Animal Crossing: New Leaf: Life Lesson Reminders

<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Try it and you’ll see why dude&period; Honestly&comma; it’s awesome&period;” These were the words of a friend of mine when I enquired as to why whenever I spoke to someone about the latest <i>Animal Crossing<&sol;i> title&comma; <i>New Leaf&comma; <&sol;i>they began to grin like a Cheshire cat at the very mention of its name&period; Having never experienced any past titles of the series&comma; I was apprehensive as to how engrossing a game could be that wanted to me to listen to the animal folk rather than squish them&period; The answer was very engrossing&period; Addictively fun&comma; <i>Animal Crossing&colon; New Leaf<&sol;i> was given a pile of praise when it was released last year and as I began picking my way to the top of the cherry heap&comma; I quickly started to realise why&period; However&comma; <i>Animal Crossing&colon; New Leaf<&sol;i> was not the gaming experience I expected&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>With taglines such as &OpenCurlyQuote;A cosy life with friendly neighbours awaits&comma;’ I imagined <i>New Leaf<&sol;i> to be a sweet&comma; jovial game speckled with a few lessons here and there about friendship and community&period; This however&comma; was not the case&period; Deeper than the voice of James Earl Jones&comma; my experience with this game was much more thought-provoking than I had anticipated&comma; as it jogged my memory of some of the most valuable life lessons that I’ve come to learn in the midst of my supposedly &OpenCurlyQuote;adult’ years&period; Below is a look back at the top five life lessons that I was reminded of through my time with <i>Animal Crossing&colon; New Leaf&comma; <&sol;i>all of which I wish I’d been taught before my angst-ridden&comma; nu-metal loving&comma; teenage years&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-56989 aligncenter" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;02&sol;05133005&sol;Animal&lowbar;Crossing&lowbar;New&lowbar;Leaf-114&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Animal&lowbar;Crossing&lowbar;New&lowbar;Leaf-114" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong style&equals;"line-height&colon; 1&period;5em&semi;"><i><span style&equals;"text-decoration&colon; underline&semi;">&num;5 There’s No Shame In Asking For Help <&sol;span><&sol;i>  <&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>There were an abundance of times that I needed to ask for help in <i>New Leaf <&sol;i>and since &OpenCurlyQuote;Mayor’ wasn’t exactly a regular role featured on my characters CV&comma; I needed all the support that I could get when it came to my governmental duties&period; Thankfully&comma; such help could be found via my very chirpy assistant Isabella who was on hand to give me advice whenever I needed it&period; There were also many other friendly villagers in the town who were more than happy to help me with my enquiries and when I was unsure of how to a fishing rod&comma; all I had to do was say so&period; Did I ever feel ashamed about this&quest; No&comma; because if I hadn’t of asked then I would have wasted god knows how may hours of my life throwing that rod in the water&comma; only to catch the virtual flu&period; In the real world&comma; there’s no shame in getting help either&comma; especially when you’re up against a Giant Bowser that you just can’t seem to defeat&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong><i><span style&equals;"text-decoration&colon; underline&semi;">&num;4 Patience Is A Virtue<&sol;span><&sol;i><&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>During my <i>New Leaf<&sol;i> journey&comma; I had to be prepared to wait for things&comma; which of course&comma; meant having a little patience&period; Moving along in real-time rather than the more traditional game-time&comma; if two hours passed in my village&comma; then two hours passed in my bedroom&period; So&comma; when someone told me that something such as an overly priced house &lpar;see below for details&rpar; was going to be built by the next morning&comma; I actually had to wait until the next morning to finally get rid of the cloth and poles I’d been calling a home for the past few days&period; Granted&comma; a 24-hour turnaround for a new home is the best building quote I’ll ever receive&comma; but in the land of video games&comma; it’s still quite a while to wait&period; However&comma; on planet reality we all have to wait for the things we want and whilst having a major temper tantrum may seem like a good idea to achieve the things you crave&comma; it still won’t make the new <i>Super Smash Bros&period;<&sol;i> come any quicker&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><img