Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer

It’s not the life-sim of years past, but Happy Home Designer’s successful re-imagining of what makes Animal Crossing tick is a lovely departure that I sincerely hope Nintendo explores again in the future.

It's naturally limited in scope, but this breezy, likeable spin-off proves a surprisingly captivating diversion. [Nov 2015, p.72]

Maybe Happy Home Designer is not better than New Leaf or other 3DS games but it fulfills its objectives offering us deep tools to create and decorate houses in a game limited only by our imagination. We didn’t like the lack of strong objectives and challenges that maybe could be positive steps for this game.

Happy Home Designer isn't going to dethrone Animal Crossing: New Leaf as the number one game in your 3DS' play log – not by a long shot. In taking away the scant few of the franchise’s stressors, however, it becomes a profoundly therapeutic life simulator that respects and rewards every millilitre of creative juice you pour into it. It’s a stop-gap on the road to Wii U/NX but a detour that won't soon be surpassed.

It’s a fun little distraction that doesn’t require too much attention to enjoy.

With a beautiful presentation and tight controls, Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer is a game worth considering. [Issue #17 – September/October 2015, p.74]

This title has some of the most modest aspirations of any of the Animal Crossing titles, but it delivers on them spectacularly.

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer has a lot of ítems, furniture and options to design a great variety of houses. Maybe we miss more social options, but the game is still funny and charming.

Anima. Crossing: HD delivers an interesting concept, different from the main series, but still charming, deep and fun.

Animal Crossing's in-game social component seems to be growing at a never-ending rate. Happy Home Designer keeps treading that path and its main activities focus on one of the players' favourite aspects of the series, home decoration. With an enormous wealth of resources and its simple, intuitive controls, this is a perfect introduction to the series and a potential major influence to its next chapter.

Utterly charming with a fantastic set of design tools, but it'll make you crave the freedom of more traditional Animal Crossing games.

Happy Home Designer gets pretty much everything right when it comes to decorating, encouraging creativity, and exploring different styles.

Adorable, but lacking in depth, Happy Home Designer is funny and charming, but ultimately fails to provide motivation and challenge for the player.

Just seems kind of small and limited to me. I think people might expect a little more from an Animal Crossing game.

Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer is a blast for everyone who that loved to decorate their home in earlier Animal Crossing games. The options are limitless, however this comes with a few limits in other aspects. As a whole, the game is a blast to play.

A more structured and restricting experience than New Leaf, Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer offers similarly addictive mechanics but much less freedom and control.

More appropriate for short sessions, part of the magic of Animal Crossing have been lost in the way. A huge amount and options to customize the houses, but is not a game to lose hours with it, at least at once time.

Overall, Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer is a welcome spinoff that helps diversify the Animal Crossing brand and cements it as one of Nintendo’s cornerstone franchises (if it wasn’t already).

It will divide the fanbase. After all, is a sort of white canvas where anyone could pour their creativity without any real reason to do it. Unfortunately, is this lack of challenge that makes the game sub-par if compared to other episodes. It's still Nintendo we're talking about though, and this means that the general quality of the product remains pretty high.

While designing homes is a relatively fun thing to do, having to do it twenty times with no real challenge makes it seem a little pointless.

A spinoff that works unexpectedly hard to win you over. [Nov 2015, p.122]

I’m genuinely delighted that Nintendo was able to strip away just one aspect of Animal Crossing and make an entire game out of it.

It's not about challenge or winning or competition, but rather about playing interior designer to a host of creatures. While it's mostly very good at what it does, the specifics of what it does won't appeal to most gamers, or even most Animal Crossing fans. Taken on its own terms, however, the only area in which Happy Home Designer falls short of its rather relaxed mission statement is in its social and sharing features, which feel rather anemic.

It's definitely a step back from New Leaf: focusing entirely on furniture, this game leaves back a lot of the content that made the Animal Crossing saga shine. On the other hand, the editor is really rich, and some players could enjoy it.

Happy Home Designer is the dream of every Animal Crossing fan. Finally we are able to easily design dozens of different rooms with a very easy to use editor. A collection of hundreds of objects awaits us in a game surrounded by the magic only an Animal Crossing game has: music, scenery, characters, etc. Unfortunately the lack of content and variety will stop the enjoyment too soon for many people.

An amusing spin-off from the Animal Crossing's family, perfect for bite-size gaming sessions but not another game to live for.

Happy Home Designer captures some of the Animal Crossing magic, but not enough to make it an essential entry in the series.

Through simulating the good of adult life and the comfort of routine, without complicating things with the pressures of money, Animal Crossing: Happy Home designer is a relaxing, repetitive toe-dip into the working world.

Fans of New Leaf - and the series in general - may well be prepared to forgive such sins, but for everyone else this is a likeable but largely forgettable title that will entice young, undemanding players but will be too dull and samey for everyone else - despite the unmistakable charm which permeates the entire package.

If finding the perfect furniture for your house in Animal Crossing was your favorite part of the series, then you'll surely get some enjoyment out of this game.

Happy Home Designer is a competent but rather boring spin off.

