Animal Crossing: New Horizons gives players dozens of ways to customize their island and Villagers, but many players have unintentionally (or intentionally) used these options to humiliate their neighbors. While providing players with more choices in their daily activities, taking lengthy breaks from the game can sometimes bring foul surprises, especially if players forget their more colorful selections. In providing customers an island paradise, Nintendo unwittingly gave players a (mostly) blank canvas to corrupt and destroy. This resulted in some humiliating (but hilarious) additions to typically relaxed, kind, and appropriate Villager neighbors.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons features hundreds of Villagers of different species, personalities, and styles. Each character has a set wardrobe, collection of belongings, catchphrase, and more that sets them apart from other Villagers. While some are more popular than others, different designs can attract different fans, leading to diverse populations on player islands. As players increase their friendship with various Villagers, they gain opportunities to unlock unique dialogue and influence their lifestyle in different ways. Unfortunately, these can have unseen consequences, especially since players don't have many options to undo their previous choices.
While Animal Crossing: New Horizons was released with limited opportunities to control Villagers' lifestyles and living situations, ACNH's Happy Home Paradise DLC and 2.0 update vastly increased player customization on their islands. Most interactions remained static, but new conversations, items, and gameplay mechanics ensured that player influence stretched further than before. Despite many players wishing to give their Villagers the best lives, homes, and communities possible, some may fall short in a moment of weakness or humor. The resulting design choices can humiliate even the happiest Villagers, dooming them to a constant state of shame in their island community.
ACNH Lets Players Suggest Terrible Catchphrases
When players interact with other Animal Crossing: New Horizons characters, they are often subject to a character's catchphrase, which consists of one to three words. Villagers' default catchphrases include snooty, woof-woof, bucko, foxtrot, etc. Some are particularly interesting, but once players start increasing their Friendship with Animal Crossing: New Horizons Villagers, characters offer the chance to change their catchphrase. In a moment of weakness or for a brief prank, players might consider changing a Villager's catchphrase to something inappropriate, like 'spank me' or UwU. This can make things incredibly awkward, not only for visitors but for the villagers forced to humiliate themselves in every conversation they have.
ACNH's Villagers Can Receive Horrible Gifts And Bad Homes
Animal Crossing: New Horizons Villagers sometimes exchange gifts with players on birthdays, events, and other special occasions; however, players can gift Villagers for any reason. When starting a save file on an island, players may have had the generous thought to give flowers, fish, bugs, or furniture to their neighbors only to discover their interior decorating skills are horrendous. These Animal Crossing: New Horizons gifts can stick out like sore thumbs, especially when characters place them on the ground or in the middle of a walkway. Additionally, gifted clothes may look drastically different on villagers, which they may change into at any point. In trying to shower favored characters with affectionate gifts, players can unknowingly doom their whole lifestyle to become cluttered and undesirable.
ACNH's Happy Home Paradise DLC offered a solution to cluttered or ugly Villager homes, allowing players to redecorate once they completed the campaign. Unfortunately, this gameplay mechanic came with its own risks for beloved Villagers. It's far too simple to design a home that isn't functional, especially considering the sheer number of customizable choices with Happy Home Paradise's new interior design mechanic. A redesigned home for a player's favorite villager can completely erase their sense of individual style and leave them in a crowded, dysfunctional living space. Unless villagers have made an irreversible mistake, it's usually best for players to practice in vacation homes before risking changing their favorite villager's house.
Player Designs And Patterns Can Go Badly In ACNH
Animal Crossing: New Horizons' buildings feature numerous collections that can be expanded and customized with player creations or treasures. The Able Sisters tailor shop is one such business where players can create their own designs and put them on display. Unfortunately, some innocent tinkering can turn into disastrous wardrobe changes for many characters. Residents can purchase ugly, pixelated patterns or incomplete creations once they appear on the Able Sisters' wall in ACNH, leaving players aghast at the fashion choices of their favorite villagers.
In attempting to design different new clothes, umbrellas, or other patterns to share with the community, hundreds of players have likely doomed their island to become a fashion disaster. Furthermore, players can only change a character's wardrobe by gifting them a spare piece of clothing that day but can't influence their fashion choices otherwise. This means many villagers are likely walking around with flawed patterns, indecent images, misspelled sentences, and more, leaving players without many fixes.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons Lets Players Trap Their Villagers
Animal Crossing: New Horizons' terraforming mechanic allows players to manipulate water flow and cliffs, using pole-vaulting and ladders to make different areas accessible. As players progress in the main campaign, they gain the ability to build bridges, permanent ladders, stairs, and ramps to higher levels and separated areas. These mechanics also allows players to expand their villager houses to the whole island, but it can come with some risks. Islands rarely remain unchanged, especially with the numerous decorations in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but these redecorations can come at a price. Sometimes, when players redecorate their islands, bridges, ladders, ramps, and more are destroyed and rebuilt in other locations. Unfortunately, these processes can take days, require significant Bell investments, and leave villagers stranded on the wrong side of different obstacles.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons provides players with numerous methods to improve (and worsen) life on their island, but sometimes the best intentions can have terrible consequences. With ACNH's many popular Villagers, fans likely have acquired one or several of their favorite characters and can treat them to a luxurious stay on an island community. However, it's always best to exercise caution with design choices in the game. Planned projects in any life simulator game can suffer from improper execution or experience conflicts with existing mechanics and appearances. Unfortunately, Animal Crossing suffers similarly, leaving its hundreds of villagers vulnerable to player oversights. Thankfully, since Nintendo recently ceased development on Animal Crossing, players have infinite time to fix their mistakes and give every Villager an enjoyable virtual life. Animal Crossing: New Horizons and its Happy Home Paradise DLC are available now on the Nintendo Switch.