This is a tertiary 1st-generation Animal Crossing town. Doubutsu no Mori (どうぶつの森, roughly Animal Forest) was the first iteration of the first-generation Animal Crossing games, released in Japan for the Nintendo 64.
If you're wondering where the name came from, I looked on Wikipedia for villages in Japan until I found some that weren't landlocked. Chōsei, which is located in Chiba Prefecture, was one village.
Also, when I got this game back in August 2024, the previous owner had さよ written on the label, so I decided to use that name when creating this town.
Here's some facts about it:
Fruits:
Players:
There are many different versions of the 1st-generation Animal Crossing games, including a Chinese version (动物森林). The Chinese version is based on this version, so it doesn't have any of the features of the later versions.
Given the success of the original Doubutsu no Mori despite its release at the end of the Nintendo 64's time on the market, it makes sense that Nintendo would have rereleased it with extra features.
But since my knowledge of Japanese is rudimentary at best, I don't constantly feel like I'll be insulted by villagers if I look at them wrong.
Coming from Animal Crossing, this version feels quite primitive by comparison. There's no museum or tailor, you can't manually toggle the lights in your house, your house is stuck with a single floor, and there are only a few Famicom games you can play.
But I know I'll like this game.
I got this game back in August 2024 at the Long Island Retro Gaming Expo for "only" $30. Unfortunately, I have to swap the cartridge shell with my copy of Super Mario 64 every time I want to play it, and the internal clock battery is dead. But hopefully I can get those fixed.