Animal Crossing: Where Were You?

                 I’ve never been a huge fan of the Animal Crossing franchise, for I thought they were all boring and repetitive. They were meant to be creative games, but there was no real creativity involved with them. All you did was pick a character, name the town, buy a house, and make friends, and that for me was no way of having fun. Maybe that is why when my parents got me a copy of Animal Crossing City Folk, I only played it for two months or so. Soon after that I got a PS3 and that was the only gaming console I played for weeks on ends. I ended up giving my Wii, as well as all my games, to my younger brother, and then just forgot about it.

A few years later, the economy went down and both of my parents lost their jobs. They then had to find other ways of making ends meet, such as yards sales and working odd jobs at the local mall. With that, I wasn’t getting any new games, and had to resort to replaying some of them. That did, however, get pretty boring after a while. Then I remember that I had other games, they were just on the Wii, and I knew I haven’t played those in a long time. With that in mind, I knew that I could play the old games, and they would feel like new.

I went into my brother’s room, took the Wii and a stack of games, and brought them to my room. I hooked up the Wii to my TV and put in the game that was first on the pile, Animal Crossing City Folk. I didn’t really care that it was the game I never liked, for I thought I could give it another chance. The starting screen was normal, and then Rover came into view. He did his normal thing and asked who you were again, in their own little language, and my name was the only one on there. I guess my brother never did play it. I click on my name, and then out of the blue, he had a sad look on his face. Then on the text box, it said, “Oh… It’s you… It has been a VERY long time since we all last saw you.” I didn’t think much of it since it was true, I haven’t been here in such a long time. Rover changed his face again, to something happier, “Anyway, glad to have you back!”

I saw my character, and she woke up in her little bed with her bed head. She got up, and I started to move her around. I walked her out of the small house, and out into the town. I didn’t see many people, the only flowers were wilting, and all the trees were cut down to the base. The grass was all yellowish, with dirt patches in random areas, with the only splash of green coming from the random weeds out and about. I did start to feel a little uneasy, but I guess it was because this was a happy game, but now it was looking like a child wasteland. I put that uneasiness in the back of my head and continued to play it, interested in what would happen next. I was still walking around when all of a sudden Mr. Resetti popped up from out the ground. Even though I haven’t played the game in years, I knew his voice sounded different. It wasn’t an angry voice, or even a monotone voice, but sadder, depressing voice.

He asked me if I could see all the new changes to the land. Bringing the Wii microphone closer to my face I said yes, and then another text box popped up. It read, “This is your fault, or maybe it is not. As you can see, they have given upon that land, for they have secluded themselves into their house, right after you stopped visiting them. See, before you came, this place was boring, with nothing to do. Then you fixed that by talking to people, and helping plant flowers, making this town more fun to live in and visit. Then, you just stopped… The town started going back to it old ways of being boring. Nobody wanted to do anything after you left. Why? Why did you leave? Where were you?” and then he was done. He lowered himself down, into his dirt hole, and then left. He left me confused. This was all my fault? I didn’t understand it. This is just a children’s game. How can I not visiting cause all if thus? Though I felt anxious, I still wanted to see what would happen. I guess curiosity will always get the better of me.

I walked to every house, and knocked, but no one would answer. Then I got to the last house, and knocked. Out came Anchovy, but he had a frown to his face. His eyes looked up, and tears stained his face. His face went from sadness to disbelief. His text box appeared and the language they spoke went from high pitched to a low pitch, with a combined monotone-sad jumble of sounds, “Why must you do this brain? Why play games? I know that it’s not her, for she is long gone, never to be seen again,” and then it gave me the option to answer. I said that it was the real me, and I would love to enter. All he did was walk back inside, but left the door open. I walked in.

The inside of his house was nothing but shades of gray. From the walls to the couches nothing showed any other color than gray. He asked me if I would like some tea, which I did say yes, and then I got some tea for my inventory. I went to look at it, and the tea was called black cherry tea. Next to it was a letter that read, “The black represents my soul, and the cherry is you. Anchovy” I didn’t remember the game ever being like this, with the whole black is my soul, and I did want to turn it off, but I was still interested in this, and wondering why they would put this in a children’s game.

Another textbox appeared, and it was him asking me to do him a favor. I said yes, because I couldn’t find any reason to deny. He asked me to find him a rope, strong enough to pull someone down. Since I already said yes, I left and started my mini quest to find a rope. It didn’t take long to find one, after I did some digging with my shovel. The rope had a description that told me it could hold down the lightest feather through the toughest winds. I walked back, and noticed the sky was darkening. It went from blue to a deep crimson red, in only a matter of minutes. I had to admit it was breath taking as well as frighten. But I have to stop taking in the sights, and give Anchovy his powerful rope.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Once I got back, he thanked me, and told me to follow him, for he had a surprise for me. I didn’t want to, but what could I do? Stop? If I did, the curiosity would hit me like a ton of bricks until I played again. So, I followed him, and he took me to the beach. We both just stared into Oblivion for a while, before his text box appeared. When it did he asked me if he did anything wrong, and why I wasn’t there anymore. Why didn’t I come back? What did they do? What did he do? Where were you? I told him that I was done, and it was all so boring. My eyes then started to water then, for the game were making me emotional. Not just with sadness, but with some fear. Then, I saw it. It was Anchovy, tying the rope around his ankle, a sandbag attach to the other end. Then walked into the mucky water, and laid down. His head under the water, and I knew from there that he was dead. It was all my fault, and I knew it.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">I broke down then and there. Tears stained my face as I started to sob. It was all my fault and I knew it. I caused him to kill himself, when all he did was miss me. I realized that during the two months I did play, it was right after the move, and I had no friends. They were my friends. They were there for me when I had no one, and I abandoned them. I turned off the game, and put everything back in my brother’s room. Then, I just sat in my room for a while, just thinking about life and everything about myself right now. I saw something out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned, nothing was there. I swear that I saw a bird like figure, which looked like Anchovy. Then, in my head, I heard a voice. It told me it was time that it was all right, and I should come with him into the shadows below. It was Anchovy. I got up for the last time, memorized by what I heard, and went down to my father’s tool shed, and took a rope and a sand bag. I walked off into the moon light to the beach. I was going to leave the same way Anchovy did. With a black soul, but I would have no cherry to top it off.