Everyone knew that Animal Crossing was coming to Wii, since it had already been confirmed numerous times ‘off the record’. Therefore, when it was fully unveiled at this year’s E3 event, nobody was surprised in the slightest. Initial first impressions might not have been particularly favourable due to the game looking just like its GameCube and Nintendo 64 predecessors, but now more in-game details have emerged from Nintendo that might possibly get fans a little hotter under the collar.

E3 may seem like a distant memory in the worldwind world of video games, but details from the plethora of interviews that took place are still pouring forth and one such interview comes from the folk over at IGN who were lucky enough to catch up with the lead producer and project manager of Animal Crossing: City Folk for Wii, Katsuya Eguchi, and discuss various aspects of the game, such as its online mode and the new aspects included that make it so much better than the immensely popular Nintendo DS edition.

The aim with this latest edition of Animal Crossing is to try and draw in not only the previous crowds that lapped up the DS iteration, but friends and family that may have admired the game from a distance yet never decided to jump in and make the purchase. To achieve such a goal it has meant the development team has had to include lots of past features that appeal to stalwart fans, as well as plenty of new content to bring in new people. To allay the fears of those thinking the game will be too similar to the DS’s Animal Crossing: Wild World, Eguchi confirmed that in this version of Animal Crossing there are new Wi-Fi additions, some of which we already know about. On top of this, there is also the new city area, which exists outside of the player’s town. The city area is a place where players can go if they feel they need to step out of the traditional Animal Crossing world. Players can then get their character dressed up and head out to explore the new area, plus engage in a variety of new activities, like a comic club where new emotions can be learned and a place to interact with characters that do not normally cross their path on a day-to-day basis. Clothing and the design area of people’s towns have been expanded upon. In the past these features were also big parts of the game, but now players will be able to do so much more. Players can now go in and change the front, back, and sleeves of clothing all independently now, rather than just the simple design aspect.

Below is an extract from the extensive interview:

IGN Wii: This is really two questions on interaction in the game. First of all, will there be support for GameCube controllers or classic controllers, and secondly, can you confirm for us that USB keyboard support is indeed in the game for all typing? We’ve heard two different answers from Nintendo since yesterday…

Katsuya Eguchi, Lead Producer and Project Manager: In regards to control, yes, you are correct that there is both the Wii-mote separately, and Wii remote plus nunchuk as your options. With the combination, you’ll use the nunchuk to do all the main actions within the gameplay, and the pointer functionality for all menus and screen interaction. As far as GCN and classic controller support, no, those are not supported. As for the keyboard, yes that does work with this, so it makes messaging and chat faster for those that want to use that.

IGN Wii: Can you give us an idea of the connectivity between the Wii and DS versions of the game? We saw that option right next to character select during our demo.

Katsuya Eguchi, Lead Producer and Project Manager: Addressing the connectivity between the DS and the Wii, if you have Animal Crossing on DS, we’re assuming you spent lots of time with that character and might be attached to him — his name, outfits, look — so you’ll be able to load that character into the Wii version and use that same character as you did in the DS game. Another thing we can do is use the DS as a means to help people who maybe don’t have Wi-Fi. We’ve talked about Wi-Fi and how neat it is to travel from town to town and interact with friends, but if you don’t have an internet connection you can take your character data and send it to your DS, bring your DS to a friend’s house, and upload your character to play around in his town and interact in the same way you would if you had a direct connection to them in Wi-Fi. The third thing we’ve done is add the ability to download new content as they become available online — which will help expand the universe with new furniture and things like that. Now if you don’t have Wi-Fi, you can take your DS to — at this point it’s still being determined exactly how — but an out of house destination where you can download the new content, and then bring it back to your home town and upload it. That way everyone can stay connected to the Animal Crossing world.

IGN Wii: Just to clarify on the DS to Wii connectivity and the “friend’s house” idea you mentioned. Could players bring their DS over and play their character on their DS while their friend is on WIi playing with his in the same town, or do you upload the character and run around solo in their town?

Katsuya Eguchi, Lead Producer and Project Manager: Yes, let me clarify that. When you take your character data over via the DS, you’re not using the DS to do any of the controlling. You can use that mode to explore the other player’s town independently, but you can’t play at the same time. To do that, you’ll need to connect via Wi-Fi and run around with one, or two, or three of your friends as we showed earlier.

Moving on from this, it appears that there are no plans to make a specific Animal Crossing Channel, plus the idea of interaction with the Wii’s Weather Channel and a player’s town, it was something that was considered initially, but considering Animal Crossing is its own world, the team decided to shelve the plans since there would be instances where certain countries would have rain all of the time, making their towns depressing, as well as meaning things would be rather limited for a group of players around the world. The WiiConnect24 service is also something that is being implemented for anyone that connects their games together with Friend Codes. If a player is connected with friends in that way, then the auction house and other areas are updated with WiiConnect24 automatically. This means that “when you leave I could come in and see what you’ve done in the area and get updates about your game in that way. And yes, it’s all done automatically.” Thankfully all the online services and downloadable content will be automatic processes and all free of charge.

With Animal Crossing: City Folk promised for the holiday period, it seems fans really do not have too long to wait…