The fact that the GameCube actually had a clock in it made fabricating discs easier (and cheaper) than producing more cartridges for the ageing, older Nintendo 64, even if the upgraded game still looked very much like an N64 title. This initial release on N64 launched in Japan on the 14th April 2001, but it wasn’t long until a new and improved version called Dōbutsu no Mori+ released for GameCube in December of the same year. Whilst it worked for the most part, relying on such a solution meant that should the battery run out there’d be no way for the game to track the time when you weren’t playing, which is a significant issue given that that was one of the biggest features. Therefore, Nintendo did the only sensible thing and stuck a clock inside the game cartridge. There was an issue with this however, as the game relies heavily on a real-time clock, which the 64DD offered but the N64 lacked. Unfortunately, the expansion was a commercial disaster and after countless delays and other problems, Nintendo decided to slap it in a cartridge instead. The game was originally planned to be released for the 64DD, an add-on which sat under the N64 and took advantage of rewritable, whizzy, spinny discs that could hold a lot more data than a cartridge. Joining forces with the ever-excellent Takashi Tezuka, Eguchi began the series with Dōbutsu no Mori, a Japan-exclusive game for the N64 which roughly translates to ‘Animal Forest’ in English. I wondered for a long time if there would be a way to recreate that feeling, and that was the impetus behind the original Animal Crossing. In doing so, I realised that being close to them – being able to spend time with them, talk to them, play with them – was such a great, important thing. 3, but the move to Kyoto stuck with him even after he had settled in, and it was a primary influence upon the creation of Animal Crossing.Įguchi elaborated on the main themes of the original game in an interview with Edge Magazine:Īnimal Crossing features three themes: family, friendship, and community, but the reason I wanted to investigate them was a result of being so lonely when I arrived in Kyoto when I moved there I left my family and friends behind. Eguchi worked on several projects hither and thither, notably as a level designer for Super Mario Bros. After he nabbed a job at Nintendo in 1986 he was forced to move away from his hometown of Chiba and relocate to Kyoto, the city where Nintendo was (and still is) based. Like most games made by Nintendo, the story of Animal Crossing – Nintendo’s charming social life-sim series – begins in Japan, with a man named Katsuya Eguchi.
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