E308: Animal Crossing to support keyboards, save fruit-picking time

by Chris Greenhough { Jul 17th 2008 at 2:45PM }

All Animal Crossing games are wonderful, but that's not all they have in common: as it happens, each game in the series to date has featured an unwieldy, cumbersome user interface. Every tool and item can only be selected by opening a totally separate menu, you can't skip through any of the game's (oft-repeated) dialogue, and writing letters/entering text is a royal pain in the backside, thanks to the excruciatingly annoying on-screen keyboard.

This morning, JC's hands-on impressions of Animal Crossing: City Folk revealed that Nintendo had fixed the first problem, by allowing users to cycle through their inventory with the d-pad. And now the third issue has been resolved, for City Folk will let players hook a USB keyboard up to their Wiis -- superb news! Just give us the ability to skip instantly through Nook's natterings and Blathers' blather, and we'll be pleased as punch.

Gallery: Animal Crossing: City Folk

Tags: animal-crossing, animal-crossing-city..., e3-2008, e308, keyboard, sim, usb

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Kenneth Caldwell @ Jul 17th 2008 2:54PM

AC has long been hindered by a slow interface. This is big news! Trying to communicate with text in AC:WW was like sending a message into a time machine. By the time you finished typing it out, the message was no longer relevant. I found I could say much more by bashing my guests on the head with a bug-catching net.

acefondu @ Jul 17th 2008 4:36PM

Yeah, but will the messages take like a week to upload on the Wii like the Wii messages do? I can't hate that more honestly.

adolson @ Jul 17th 2008 2:54PM

Adults care about this game?

Well, I guess when Nintendo gives you lemons, you make lemonade. Too bad I'm watching my pH balance...

Prof_Chaos @ Jul 17th 2008 3:57PM

Adults sure do enjoy the series. A game doesn't need guns and grit to be fun you elitist.

adolson @ Jul 17th 2008 4:07PM

LittleBigPlanet has guns? Zack & Wiki has grit? I didn't know.. Thanks for the heads up!

Kenneth Caldwell @ Jul 17th 2008 11:57PM

Seriously? Animal Crossing has a HUGE adult fanbase. I've seen twenty-somethings and middle-agers alike with full-blown addictions. I'm talking immaculate organization, towns dotted with money tress and patterned brick streets, houses teeming with Zelda items and rare gyroids.

And progress like that doesn't just happen by logging hundreds of hours. At some point, towns become a reflection of the player's personality with progress limited to creative capacity (and some software barriers).

Mduck @ Jul 17th 2008 3:27PM

I've never played a Animal Crossing game :S

what would be the benefit of usb keyboard support?

TheOverlord#2 can has Animals Crossing? @ Jul 17th 2008 3:36PM

You can message people(or animals in your town) via in game mail or if you don't have the $30 for WiiSpeak, ou can use an in-game keyboard to say stuff to online guests.

Prof_Chaos @ Jul 17th 2008 4:00PM

Also entering passphrases periodically to gain entry to certain areas can be cumbersome. There've been times that I've forgotten what I was typing by the time I'd finished.

Brittany @ Jul 17th 2008 5:29PM

I was pretty sure they would include this (it just makes since) so I'm glad to hear a confirmation :) and yay for being able to cycle through tools too, that will be really nice.

RupeeClock @ Jul 18th 2008 1:40AM

Well I sure as HELL will be getting that Logitech Wireless Wii Keyboard for this now!

Sora57 @ Jul 18th 2008 11:36AM

Love ACWW. can't wait for this

Tree @ Jul 18th 2008 12:26PM

Back when AC and PSO were on the Gamecube, a third-party controller-keyboard hybrid was all the import-rage. It looked like a GC controller with an extreme widescreen-style center housing a keyboard. If that peripheral is Wii-compatible (I mean, it worked on the GC, it should be), why don't they pull those back into production?

genocidalrobot @ Jul 18th 2008 1:47PM

if they allow us to skip text, i will buy this game. i was excited when i heard it was announced officially. then i watched the videos and became much less excited. then, the more i thought about it the more i realized how cumbersome and annoying the menus and chat were. i might be done with AC for the rest of my life, that kind of stuff gets really, really annoying!