Category: Retro

While shopping on eBay I came across these collector items and couldn’t pass the deal. While I am little tight on cash as I need to spend it on my car and bills, little retro joy couldn’t hurt.

Not many know that Animal Crossing as well as some other GameCube games were also released on the Nintendo 64 in Japan. 64 was still popular in Japan that Nintnedo decided to support it with some of the GameCube ports like the above Animal Forest (Japanese name for Animal Crossing).

Although I’m still not sure how I will be able to play it considering that everything is in Japanese. Yes I know the game and yes I will most likely make my way around but some stuff just needs reading and answering. Never the less, this is something I wanted for sometime. There are some difreeance between this and the GameCube port, listed bellow and taken from the Animal Crossing wikia:The real-time clock made a new feature for games.

• A player catches a Herabuna, an Animal Forest-only fish.
• Questions are asked to determine your look.
• The Able Sisters and their shop are not in Animal Forest; thus, designs are not available.
• When fish are released in the N64 game, they bounce along the ground and into the water instead of diving straight in.
• Insects are not restricted by acres and can freely wander into other acres. Banded Dragonflies and similar, airborne insects cannot fly too far out to sea in the N64 game, but in Animal Crossing there is no limit.
• Some of the wallpapers and carpets from Animal Forest were redesigned or removed in Animal Crossing.
• Some of the clothing from Animal Forest, for example, the N Logo shirt (G Logo in Animal Crossing), are redesigned or removed in Animal Crossing.
• Two sets of stationery from Animal Forest, the New Year’s Card and the Fortune Paper, are redesigned.
• The holidays from Animal Forest are either changed or removed in Animal Crossing.
• Tom Nook wears slightly different uniforms.
• The Wishing Well from Animal Crossing is a Bell Shrine in Animal Forest. On New Year’s Day, instead of tossing a coin in the fountain, the player shakes the thick rope in the middle and the bells ring.
• The input keyboard from Animal Crossing is a dial that contains the letters, numbers, and symbols that appear on the screen in Animal Forest.
• The dial input system in Animal Forest (taken from a fan-translated copy)
• In Animal Crossing, Gulliver would give the player a rare furniture piece for saving him. In Animal Forest, he gives the player a random furniture piece.
• In Animal Crossing, three items could be stored in container furniture such as dressers, wardrobes, etc. In Animal Forest, only one item can be stored in those kinds of furniture.
• In Animal Crossing, a player’s initial home had a wooden box that had a college rule journal on top. In Animal Forest, this is not included, so this means this feature was either not included or both items have to be bought from Nook.
• In Animal Crossing, the catalog has a section called “Handhelds” where umbrellas, pinwheels, fans, balloons and tools could be ordered. In Animal Forest, this section is called “Umbrellas” and only umbrellas can be ordered from that section. This means pinwheels, fans, balloons, and tools cannot be ordered from the catalog.
• In Animal Crossing, the player could store multiple airchecks in Stereos, Radios, etc. In Animal Forest, only one aircheck could be stored in them.
• Buildings such as Tom Nook’s shop, the Post Office, and the Dump have slightly redesigned logos in Animal Crossing.
• There is no Museum, thus there is no Blathers. The Faraway Museum still exists, and fossils can be sent there for identification.
• Taking a trip on Animal Forest requires the player have 1 Controller Pak to save travel data on, and two Controller Paks are needed to travel directly. In Animal Crossing, an extra Memory Card is used to save travel data, and the player can travel directly to the other town if 2 Memory Cards with town data are in use at the same time.
• e-Reader support was added to the Japanese and North American releases of Animal Crossing.
• Mayor Tortimer was not a character yet, and no gifts could be obtained from him.
• During the Cherry Blossom Festival, all the villagers sit on mats like the Japanese do.
• Katrina wore a white headband instead of the normal veil that she wears.
• Instead of buying stationary as a pack of four, only one piece of paper can be bought at a time.
• In Animal Crossing, a Money Rock appears for every player in a village each day. In Animal Forest there is only one money rock per town per day, no matter how many people are playing.
• There was no tropical island and there was no Kapp’n.
• Villagers were not affected if a player hit them with a net.
• Blanca does not exist.
• The live version of DJ K.K. uses a different set of guitar riffs, which were most likely changed due to their similarities with the song “Get Ready for This” by 2 Unlimited.
• Stella2
• Stella’s original design.
• Items looks different when on the ground. Stationery is a paper bag with a leaf on it, clothing are treasure chests, and tools are toolboxes. These aesthetics were later re-used for Animal Crossing: Wild World.
• Mystery items for sale at Nooks. (early January?)
• Bluebear’s and Stella’s original designs were also slightly different than now, and their appearances were tweaked to the current design in Dōbutsu no Mori + and Animal Crossing. Some of the other villagers have gone under these tweaks as well.
• There were no coconuts in Animal Forest.
• When getting bad fortunes identified by Katrina, slightly different effects happen. This can include tripping and falling half as frequently or less malfunctioning of the friendship of other villagers.

One thing is for sure, I will be using the Expansion Pak to displayed the game in a higher resolution 640×480 from 320×240. I will update you all how it goes along with my progress. Very excited to play this soon.