Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Easy Allies Review

After a few weeks with the latest Animal Crossing, our craving for catching rare bugs and improving our island hasn't calmed one bit. The series' first console release in over a decade has some slow parts, but enough has been improved to make it a difficult vacation to leave behind.

Written and Edited by Brandon Jones
Available on Switch

#EasyAllies #AnimalCrossing #AnimalCrossingNewHorizons #ACNH

[cisco]

Brandon Jones’s voice always makes me want to buy every game he reviews

[DiskCart]

This is clearly comprehensive and covered a lot that is missed in other reviews. Anyone finding this review will get the full picture! I always appreciate a non rushed review

Excellent review Jones! I'm glad to see that the serial killer hair cut (8:13) made it to the review.

[Yellowtoxin]

His voice reminds me so much about my younger days watching GT reviews and get super hyped about the game. So happy they continued doing this

[ShardReaper]

I don’t think I realized how much I treasured this voice growing up until I binged about every EZA review over the last few weeks

[UltraPvnk]

Of all the reviews I have seen ever since they started showing up, this one is the best. Thanks!

[Kidney]

I love the use of the music at the start. Easy Allies reviews always seem so classy.

[jaypappo]

Jones is the man: writing, editing and voicing it. Been following since early GT days in the late 90s (or early 200s dunno).

[JIPunisherIL]

I'm just here to see Jones' wealthy serial killer haircut.

[PLAYER_]

Good review. I appreciate reviews that aren't rushed... Especially, for a game as in-depth and time sensitive as Animal Crossing. As of this video, it's sold more than all the previous AC games combined. It hit at just the right time when people were needing something to do while quarantined, but also a sense of control, normalcy and routine in their lives. Plus, the overly positive nature of the game is also welcomed in a time filled with death and uncertainty. Since video games are more prominent in our culture than previous decades, I hope historians cover their role during this crisis when they look back on it. I also hope AC:NH is listed among them for being what many people needed to maintain their mental health and social connectivity through these trying times.

[paulmaloney]

Overall I think New Horizons is easily the best game in the series. BUT, I found the businesses on the island to be lacking!

Why can we only upgrade Nook's store once (small furniture selection)? Where's the Dream Suite from New Leaf (IMAGINE being able to tour an uploaded copy of the coolest islands)? Where's Re-Tail from New Leaf (buy crazy items made out of the trash on the island)? Wheres the coffee shop (give more/different energy than fruit)? Where's Redd and his paintings/museum section?

[hisokabeatbox]

Jones with another review?! How much is this man working?!

[MrFacepunch]

Haven't played the game, but this review is a 10/10

[kusi]

Great review, but why does he have a psychopath's haircut at 8:14?

[TacoCookiez]

2:52

The easiest way to eliminate the immediate lack of a tool when it brakes is to carry a spare. Thankfully this game lets you upgrade your pocket size twice to a total of 40 slots so storage space never becomes an issue. Tools breaking can feel pretty tedious at first, but it adds a really subtle enhancement to the experience. Crafting a tool requires you to go out and chop wood or gather branches while upgrading it requires iron. Branches are gathered by shaking trees, wood is gathered by chopping them with and axe, and iron is gathered by hitting rocks with a blunt item (shovel/axe). Shaking/chopping a tree also has the chance of dropping miscellaneous items such as 100 bells, furniture, or wasps, which can be caught and sold for 2, 500 bells. Hitting rocks also has the chance of spawning money.

Here's what I'm trying to get at: by having tools break, the player is somewhat forced to go out and shake trees/hit rocks which in turn allows them to experience those small moments of "Oh!" discoveries of having furniture drop from trees or money spawn from rocks. For me, in previous games there was very little incentive to go around shaking trees because being stung by wasps didn't seem worth it so but now I can say I have definitely gotten more furniture from tree drops in this game than I ever have in previous versions.

*SPOILERS*
I did say somewhat forced, because once you unlock Nook's Cranny you're allowed to buy flimsy tools which eliminates the need to chop/shake trees so you can skip gathering later on. Even later when you upgrade the shop to its second tier you get "sporty" versions of tools which are more colorful versions of the regular tools. These are sold at a pretty high price though (2, 500 bells) so you have to weigh if its worth paying that price to save you time.
*END SPOILERS*

Now granted on paper this all seems very nice and when you look at it from this perspective I think some things make a lot more sense. In reality, however, the crafting system can be extremely tedious since you can only craft one item at a time, which you guys mentioned at 5:26) and it very VERY quickly gets old (manila is NOT my favorite flavor). But I think if they fixed the tedious crafting by adding batch-crafting it would nearly fix crafting as a whole and help open up seeing crafting as a nice addition to the game.

[deadmegatron]

I love how you timed this video at just short of 10 minutes :-)

[Ornoob-]

I was gifted this game and when I looked it up, I was ready to bash it for being so mundane. How can people like something with such boring stuff, I thought. Suffice it to say, When I started it up, I was hooked and played for 5 hours even when there was nothing to do and all my daily activities were done. After a week with this, I really think I have never played any other game that has hooked me with such gameplay. There is something about this game that makes me want to play throughout the day that I just cant put a finger on, and that is quite an astonishing thing for a game to do.

[johnpookie]

I love how you gays end every episode like a PBS program. Lol 😂 😂 😂

[Encyclopedia_Brown]

Jones’s voice has been so calming and relaxing going the way back to those retrospectives on Gametrailers

[LoomDoom]

I’ve been waiting to hear what Jones had to say. Great review! I don’t play Animal Crossing as its not my cup of tea, but I’m delighted to see everyone else having fun with it.