The Animal Crossing franchise has many beloved features, but fans are thrilled that one particular aspect never made it into Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The series is known for its cute playable characters and memorable animal villagers. The game is also beloved by many for being a relaxing and cozy island decorating experience. That said, there's one feature of the older games that fans agree was more stressful than cozy.
Fellow New Horizon players agree wholeheartedly with user Scorbunny_Ear, who pointed out in a post that "I’m glad that grass deterioration didn’t return in New Horizons." In Animal Crossing: City Folk and Animal Crossing: New Leaf, the grass had a realistic mechanic that saw it deteriorate as more players walked across it. This meant that walking the same path often enough would result in worn-down grass-free dirt paths.
Grass Deterioration Did Not Make It Into Animal Crossing New Horizons
The Feature Messed With Island Aesthetics
Scorbunny_Ear shared a screenshot from one of the earlier Animal Crossing games showing a completely barren island, devoid of grass and looking worse for wear. The cute bunny-hooded and ballooned character shown standing on the brown ground seems out of place with its cheeriness on the grass-free island. The Redditor also mentions in their post that it was very difficult to get lost grass to regrow without using save editors or cheats.
Some Animal Crossing: New Horizons Nook Miles achievements are easy to net, but some take a lot of time, patience, and plain old luck.
Longtime Animal Crossing players agree that the feature was "honestly so stupid and useless," as sumemodude puts it. They go on to add that the feature was made even worse by the fact that villagers could also damage the grass when they walked over it, so players had no way to avoid the deterioration, even if they walked in carefully planned paths. Despite their best efforts, sumemodude couldn't manage to get the grass to fully grow back, even three years later.
Our Take: Some Things Are Meant To Stay In The Past In Animal Crossing
Fans Are Happy To Leave Grass Deterioration In The Past
Even though grass deterioration is a small feature that didn't seem to affect much in terms of gameplay, it bothered many fans. In a game that's all about decorating and designing your own space, it can be incredibly jarring to have so little control over such a fundamentally visual part of the area. Like many others in the comments, Redditor TheGuy789 is happy that New Horizons left the feature in the past. "It was a bizarre experiment," they say. "A punishment for simply playing the game. I love City Folk and it holds a special place in my heart as one of my favorite games ever, but grass deterioration is just...bad."
Although most fans agree that the grass deterioration element was a nuisance, some players actually enjoyed it. Several comments point out that the feature made the island look more lived in and let them see the passage of time. User sleepydan333 has a great solution that I'd also love to see in future games: "I'd love to see natural paths be a toggle feature that each player could choose to utilize for themselves or not!"
New Horizons is a fantastic game that I love dearly, but I would personally love to see future games give players more power over how they want their islands to look and behave. I hope future games take a page from Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp's page and let players choose everything from how the sky looks to which villagers come to live on the island. Until then, I'm just glad that the grass deterioration feature was removed from Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
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