to find a second DS and copy of the game, and with Wi-Fi being taken down, this is now the only way to unlock Nookington's. The Wii U fixed this by removing this prerequisite, thankfully.
  • The introduction of art forgeries in this game was... "bile-inducing" to say the very least. There was absolutely no way to know if a piece of art was fake or real before purchase which meant that you were forced to gamble with your bells and hope that Blathers can verify your recent acquisition as authentic. Otherwise, Redd and Lyle would be laughing at you after they successfully cheated you out of a nice payment.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • The exclusion of the players' famous hats from Wild World onward was originally met with some discomfort by fans of the GameCube title. You can still get the hats if you put them on as custom clothing, but it's not the same. This can be funny in hindsight, since the hats are seen as an Early-Installment Weirdness quirk now.
  • The decision to remove the regional holidays in place of, often times bland, general ones in this game was met with backlash, and the exclusion of the Sports Fair and Morning Aerobics in this game and all future installments didn't resonate well with many players either. Out of all the holidays Wild World would feature, "Yay Day" is usually the most criticized.
  • Many who played the GCN version of Animal Crossing were not pleased that Nintendo removed the NES games starting with Wild World. To a lot of people, the NES games in Animal Crossing were a feature that gave them reason to continue playing even during late night hours. Nintendo has never given a clear reason as to why NES games never returned, but it's suspected that the Virtual Console may have been a factor. The Welcome amiibo expansion to New Leaf revives the concept somewhat with the unique minigames that can be accessed with the Wii U and 3DS furniture pieces, but some fans still wish that actual NES games would come back to the series.
  • The English version of the Animalese in the GameCube game was deeper and more phonetic than the Japanese version. Wild World changed it to be more similar to the Japanese version, which mixed reception amongst fans. Later games struck a better balance, keeping the distinct sound of the Japanese version while sounding more like English.
• Underused Game Mechanic: One of the series main staples is to decorate your house however you see fit. But in this game and City Folk, the player's upstairs attic is completely uncustomizable, as it's used to save your game. Aside from swapping beds, furniture cannot be placed in the attic and the wallpaper and flooring cannot be changed either.
• Values Dissonance:
  • In the Japanese release, the Mini Mustache accessory is a toothbrush mustache, a style widely associated with German dictator Adolf Hitler. Japanese society generally treats Nazi Germany as just a long-gone part of Germany's history, while Americans also associate it enough with Charlie Chaplin that the style isn't totally obsolete, but in Germany itself, the era is such a huge Old Shame that the European release of Wild World alters the accessory to a more innocuous pencil mustache.
  • A more minor example: villagers will occasionally ask the player what their blood type is. In Japan, knowing one's blood type is considered essential for understanding one's personality and compatibility with others — comparable to the Western Zodiac's star signs. This isn't the case in the West, so the significance is lost on many Western players, especially younger players who may not even know their blood type. The European localization changes this question so villagers instead ask the player which parent they prefer.

---