class&equals;" wp-image-56990 aligncenter" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;02&sol;05132955&sol;nook&period;jpg" alt&equals;"nook" width&equals;"800" height&equals;"300" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong><i><span style&equals;"text-decoration&colon; underline&semi;">&num;3 Looks Can Be Deceiving<&sol;span><&sol;i><&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I’m not going to mention any names here&comma; but let’s just say that there is a certain raccoon in<i> New Leaf<&sol;i> that knows how to get what they want&period; Deceitfully cute&comma; he who must not be named may at first appear to be a ball of lovely&comma; helpful fur but actually he’s just another shady mammal looking to get a quick payday off those in need&period; Unfortunately&comma; doing business with the above was a situation that I wasn’t permitted to avoid&comma; regardless of the fact that I felt the words&comma; &&num;8220&semi;Sorry&comma; right now I can’t calculate how much the building work is going to cost&period; &period; &period; &&num;8220&semi;sounded like those of a shifty racoon trying to jib me out of some dollar&period; A valuable lesson to remember&comma; looks can too be very much deceiving in the real world&comma; although sometimes this can go the other way&period; For example&comma; just because a person appears to be an unapproachable cookie doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to be a nasty piece of dough&period; Take <i>New Leaf<&sol;i> inhabitant Apollo&period; Initially he doesn’t look like an overly friendly bird to converse with&comma; but surprisingly he’s quite nice once I got a closer look inside his feathers&comma; figuratively speaking of course&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong><i><span style&equals;"text-decoration&colon; underline&semi;">&num;2 Treating People Badly Will Get You Nowhere<&sol;span><&sol;i><&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>A lesson that needs to be taken quite literally in this game&comma; early on I was asked to get my town approval rating up on the premise that if I didn’t&comma; I wouldn’t get the planning permission I required&comma; thereby stalling my game progression&period; Therefore the only way to get anywhere in <i>New Leaf<&sol;i> was to treat the inhabitants of my village with some consideration&comma; thus allowing me to develop both my town and game advancement&period; Since <i>Animal Crossing<&sol;i> series isn’t big on violence or profanity-laden insults&comma; it’s no surprise that I was required to act this way to further my in-game ambitions but that didn’t mean that I didn’t have a choice&period; If I wanted to insult people and tell them that their clothing selections were at best questionable&comma; then I could have&comma; but that would have meant being stuck in the same gaming loop in <i>New Leaf<&sol;i> forever&period; Treating people badly in this game then&comma; really doesn’t get you anywhere&comma; and unless your ambition is to be a regular on the Jeremy Kyle show&comma; then you’ll probably find that treating others with respect tends to get you much further than sleeping with their sisters does&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-56988 aligncenter" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;02&sol;05133015&sol;Anima-Crossing-New-Leaf&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Anima-Crossing-New-Leaf" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong><i><span style&equals;"text-decoration&colon; underline&semi;">&num;1 Nothing In Life Is Free<&sol;span><&sol;i><&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The harshest and truest lesson of all&comma; it’s one that I was reminded of very quickly during my time in <i>New Leaf<&sol;i>&period; When I wanted a roof over my head&comma; I had to pay for it&period; When I wanted a shovel with which to find more valuable things to sell for said necessities&comma; I had to pay for it&period; When I wanted a hat that made me feel more sophisticated than James Bond at a Mozart concert&comma; I had to pay for it&period; Whether you pick cherries&comma; hawk seashells&comma; or sell your own shoes&comma; one way or another&comma; you need to find a way to get those bells or your already freezing tootsies are going to get even colder&period; It’s a horrible thing to learn whether you’re a real person or a computer-generated Mayor but unfortunately the above lesson is just one of those sad truths that we all have to learn to live with&comma; no matter how much we wish it wasn’t the case&period; That being said&comma; there are some things in life that are free but chances are you won’t want them&period; I know I certainly don’t&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;