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![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I think perceptions of the 4 AM theme in New Leaf are mostly informed by Aika Village, a dream village that a Japanese player elaborately designed to tell a psychological horror story through the game's customization options. Said village is set at 4 AM, likely because of the Four Is Death trope in Japanese culture. Of course, I'm not exactly confident that "it's creepy in the context of a fan work" counts when referring to the source material.
Alright; removed it and cited this thread.
Edited by bowserbros on May 19th 2022 at 11:07:00 AM
Be kind.
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Asked this in the Scrappy Mechanic cleanup thread
, but haven't gotten any responses almost three weeks later, so I thought I might ask here:
Previously in that thread, I'd brought up a point on YMMV.Animal Crossing 2001 about how the rainy day theme plays all day long. I and others in the thread agreed that in-game music can't qualify as a Scrappy Mechanic in and of itself, so I removed it. However, some time later, Plutopiter reinserted a reference to it (in bold) at the end of another point:
- Precipitative weather lasts the entire day rather than having the chance to appear and disappear at varying hours. While it's beneficial for fishing, since the Coelacanth only appears during rain and snow, it severely reduces which bugs are able to spawn, putting a dent in any plans to complete the Museum and legitimately obtain the golden net (assuming that the affected bugs still have yet to be caught and donated). Also, the rainy day theme lasts the entire day, which can get annoying pretty quickly.
Given the above explanation, would it be best to remove the bolded portion again? Be kind.
If music can't qualify as a Scrappy Mechanic I think you're good to remove it, but since re-removing at this point would be an edit war without clear consensus, I'd wait to make sure you definitely have consensus that the addition is misuse before doing so.
I did look back through Plutopiter's edit history however, and they were the one who originally added the point about the music so they have in fact edit warred already by re-adding the example.
Edited by Zarina on May 23rd 2022 at 3:46:08 AM
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Hmm, in that case would it be best to take the matter to ATT?
I sent them a notifier for misuse and informed them that it was also an edit war, but an ATT thread to bring attention to it and get consensus on the entry wouldn't hurt.
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Alright, I made an ATT post on the matter.
Edit: The matter's been resolved and the part in question has been removed per the ATT thread.
Edited by bowserbros on May 24th 2022 at 5:08:37 AM
Be kind.
Here with more Nightmare Fuel entries that I think can be changed or removed.
I'm kind of doubtful of this one. As a child, I was amused enough by Resetti's rants to deliberately end the game without saving in order to make him yell. Maybe I was just a weird kid, but I haven't heard of anyone really finding him scary, and long-time players are fond enough of him that there was the option to bring him back in New Leaf after he'd been gone from previous games.
- The tarantula in Wild World onwards. Thankfully rare, if it sees you approaching while carrying a bug net, it flips out and attacks you. The horrifying part of this is that your character PASSES OUT and the screen fades to black. Luckily, you end up in front of your house, no worse for the wear, but it's still a horrifying event in a game where the seemingly worst fate for your character is being stung by bees. The scorpion does the same. And in New Horizons? They appear not in the summer, but from November to April! In addition, in New Horizons, if you run, the tarantula goes after your sorry behind. And if you wish to catch it in that game, it's an exercise in nerve-wracking patience as approaching it while its legs are up will provoke it to strike, turning it into “red light, green light”. And that’s not helping that May is now the month the scorpion starts to appear, lasting until October.
- Speaking of them, the bees themselves aren't much better. When you shake the trees, sometimes a beehive falls. Your character gets an Oh, Crap! expression and if you're not quick enough to either capture one of them without missing or run into either your or someone else's house, the bees will sting you mercilessly, causing some rather severe wounds on your face. Where, exactly? On your eyelid. OW. Not helped that in New Horizons, they're renamed as WASPS, due to the previous name being a somewhat inaccurate translation. New Horizons even encourages you to get up in the face of the little pests more often for collecting wood and using the wasp nests in DIY recipes. You even need to get intentionally stung to receive a DIY recipe for medicine from one of your neighbors in New Horizons.
