Animal Crossing 3.0’s Best Feature Is Its Biggest Disappointment

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Drift at Brewsters The Roost in Animal Crossing New Horizons

Kyle Gratton is an editor and writer based out of Kansas City. He received a bachelor's degree, dual majoring in English and History with a minor in Film and Media Studies, and has been a senior staff writer and reviewer for Screen Rant's Gaming section since 2021, with roles in editorial, and various freelance projects.

A terminal Midwesterner who graduated from the University of Kansas, Kyle also has knowledge and interest in literature, film, film adaptions of literature, and history.

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Nearly six years after Animal Crossing: New Horizons first came out, the 3.0 update is a huge milestone, but what should have been one of the best new features is instead a significant disappointment. The new Resort Hotel is a stand-out, Slumber Islands are great for multiplayer, and new collab items and villagers are fun, but Nintendo sadly dropped the ball bringing back its in-game retro consoles.

Playable, emulated NES games first appeared in the original Animal Crossing on the GameCube, but failed to return in any following title – until New Horizons 3.0. There are seven different Nintendo systems you can get – Famicom, Famicom Disk System, NES, Game Boy, Super Famicom, and SNES – and each plays a different retro game. The problem is, half of those games are lackluster choices, and Nintendo made the bizarre decision to paywall them.

Animal Crossing 3.0’s Nintendo Consoles Have A Disappointing Game Selection

Animal Crossing character using an NES saying, "Maybe I'll play Ice Climber."

The full line-up of emulated classics in Animal Crossing 3.0 is:

Famicom: Clu Clu Land
Famicom Disk System: Ice Hockey
NES: Ice Climber
Game Boy: Dr. Mario
Super Famicom: Panel de Pon (Tetris Attack in the West)
SNES: F-Zero

The selection isn't necessarily bad. F-Zero, Panel de Pon, and Dr. Mario are really fun, and Ice Climber is alright, but the Switch and Switch 2 have a number of other emulated classics that would have been much better choices. Instead of Ice Climber, which never received a sequel and only lives on through Super Smash Bros., why not a more beloved classic?

The NES Nintendo Classics app includes many esteemed games of the era, like the first three Super Mario Bros., the first two Zelda games, Metroid, Donkey Kong, Punch-Out!!, Kirby's Adventure, EarthBound Beginnings... the list goes on. Granted, playing a whole RPG like EarthBound in Animal Crossing is a bit odd, but if there are only going to be six games, why not include some of Nintendo's greatest hits?

I Can’t Believe Nintendo Actually Paywalled This

Animal Crossing New Horizons player standing with Leilani in the hotel

Even more egregious is the fact that you can only play these six games within Animal Crossing if you're subscribed to Nintendo Switch Online. Nintendo's potential logic is easy to guess: emulated classics require a subscription, regardless of where they're played on Switch and Switch 2. But when the selection is pared down to six games, and those six games can only be played in Animal Crossing with specific items, requiring an NSO subscription feels ridiculous.

This isn't a new revelation – the 3.0 announcement trailer said the emulated games would require a subscription – but combined with the lackluster titles offered, it just makes the whole thing that much more disappointing. If they didn't require NSO, the games in Animal Crossing could be a decent promotion for the service. Maybe someone really likes playing F-Zero and wants to check out other Super Nintendo games.

As it stands, the Nintendo consoles in the 3.0 update just feel like wasted potential. It's a perfect opportunity for Nintendo to celebrate some of its most influential games, but the selection is instead lackluster and gated behind a subscription. There are more transformative additions to Animal Crossing: New Horizons in the 3.0 update, but the Nintendo consoles could have been the triumphant return of a classic feature.