The best Animal Crossing games, ranked

Compared to other easily-ranked Nintendo franchises, Animal Crossing is a bit different. At the time of writing, there are only a handful of main series Animal Crossing games and even fewer spin-offs. Most of them are incredibly high quality and well-received by fans, with only a small number of exceptions. There also aren’t quite as many games in the Animal Crossing series compared to some of Nintendo’s other juggernauts – these games take a long time to develop, and we suspect it’ll be a while before we see a new Animal Crossing game on Nintendo Switch 2.

In the meantime, we’ve made our own subjective list of the best Animal Crossing games, ranked from worst to best. Do note that we’re not including Animal Crossing Plaza (which really had very little to it) or Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp; the former is defunct and we’re focused more on Nintendo platform games for this ranking. Here’s what we came up with.

7. Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival

When Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival was revealed for Wii U at E3 one fateful year, it gave us a glimpse of something incredible: Isabelle and other characters leaving the train station and entering an HD replica of a town from Animal Crossing: New Leaf. This was finally going to be the HD Animal Crossing we wanted – wait, why are there party spaces? Needless to say, amiibo Festival is almost universally agreed to be the worst game in the franchise. The production values are definitely there – the graphics are crisp and the soundtrack isn’t bad – but the concept of the game is flawed in the first place.

In this Mario Party-esque take on Animal Crossing, you choose your playable character via a physical amiibo. And whenever it’s your turn, you have to tap the figure to the Wii U GamePad and pass it around. This makes regular gameplay a chore – you need to pass around the controller and have an amiibo ready, which just adds a bunch of needlessly complex layers onto a game that doesn’t need them. The amiibo itself were neat, but massively overproduced – in fact, this game definitely contributed to (but likely did not cause) the fall of toys-to-life. Stores received so many Animal Crossing amiibo that didn’t sell that many of them reduced their toys-to-life displays. We’ve already got a whole paragraph and we haven’t even discussed the actual gameplay – that’s because it’s also quite boring, and it pales in comparison to just about every Mario Party game.

6. Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer

Both Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival and Happy Home Designer released in 2015, and it kind of shows. Animal Crossing: New Leaf later received a big update in 2016 which included some features from this game, but not all of them. Hence its name, Happy Home Designer is completely focused on designing the interiors of homes rather than focused on your town like in previous entries.

For those who love designing houses, Happy Home Designer streamlined and improved the process by quite a bit. For those who tend to lose interest or burn out after pouring a bit too much creativity in your house designs, however, this game might not be for you. And these days, you have Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ Happy Home Paradise DLC, which we think wholly outclasses this one. Furthermore, the houses you design in New Horizons actually carry over to giving you rewards on your own island too. In Happy Home Designer for Nintendo 3DS, all of your designs are self-contained, and it winds up feeling very disconnected from your New Leaf town. We think Happy Home Designer probably would’ve done better as a side mode in New Leaf, though 3DS games can only take on so much additional update content before reaching a hard cap.

5. Animal Crossing: City Folk

Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival is the only truly bad Animal Crossing game. From here on out, all of the Animal Crossing games on this list are good – it’s just a matter of which ones are slightly more good than the others. City Folk winds up falling behind, mainly because much of its content is done better by other games in the series. The villagers have often been criticized for being more bland than the ones in the GameCube version and Wild World, and the nasty grass deterioration made infamous by this game will turn your town into an eyesore in no time. Still, this is a solid Animal Crossing entry all in all, and even though its content doesn’t do much to set it apart from previous entries in the series, it’s still quite good on its own. It’s just on the lower end of “good Animal Crossing games”, in our opinion.

4. Animal Crossing: Wild World

To someone who hasn’t played either game, it may seem odd that Wild World ranks above City Folk. Indeed, despite its primitive graphics and lower frame rate, Wild World is often seen as the superior title thanks to its additional content. The game introduces tons of new facilities, for one, including The Roost and Shampoodle, among many others. It also introduces a good number of new villagers, including the now-beloved Stitches and Whitney. You’ve also got expanded flower mechanics alongside the Watering Can, and true online multiplayer for the first time in the series. Though Wild World isn’t quite as jam-packed with features as future games in the franchise, it was quite good for its time and was also fun on the Wii U Virtual Console later on.

3. Animal Crossing (GameCube)

Going back to Animal Crossing on the GameCube after playing New Horizons doesn’t just show you that the series has gone a long way – it also shows that it’s taken a different direction. Whereas modern Animal Crossing focuses more on wholesome interactions and island customization, old Animal Crossing games really felt like you were an unwanted outcast in a new town. You had to earn your trust with villagers, who are generally crankier and difficult to befriend compared to future games. Despite being the first game in the series here in America, there’s plenty to enjoy about it in the modern day. There are plenty of holidays, interesting villager interactions, and fish and bugs to catch to warrant checking in once every day or so. This is one we’d love to see a modern port of while we wait for the next Animal Crossing.

2. Animal Crossing: New Leaf

Many would argue that Animal Crossing: New Leaf is the best game in the franchise (including this writer), but Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ focus on customization makes all previous entries a little bit difficult to go back to. That said, New Leaf is incredibly solid, with great soundtrack, tons of content and villager interactions, and plenty of town upgrades to keep you playing for a long, long time. At the end of the day, it really comes down to preference – if you prefer customizing your island and making your space yours, New Horizons is the one for you. But New Leaf is always a nice break if you’re looking for a game that focuses more on town and villager interactions. It also received a huge update in 2016 that added tons of new content, including mini-games, furniture, new locations, new villagers, and much more.

1. Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the most recent game in the series at the time of writing, and also the most successful. Do note that for the sake of the ranking, we’re counting New Horizons as having all of its updates and DLC – if we were ranking the base game, it would probably be sitting below the GameCube game thanks to a lack of content. Fortunately, this issue was mostly fixed over the years though via spread-out updates that added small pieces of content one by one. Nowadays, there’s a decent amount to keep you occupied after you build up your island – collecting furniture, critters, and the like. The focus on customization here makes players’ islands incredibly unique, and the game’s soft pastel colors really pop on Nintendo Switch. We think the hourly themes are a little bit weak, though, and the villagers in this game are bland and washed out, often repeating the same dialogue. That just means we’re looking forward to the next Animal Crossing game all the more, though.

In the meantime, what’s your favorite game in the Animal Crossing series? We’d expect most of the answers to be New Horizons or New Leaf, so bonus points if your favorite is one of the less-discussed entries in the series. If you want to check out Nintendo’s official Animal Crossing: New Horizons website, you can do so right here.