- To make matters scarier in New Horizons, if you get stung again without taking medicine from the previous attack, you pass out. The same way you do if the aforementioned Tarantula or Scorpion get you.
- And, in a surprising and totally painful (literally) twist, you earn Nook Miles for either getting stung by wasps twice, and getting bitten by either by the tarantula or the scorpion for the 'FIRST TIME. What a revoltingly bad way to get Nook Miles.
- According to this Animal Crossing Wiki article here, the wasps are based on the Japanese Giant Hornet. This◊ image alone is Nightmare Fuel... when you think about how horrifying it is for your in-game character (or your real-life self) to be stung by them.
- To make things even worse, one of the islands you can travel to in New Horizons is absolutely infested with tarantulas. And the same soothing island music plays, so you won't know you've stepped into arachnid hell until you step forward and suddenly find the place swarming with those creepy little assholes. If you know an exploit, you can even turn an otherwise normal island into a tarantula-ridden "paradise". At least they sell for a LOT of Bells.
- Whenever you catch a creature, all non-player activity freezes until you exit the dialogue. Which means if you catch a tarantula, wasp, or scorpion while another one of them is after you, you'll find yourself triumphantly celebrating your catch, with no way to break away from the critter that may as well be saying "You Are Already Dead."
While it's true that getting chased by tarantulas/scorpions/wasps can give you a jump, this entry is really nattery and badly indented, and I think it's overblowing the scare factor.
- The Atlas Moth. Unlike other bugs, which are happy to crawl around on the ground and on flowers or flutter about, this one just rests ominously on trees, waiting, looking incredibly eerie with how their stillness contrasts against the rapid activity of other bugs.
This isn't remotely scary unless you have a phobia of moths.
- Stop playing the game for long enough and the next time you enter your house, it will be infested by cockroaches, heralded by your character doing the "Shocked" expression.
Neither is this, unless you have a phobia of cockroaches.
- Sometimes villagers will just stare off into the distance, their pupils constricted or face having the “surprised/shocked” expression. It’s a little off-putting if they don’t explain why or what made them react that way.
Don't think this counts either.
♀ | Small ripples lead to big waves
I rewrote the Resetti entry a while ago because it used to be a stealth zero-context example, but he didn't scare me as a kid either, I just found him annoying. I can't speak for everyone, though. The last three can definitely go.
I cut all of the secondary bullet points underneath the tarantula entry and will see if it can be rewritten in a fitting way. I also cut the last few entries entirely. I'll leave the Resetti one as-is in case other people want to weigh in.
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Bit unsure about this point on ScrappyMechanic.Animal Crossing New Horizons, and IIRC it was previously brought up before in another thread:
- Unlike most other electronic objects that make sound, there is no way to mute or turn off the music on arcade cabinets, which can get very annoying and melodically dissonant if you have several of them in the same room.
Would it really count as a mechanic if it doesn't affect actual gameplay? Be kind.
If music doesn't count as a Scrappy Mechanic, I wouldn't think that sound effects do either.
The wasps and arachnids aren't really scary, they just give you an Oh, Crap! reaction and more count as Goddamned Bats and in the case of the arachnids, Mook Bouncer if anything. Maybe in the early games where they were harder to catch but since you can literally shake a tree with your net, the wasps are a non threat and the scorpions and tarantulas while still hard to catch are significantly rarer in New Horizons than they used to be. Plus the villagers warn you of them often by staring in the direction of the tarantula/scorpion, so it's more an annoyance. I can't speak for most younger fans, but I personally was more annoyed by the sting than afraid.
Edited by Klavice on Jun 7th 2022 at 2:05:39 AM
♀ | Small ripples lead to big waves
Are you still allowed to put Most Annoying Sound on YMMV pages?
Turns out that there is a separate GoddamnedBats.Animal Crossing page already, though on looking at it I'm questioning if the entries on it already really fit the trope definition. I think that it would suit the tarantula/scorpion/wasp though, as they actually inconvenience you and take some skill to catch.
