Release Date: September 15, 2002
Developers: Nintendo Entertainment Analysis And Development
Publishers: Nintendo
System: Gamecube
Rated: E

This game is a life simulation game for GameCube. So this game can go on forever and ever until you perish away. If you don't know me by now, I rate on a 1-10 scale.

Story: 5
The story is different from other Nintendo games, but is too much like real life. You are a person and you want to move out of your house. So you board a train and you meet a cat named Rover. He contacts store owner Tom Nook for him to get you a house. Then you arrive in town and must start out by doing chores and so on. Like I said, too much like real life and not very creative, but this is just a life simulation game so what can you expect?

Gameplay: 8
This game can be played many ways. You start off as an employee at Tom Nook's, but then you are free from him soon. Then you must pay off your first house payment, second, third, and so on. You make money by selling such things as old furniture, bugs, and fish. You also find money in trees and mail, and some villagers give it to you for doing chores for them. By the way, money is known as "Bells" in this game. You want to keep SOME furniture because the HRA (Happy Rooms Academy) grade you on how your house looks. You also get to collect clothes, talk to townsfolk, make your own clothing, and so on. There are a billion things to do in town. One of the most unique things about gameplay in this game is time passes just as it does in real life. If it's December 2006 at 4 PM, it will be daylight, snowing, and it will show the exact time and everything. That is really cool, too. Different things happen throughout the year, too, like events, holidays, etc. The only weird thing is there is no Christmas. I found it very weird to take that holiday out, but keep one such as Arbor Day.

Characters: 7
First let's talk about the characters that are in every town. There's Blathers, the museum host, Copper the town cop who holds lost items with his fellow partner Booker, Kpp'n, who will take you to a tropical vacation island if you have Gameboy Advance compatibility, Tom Nook, the storeowner who will upgrade your house, Tortimer, the mayor who will give you a present every holiday/event, Totakeke, who on every Saturday will play a song for you and give you his song to be played for yourself, and Porter, the engineer person who will take you aboard the train to new towns.

Now here's what hurt the scores: The villagers. Sure there are over 250 in the game, and only about 15 per town. So you don't know who they will be. The thing is they all have different names and say different things, but there are really only six different personality types: moody, forgetful, sweet, athletic, peppy, and snobby. There might be an alligator that says different words than a cat, but might have the exact same personality. This hurt the score because it's annoying having the same personalities in towns. You also get certain characters that show up in different months of the year too. They will have certain merchandise to sell.

Originality: 10
This is a one-of-a-kind game. Sure, you have the Sims on the PC, but it's really not like this game at all. This game is very different and is excellent. Anyway, Nintendo impressed me with the originality this time.

Graphics: 2
It's about time I attacked a negative side. The graphics are terrible, they look like colorful, strange, odd graphics. You are supposed to be the only human, but you barely look different than the animals in the town. They look really bad and I'd have to say this is one of the worst on GameCube. I mean they could have done a lot better, in fact, SMRPG looks twice as good and it's on the SNES. Wow! Bad job, Nintendo. YUCK!

Music: 7
The music is nice and relaxing. You have your shop themes, you have your loading screen theme, and you have a different song for each season. Really the music is nice and relaxing. I love Totakeke's music too. He has over 60 songs to collect, and I like about 50 of them. Really the only reason I took off points is because I think it would have been nice to hear more energizing music rather than only relaxing music. Overall, it was good.

Items: 10
There can be no complaining here. First of all you have a MAJOR variety: clothes (shirts), stationery, bugs, fish, NES games, furniture, wallpaper, and some garbage. Anway you have over 40 fish, 40 bugs, 30 pieces of furniture, 300 pieces of clothing, 200 wallpaper, and 19 NES games. You can't ask for more than that, really. You also collect paintings, and these things called Gyroids that dance to your music. There are fossils too. And you also get to go down to the tailor (Mabel and Abel), and they will let you make your own clothing too. You defintely will have plenty of items to collect in this game. Don't worry, you might NEVER collect them all, I haven't. Here's a list of the NES games.

Balloon Fight
Baseball
Clu Clu Land
Clu CluLand D
Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong Jr.
Donkey Kong Jr. Math (shortened to DK Jr. MATH in the menu)
Donkey Kong 3
Excitebike
Golf
Ice Climber
The Legend of Zelda (available with Action Replay)
Mario Bros
Pinball
Punch-Out!!
Soccer
Super Mario Bros. (available with Action Replay)
Tennis
Wario's Woods

It's amazing, really, how Nintendo can fit so many items in one game.

Difficulty: Depends
That's right, it depends. Really, if you're just looking to start a life that's decent, collect a decent number of items, and get a decent house, then the difficulty is about a 0. Now if you're looking to collect every item, plus pay off all of your debt and get a perfect score with the HRA, then this is EXTREMELY hard (about a 10). It's all patience in this game because you will need a lot of it to do everything that needs to be done in the game.

Secrets: 6
For an endless game, there is a decent number of secrets. Really the NES games are secrets. Now you do have secret characters that appear under these following circumstances: RESET THE GAME, I DARE YA. You'll see what I'm talking about... You'll also get secret characters that appear to spook you, and at certain times of the night they will appear too. Every secret character has an item, so be aware.

Controls: 9
Can't ask for better. A is your action button to use your fishing pole, plant trees, pull weeds, use your net, open doors, etc. Then if you hold B you will run. That's it. Oh, X is your map and START is the pause screen, which is your menu screen. The only reason I took a point off is because sometimes it can be confusing to catch fish and bugs, but really overall it's very easy. (Please tell me you can use the NES controls, can you?)

Overall: 9
I'd recommend this game to anyone who has a GameCube. Really I would still pay $40 for it, it will keep you busy for months.