It is lovely seeing Nook again, but this Animal Crossing is a disappointment. It is fun to design homes in the upbeat world of Animal Crossing, but there are just no challenges in this game. There is no money system in place, you cannot really collect anything. And customers are always happy with the design.

Despite vast content and high level of polish I actually can’t find any convincing reasons to play it. [12/2015, p.72]

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer is an empty shell. Stripped of almost all the features and dynamics of the main entries, it has lost most of its charm and became just a simple yet immense simulator which will entertain a small niche of fans and does very little to justify the purchase of expensive amiibos and cards.

Feels like it would benefit from a longer plot, but still fun if you overlook the repetitive nature.

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer is without a doubt a really good idea that should be implemented onto future games. As a separate game it’s rather shallow and linear to the point of fatigue.

A brand new take on the series that manages to make moving furniture fun, but fails to innovate in a meaningful way.

On the whole, it's fair to say that most spin-offs are doomed to live in the shadow of their more popular source materials. Even so, Happy Home Designer did have the potential to stand on its own two legs - the sole ingredient needed to confirm that fact being the element of fun, which it sadly lacks.

Happy Home Designer is a nifty little game for creative souls, but it may not hold your attention for too long if home decor isn't your schtick.

Just like the numpties on Grand Designs, Happy Home Designer doesn’t really know what it wants, and it suffers for it. It can’t possibly be the newest Animal Crossing – it’s far too small. It’s a pretty good, if simple, home decorating game, but not as a full, standalone release.

A stripped down Animal Crossing with a premise so lightweight it can barely be said to exist at all, and yet there’s still an undemanding charm to its no-octane thrills.

Nintendo has had better spin offs than Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer; If the core of the game is decent, the overly week challenge removes every ounce of interest from a game that could very well be a simple DLC.

This is not a videogame; there is nothing challenging about it, no puzzle element and no way of doing things wrong. As a creative toy it is okay, as there is a big load of furniture to choose from, but in the long run, Happy Home Designer is simply not going to suffice as a proper Animal Crossing-game.

Making homes in Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer is enjoyable, but it's just not enough to hold up the weight of an entire game.

Although it doesn't feel as full as New Leaf, Happy Home Designer is a fine game that should've aspired to more.

Home design gets even more captivating with the expanded possibilities of this dedicated installment. But such focus on creative freedom induces the withdrawal of some Animal Crossing's fundamental elements, hence shrinking variety, interest and life as a whole in this world. And rather sadly, the invitational collection of amiibo definitely makes Happy Home Designer look like a decorative addition.

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer misses the high mark set by the main series. Taking one aspect of the game and making it the focus helps improve the mechanics, but the end result is far less enjoyable as it removes many of the things that made AC so unique.

Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer looks and sounds like the game that fans were expecting; unfortunately it lacks the depth and addictiveness to keep you interested. Even with its cast of adorable characters and excellent soundtrack, the gameplay becomes stale really fast and you’ll find yourself grasping at what little the game has to offer in order to find something to hold your attention.

Animal Crossing has always been a peculiar experience. This spin-off, however, with its boring and repetitive gameplay, can't manage to catch the interest of the player.

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer will appeal those love decorating homes and collecting Nintendo’s new amiibo cards, but for the rest of us, it’s a broken home.

It’s an absolute feat that Nintendo was able to retain the trademark Animal Crossing charming feel without including many of the tropes that have been present since the series began back in 2001. That novelty, however, is fleeting, and after a few hours of play, you’re left with a shallow feeling that your work has gotten you nowhere. Even when viewed through the lens of “just a spinoff,” Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer is disappointing.

Overall, Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer proves to be a substantial disappointment for the franchise. Yes, the game does make large strides in the designing element of Animal Crossing, but it fails to create any sort of experience that is even remotely engaging or captivating.

Ultimately, Happy Home Designer feels more like a mini-game from a main Animal Crossing title, albeit one that controls like a dream. As a cheaper eShop release designed to spark interest in collecting the cards it would have been fine, but as a full price game its one-trick-pony style is far too repetitive for some.

While Animal Crossing is branching out from simply being a town that players can feel at home in, Happy Home Designer is antithetic in design and scope. It's unlike this series to come up short of ideas, and yet they've somehow managed to run a single one into the ground with Happy Home Designer.

While the initial thrill of decorating the game's big spaces is fun, I wish there was something more cohesive that tied Happy Home Designer together--a way to play with friends or an actual village that takes shape as you add more and more denizens.

Oddly enough, you aren’t able to decorate a home of your own. You have to live vicariously through your clients as you apparently live out of a car. Happy Home Designer may be fun for people who are ravenous over home design, but without the additional Animal Crossing elements, I never felt like I was putting down any serious roots or working toward a larger purpose.

Ultimately, what's exciting about Happy Home Designer is waiting for the enhanced touch controls, yard building, and item catalog to be included in the next main entry of Animal Crossing. Otherwise, Happy Home Designer feels like a standalone expansion that's inexplicably missing the solid foundation that New Leaf should have provided.

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer has its moments, but overall it can’t escape the feeling of being a superficial game.