This always seems to be a touchy subject with a lot of players of the Animal Crossing series. Should you time travel? What are the benefits and cons of doing so?
Well, I am going to give my take on the subject, and I will start off by admitting that yes, I have Time Travelled within the game and I will explain more. There are people who I’ve seen across the internet who time travel for various reasons, they want to get their bug/fish/fossil collections completed as quickly as possible, so time travel to certain points in the year to complete it. I have also seen people time travel for financial benefit to help pay things off in the game quicker! (That 2 mill house expansion can take its toll).
This is partly where I start to frown at time traveling within Animal Crossing, if you are going to do it, then I don't feel you should benefit from it in a way that's financial within the game or proceeds to go so far ahead in time to get all bugs and fish that when you travel back to the present day it makes the museum part pointless. It's full within a couple of days and there is no other reason for you to visit it, other than maybe to hand it works of art from Redd when he shows up, even then, you can time travel and manipulate that.
Now, I’m not saying that time traveling within the game is bad, at the end of the day you can play the game how you want to play it, but when it’s a game that is meant to be enjoyed over a long time, and with most in this series, it is meant to be something enjoyed for years. This is why I don't really see the point in time traveling to collect fish and bugs quickly, to say you’ve then completed the game to me is not an accurate statement. For me, this is a game which I don't feel you can put a 100% status on, yes you can collect all the bugs, fish, and fossils, but what about your island? All the furniture, all the recipes, the design of it, surely there are always things to do and hundreds of villagers to experience.
New Leaf was the first animal crossing game that I enjoyed playing, but didn't really experience it to its fullest, not to the point that I’ve gotten to with New Horizons and putting 700+ hours into the game. The last game I put those types of hours into was Titanfall 1 and the most recent game that I broke over 100 hours in was Assassins Creed Valhalla which I completed in 125 hours.
So you see, for me, it takes a special kind of game to get me to play it for that amount of time, and Animal Crossing is one of those games. Now, I'm deviating a bit, so let's get back on track.
I mentioned above that I had time travelled, yes, I have time travelled within my game to help move the opening bit to quicken up getting to the KK concert. So time travelling to get buildings built quicker as well as things like bridges. This also was only when I had restarted my island as well when I wasn’t happy with how my old island was turning out, the shape that I had picked, and the position of the plaza and river mouths, it started to make what I wanted to do awkward and not very achievable.
This may sound strange but that's how it is, I fell into a lull with my island and didn't know how to break out of it, so I decided to start again and I used time travel to speed the initial part up of getting the resident services building, able sisters as well as nooks cranny. I also used it to get Amiibo villagers onto my island quicker as it takes 3 separate visits before they will agree to live on your island. (Which I don't mind doing as it helps boot off villagers I don't like…. I'm looking at you Pietro!) And as I found out recently, you can travel back to events that you missed, so as I didn’t get to enjoy Festivale at the time, the other day I traveled back to Feb 15th to partake in the event, and I am glad I did as I absolutely loved it. The one downside of traveling back or forward that far is the mess that it leaves on your island with weeds and also sometimes villagers will comment that they haven’t seen you for ages which mess up friendship points if you’re looking to try and get their photos, it can also lead to cockroaches in your house which can be a pain.
At the end of the day, as I said earlier, people play the game how they want to play, and that’s fine, but I feel trying to exploit a time-based game for financial gain isn’t a way to fully experience and enjoy. For me, the annoyance of weeds (especially after working so hard to keep the island clear) and everything else that comes with the game as a side effect isn't worth it, and the weedage on my island after going back to Festivale was unreal.
I would love to get others' thoughts on this and whether you have time traveled in Animal Crossing and what the reasons were for. Do you think time travel is good or do you avoid it like the plague?
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