The last time I wrote for Eurogamer, it was to tell the story of how Nintendo announced the end of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp as a freemium live service game and sent me into a tailspin of despair. The only thing helping me through this bleak time was the fact that, tucked at the very end of Nintendo’s email, was the revelation that my save data could live on in a paid app – Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete – which would arrive in “the future”.
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete reviewDeveloper: NintendoPublisher: NintendoPlatform: Played on iOSAvailability: Out now on iOS and Android
Well, the future is NOW and I’ve been playing Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete since about three minutes after a pre-order download notification plopped onto my lock screen. Not continuously, I should say. I took a break to have a bath at some point, and another one to crochet a nudibranch and watch The Fly, but I did play pretty intensely. The wealth of knowledge and experience gleaned in this period is what I will now share with you.
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete is a very similar experience to the now-defunct Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. You, a relatively competent human with a gigantic head, must contend with a collection of hapless but adorable animals and their requests as you build up a wealth of objects with which to decorate a little campsite, a camper van and a chalet. New players must start from scratch, gradually acquiring furniture and making friends in order to live out their deepest campsite manager fantasies. Old players can start fresh or pick up where they left off… Well, they can if they linked their Pocket Camp save data to a Nintendo account.
The latter is a potential point of friction, and worth discussing a little here in case you are a returning player reading this review and thinking of resurrecting your camp in the new app. Y’see, the save data transfer is only possible if you linked a Nintendo account to your save the live service game was switched off.