Most Annoying Sound looks to be Darth Wiki, so I think it wouldn't be applicable for YMMV.
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Went ahead and removed the arcade cabinet point, citing this thread. Along the way, I also found this other point that could use a rewrite:
- An exceptionally disliked mechanic is the overly aggressive promotion of multiplayer via "variation-locking" of furniture colors, rendering large swathes of the catalogue (or even specific items in specific colors) virtually unobtainable without multiplayer. Each player's Nook's Cranny will be locked to selling one variant of each furniture and can only obtain variations without relying on visiting other player's towns by shaking them out of trees, shooting down balloons, or obtaining them from Redd or Wisp, and not only is there no guarantee that the player will receive a variant they're missing, certain seasonal furniture (Summer/Winter-exclusive furniture and the Toy Day toys), furniture exceeding 10,000 bells, and any furniture ordered with Nook Miles are exempt from this rule. Customizing store-bought furniture is impossible, and if it is allowed, it can only alter specific parts and details of the furniture. The only way to see other variants of these furniture items without relying on luck is to visit other players' islands and buy, trade, or catalognote each individual item, receive them as gifts from other human players in the mail, or, as of version 2.0.0, enlist Cyrus of Re-Tail fame to customize them for you on Harv's island.
Here's my hand at adjusting this point:
- An exceptionally disliked mechanic prior to the Version 2.0.0 update was "variation-locking" of furniture, in which each island's Nook's Cranny only sells one variant of each furniture item as a means of promoting multiplayer. As these variants can't be changed with customization kits, the only way to obtain different ones without traveling to another island was shaking them out of trees, shooting down balloons, or obtaining them from Redd or Wisp, and even then there's no guarantee that you'll obtain a missing variant. Furthermore, certain seasonal furniture, furniture that costs over 10,000 bells, and Nook Miles furniture are all exempt from this. This attracted so many complaints that Nintendo eventually gave players the ability to change furniture variants (even ones exempt from previous methods) at Reese & Cyrus' stand on Harv's island in Version 2.0.0.
Thoughts? Be kind.
"Furthermore, certain seasonal furniture, furniture that costs over 10,000 bells, and Nook Miles furniture are all exempt from this."
Exempt from what? It's not clear in either example whether these furniture items are exempt from being unable to customize, or from being found through methods like the balloon packages.
I think the rest of the rewrite looks good.
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I didn't dig into the matter myself, but from what I can tell, "this" refers to the methods of obtaining other variants without multiplayer. Given that, maybe an adjusted version of the rewrite would look like these:
- An exceptionally disliked mechanic prior to the Version 2.0.0 update was "variation-locking" of furniture, in which each island's Nook's Cranny only sells one variant of each furniture item as a means of promoting multiplayer. As these variants can't be changed with customization kits, the only way to obtain different ones without traveling to another island was shaking them out of trees, shooting down balloons, or obtaining them from Redd or Wisp, and even then there's no guarantee that you'll obtain a missing variant. Furthermore, certain seasonal furniture, furniture that costs over 10,000 bells, and Nook Miles furniture are all exempt from these methods. This attracted so many complaints that Nintendo eventually gave players the ability to change furniture variants (even ones exempt from previous methods) at Reese & Cyrus' stand on Harv's island in Version 2.0.0.
Thoughts? Be kind.
I think that's better, yeah.
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Alright, swapped it in and cited this thread.
As for K.K. Oasis and K.K. Dirge, they're really not that terrifying. Honestly, they might be jarring the first time you hear them but have gotten substantially less jarring with each installment toning down the edginess of the song. I actually really enjoy KK Oasis, feels like something that would play in Ankha's house.
The 4 AM theme in New Leaf, THAT is a unnerving song but is unnerving enough to be scary? Might wanna bring this to the NF cleanup page. Though I do remember not liking hunting bugs during 4AM and Paranoia Fuel would kick in.