4/5 ★ – RawMetal's review of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.

System: iOS Update Review: January 4, 2025 (Complete Version) Just as Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp shut down its servers in late November, Nintendo announced a complete version of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, which was released in early December. I’ve already done my review of Pocket Camp, and after the announcement was unveiled, it's exactly what I wanted Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp to have in the first place. You only pay for the game once, and everything is yours without microtransactions or extra fees attached. Your data can be transferred so you still have your stuff and your level stats of animals you bonded with, which I did. Not everything I had worked for is lost. In this version, they've removed the Leaf Ticket currency and replaced it with Leaf Tokens. You earn these tokens by completing requests and weekly achievements. Once you collect enough tokens, you can get special items and costumes in the game, even the rare ones. Now, you can decorate your camp, camper RV, and cabin without having to participate in special events or waiting for the special events that happen seasonally. Unfortunately, the online servers for communicating with friends have been shut down. This means no visiting other people's campsites or using the market menu for trading goods. However, you can share your QR Scan with others to invite them to your list, which is necessary to get consumable goods. You also get a KK Rider Concert, Whistle Pass, where you can listen to KK jam some songs and greet people you exchanged with from your QR Code. If you played the previous version of Pocket Camp, your friends are automatically in your QR Code List. The complete version improves significantly over the original game, elevating it from a 3-star to a 4-star experience. If you're an Animal Crossing fan or even a mobile game enthusiast, this game is a must-have. Currently priced at $9.99, the cost will increase to $19.99 after January 31, 2025. So, grab it now because it's definitely worth the price. System: iOS Started: March 15, 2023 Ended: September 14, 2023 The last time I played any Animal Crossing was the time I rented the original game from a rental store and that was my first experience of a life simulation video game. I did not know what to think of that game but rented a few times afterwards to find the “gameplay” elements of that game but later turned out and played more games that are all about violence and adventure. Over the years, I found out that the series got so popular that even friends and classmates I know from High School played City Folk and New Leaf. Fast forward to 2019, Nintendo entered the Mobile Gaming App trend and released Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. I did install the game into my smartphone and played only for 5 minutes then let it sit on my phone until March of 2023. It was either I got bored at home and decided to look into my smartphone games or just wanted to get more Platinum Coins through my MyNintendo Reward membership to get physical goods after finishing with Super Mario Run. What I know about Animal Crossing coming from a newcomer, is that you start out in a vacant area, you do errands or chores to pay off debts and you build up and decorate your home while meeting new characters. This time In Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, you run your very own Campsite at an island and meet other animal campers. Not only just a campsite but also you get to have a Cabin and a Vehicle Camper as well to decorate by crafting and collecting items. Outside of your campsite, you go into four areas and talk to one of the animals as you fulfill every character’s request by sending them fruit, bugs or fishes and you level up their friendship meter. Once they level up, they will be invited to your campsite or give you a request to craft exclusive furniture. This is the general way of playing this, but Pocket Camp added more modes that it would have been a full Animal Crossing game. For a Mobile Game, I expect anything small or underwhelming but there is so much to do in Pocket Camp other than taking requests and decorating your campsite. You can do gardening and get exclusive items from that if you harvest them. Go to OK Motors and expand your RV so you can add more stuff inside and pay your debts, Go to the Slot Machine to save up bottle caps for prizes, There is a Happy Home Designer Mode for this game so you can earn rewards, Go to the Quarry to Mine for Valuable Gems, Go to Blathers and use a Map to get treasure in a board-game style setup, Send Gulliver to send materials to one of the three islands in exchange for rewards. You can visit actual campsite from other players, build and stock up your Market Box Shop so that players can exchange for Bells, you can buy theirs as well. There is a Photo and AR Photo so you can build your photo album and share to players and give them emote stickers based on their reaction. Occasionally, there will be special events to unlock special items such as Fishing Tournament, Gardening, and Scavenger Hunts. With all these events I listed, a nonstop session of Pocket Camp would take you 30 minutes to an hour before you wait until the next cycle begins after every 3 hours. My intention of playing this game was to complete objectives that I considered mandatory before moving on. One of them was Get to default maximum Level 50, Build and Upgrade all Amenities, fully upgrade both my RV and Cabin, and lastly, fulfill my dream of setting up a Campsite I always wanted to build from the very beginning: A Music Venue Festival. I could have finished and moved on a few months ago from this game. But why did I keep playing? Well, I would blame the Market Box. I actually became a popular Market Box Seller to the point that I would have 100 friends in my list and that is the maximum capacity of accepting friends. I kept going with it daily by harvesting goods and selling them at an extremely low price and they sold out quickly. At least I got easy Bells for that. I even had to make an announcement recently that I would be playing this game less by using Photo mode. This game is endless as Nintendo still brings in new animals, furniture and clothings to unlock so they really want you to keep playing this game, and so far, it’s been almost 6 years now. This is why I am not a fan of Games as a Service mentality. However, I can only come back to this game mostly to get Platinum Coins for my account on MyNintendo. With a game that is free to play with so much added content, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is still being updated with new events and goods while New Horizons, Nintendo stopped making updates on that game. You may be surprised how many players are still actively playing Pocket Camp after 4 years and this is a mobile game to be exact. This game is also lax on the grinding. If you purchase in-game content like the Happy Helper Pack, you select an animal to help you on your errands and chores if you are not playing this game. Once you come back after many hours or days, Your Helper will give you all the items they collected. The big flaw of this game and we are all aware since this is a Mobile Game, Microtransactions and Gacha elements are present in an Animal Crossing game. Nintendo did try to compensate by letting consumers pay really cheap and separate payment packages like 5.99 monthly to get free Cookie Packages monthly or paying money for Leaf Tickets. Microtransactions are never good in video games and even if you try to play this game without paying for microtransactions, you have to be very lucky to get the furniture items you actually want to get. Also, you really need a wi-fi connection to play this game. And there could’ve been an offline mode for this game. If you are a huge Animal Crossing fan, then this game would be for you even if it's a mobile app game, and those who could not afford to get New Horizons and would play an Animal Crossing game for free (except for the Microtransactions). Nintendo keeps adding more stuff into this game that any fan could not help it into going into this entry and joining the ongoing train until Nintendo finally decided to pull the plug for this game. This game would be great for newcomers who have not played a single Animal Crossing game and does not own a Nintendo console.