By First reviews for Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer have gone live, and critics have been mixed on their praise for the game.
The 3DS spin-off in the long-running life simulation series has you design interiors for the franchise's array of strange and wandering anthropomorphic residents. It's also the first game to make use of the new amiibo cards, unlocking new characters to come visit and design for.
While critics enjoyed the satisfaction of creating homes in the game, the lack of challenge, progression and scoring of designs have seen it receive some mixed opinions.
Dominic Leighton - The Sixth Axis
"There's a good level of content to be found here, between the constant flow of resident's requests and the expansion of the town plaza, which you can extend for as long as you like with remodels and redesigns which unlock later on. There's also plenty of variety to the different items, and with the ability to repaint and create your own designs you can make something truly unique.
"The simple and intuitive gameplay will especially appeal to younger gamers, as will the creativity, but the key disappointment is the limited scope. Happy Home Designer captures some of the Animal Crossing magic, but not enough to make it an essential entry in the series."
What to Read Next
"Although moving furniture and other items on the screen with your stylus is fun and can be a creative way to spend a few minutes on the bus and the train, it's never fun. And with no real way to see how you stack up with the rest of the world or even in the game, your creations essentially have zero validity.
"Although there are a fun mix of characters and the writing is what you'd expect from an Animal Crossing game, Happy Home Designer requires entirely too much work and not enough satisfaction for even the most dedicated fans of the franchise. If you're starving for some of the series' classic gameplay, you won't find it here."
"I've loved my time with Happy Home Designer, but I still crave the freedom of New Leaf. You just can't beat strolling around a town of your own design, collecting bugs and fish to further improvements. Ultimately what I really want is to take everything I've learned from designing rooms for frogs and take it back to my New Leaf town for my own personal use.
"If the two concepts are ever combined my loved ones will probably never see me again as I turn myself into a shut in, but for now this is a fantastic way to tide yourself over until that glorious day comes."
Damien McFerran - Nintendo Life
"The sheer volume of items to unlock is staggering, allowing you to cook up all manner of homely homesteads and fabulous facilities. The same world that captivated millions of players in New Leaf returns, with familiar faces that do a lot to augment the appeal of the core interior mechanics.
"However, the lack of any real challenge is a fatal flaw, and while it's possible to create a stunning variety of different rooms and buildings, the gameplay does become repetitive quite quickly."
"Happy Home Designer gets pretty much everything right when it comes to decorating, encouraging creativity, and exploring different styles. It's sometimes unsatisfying to work without a sense of progression, but taking away progression unlocks means there's no limits on the creativity you can express with Animal Crossing's huge range of options.
"There's no shortage of actual designing to do, and the series' charm prevents it from becoming just a series of soulless tasks. Plus, you won't have to worry about being in debt with a raccoon this time around."
"[All there is to Happy Home Designer is designing] homes and admir[ing] the finished projects. But even for such a simple idea, I still find myself going back in to see which villagers are looking for a new home and how interesting their theme sounds.
"It's strangely addicting, and designing homes for some of the more offbeat villagers like the mad scientists, wrestling fanatics, and criminal masterminds is really fun. I just wish they had built in some kind of grading rhetoric for how well your designs resonated with the clients."
