Animal Crossing+ Japanese Details Revealed

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to an IGN Cube story summarizing the new features in the Japanese expanded re-release of sleeper Gamecube hit Animal Crossing. These include brand new features such as "..upgraded animal designs.. all-new events added.. more than 100 additional items.. visit the island without a GBA.. take photos of village life, store on SD Cards, and print using photo printers", and a number of features previously only found in the US version of the game. Gamers.com has some new screenshots of this release, which follows the pattern of titles such as Kingdom Hearts:Final Mix in exporting US-release improvements back to Japan in a 'special edition'. Although non-Japanese Animal Crossing fans may be looking hopefully for this expansion, a release outside Japan seems unlikely, and the poor Europeans still don't have the original Gamecube version.

Comments

Not quite the right name

[Bagels]

"Animal Crossing Plus" isn't quite the right name - I don't speak Japanese, but I do remember that Animal Crossing was called Animal Forest + in Japan. Since this is 'Doubutsu no Mori e+', I'm guessing one might actually call it Animal Forest e+ (the e designates the e-Reader capability that the previous one lacked). Anyone who actually knows Japanese care to translate properly?

Re:Is this the one where you scan your game cards?

[jayoyayo]

I don't know what game you're referring to but its definitely not Animal Crossing as there is no "challenge(ing) other players with your upgraded characters" in AC.

The Animal Crossing cards are cards that you can scan in via an attachment to a GBA which is hooked up to the GameCube. They unlock new items (including fully playable NES games), designs that you can put on your character's clothes, and songs which will play in the background. In addition, one does not need the GBA card-reader peripheral, as Nintendo has provided a password on each card which also unlocks something. The password unlocks a different item than scanning it. Needless to say, one can simply head over to certain websites and get all the passwords without having to purchase a card. Certain hackers have also been able to "unlock" (ie, provide a password for) items that could previously only be unlocked via scanning a card. IIRC, the only items that still require scanning a card and cannot be acquired any other way are a couple NES games.