Animal Crossing was originally a lot darker.

Chapter 3: Welcome to town

Well, after some loading the blank black background was replaced with a 3D world. Specifically, a train station just like in the final game, but without the dialogue with Porter. The station itself was also lacking in some details, the train was nowhere to be seen and neither was Porter, some textures also seemed less detailed but all around it was still familiar and recognizable. After Nick walked down the train station stairs, we were both surprised to see a text box appear, as we had assumed there wouldn't be that much dialogue in this version based on the introduction, or more accurately the lack thereof. The text belonged to Tom Nook, as the name in the top left of the text box would indicate. Nick and I both silently read the text,

"Whew! I'm glad I made it here in time to meet your train. I'm afraid I'm not in the best shape of my life... But I ramble! My name is Tom Nook. I run the store here, in town. I'm quite pleased to meet you, yes?" Nick paused for a minute to make sure I was able to read the dialogue before continuing, though something did strike us as odd. There wasn't any noise as Tom Nook spoke, the usual bubbly dialogue sounds were gone.

"I Was told about your arrival in advance, my young friend! Your name is '_Nick_' yes?" He asked, we were given the option to either agree or say no. For the sake of simplicity we agreed.

"Marvelous! But I must say it strikes me as odd, that you would move to a place without first settling on a place to live. Or really knowing where you're moving to. Why, it's one of the craziest things I've ever heard of! Madness!" We watched as Tom Nook laughed. But it was a lot more unsettling than in the retail game. There weren't any cartoony effects, and despite Tom Nook not having any dialogue noises, his laugh was audible. Usually you were given the choice to ask Tom Nook not to laugh but that choice never came up. He continued to laugh in awkward silence for a few seconds before abruptly stopping.

"Pardon me! That just struck a funny bone. But don't you worry. It may be small, but I have a house you can move into right away! It should more than suit your needs, hm?" Once more Nick was prompted to continue the dialogue and like before he did, though I kept noticing small oddities in this interaction, primarily that the text was appearing on screen a lot slower than usual with no way to skip ahead. Nevertheless I watched as Nick continued the interaction,

"I can show it to you now, so come along! Let's scuttle!" After that dialogue, the screen faded to black in a cartoony transition, and when the next scene loaded we found ourselves in the outskirts of town. There was not the usual row of houses that you could choose from, no, there was only one house sat in the center of a clearing surrounded by the woods.

Suddenly more Tom Nook dialogue appeared on screen,

"Go ahead! Take a good look inside. And please! Bear in mind that it's a little... how you say... cozy, hm? Yes, cozy!" Finally Nick had control of the character again, and he could walk around. There was a clear path that let out of the clearing and presumably would take us back into town, but when Nick tried to walk over to it, Tom Nook stopped him and started another interaction,

"Oh Please, don't be so humble! We can greet the other townsfolk later. For now, you really should take a look inside of your house. There's a surprise waiting for you." With no other option presented to us, Nick walked over to the lone house sitting in the clearing, surrounded by a few trees, and interacted with the door, letting us into the house with a small transition. The interior of the house was dire, and a lot smaller than what the outside implied. The walls were grayish and torn, with some cracks in the mix as well. Wooden beams lined the walls but they also looked slightly decrepit, and the low texture size that the N64 had didn't help. There were two windows on either side of the room, each illuminating white. The floor was, what looked to be concrete but admittedly could have been simply an unfinished texture, as it was not as detailed as the walls were. A black void surrounded what we could see of the house.

The furniture of the house was almost non-existent, but there was something that caught both of our attention, in the top right corner of the room, there was a present. A small box wrapped with a blue bow, sitting innocently in the corner. Compared to the rest of the building it was pristine, and clean. Like it was placed there specifically for us, and it likely was. Seeing as there was no other furniture in the room, Nick wandered over to the present and interacted with it. Nothing happened at first, other than the game appearing to freeze for a few frames as if it were loading something, at first we were worried that the cartridge was damaged in some way, the dust buildup while sitting in that box definitely wouldn't have helped it none, but to our relief the game quickly got better and was running fine again. A popup appeared on the screen with little fanfare, the text above it read, 'You've received a gift!', in the same plain font the title had been written in. A small icon was visible in the center of the screen, it looked to depict a piece of clothing specifically a shirt, with the description underneath stating,

"A cozy sweater, it looks like it was hand-made!" After pressing 'A' the popup went away and our character seemingly automatically put the sweater on. It was plain, with a faded golden color and stitched together in some places but it was cozy looking. After receiving the gift Nick walked back outside but we were both confused to see that Tom Nook was missing.