The Dodolint Chronicles II

It's been two and a half years since I had posted my Dodolint Chronicles and during these two and a half years I have kept playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons more or less regularly. For a while it slowed down to only once per week, but since the announcement of the 3.0 update I went back to playing on a daily basis, in an attempt to finish my vision of a Zelda-themed island. So, let's have a look of how this has been going...

 

Past Goals 

How much I play this game always depended on my goals at the given time. And since my previous post I have successfully bred all flowers, collected all insect and fish models, obtained and crafted all DIY recipes, and catalogued all furniture, walls, floors, rugs, and other items. I will probably never catalog all clothing items, because it's too inconvenient to do so, but I should have all the special ones and I'm only one variant short of having gotten absolutely everything from Gulliver. He is the regular "visitor" where it's taking the longest to collect everything, whether you are time traveling or not.

Most of these goals didn't even matter all that much – they were more or less just an excuse to keep playing. To boot up the game in the hopes of getting something new, which also ensures that my island won't be overgrown with weeds. Right now I'm mainly trying to collect some more photos from my current villagers and once that's done, then things will probably slow down again. But I have arrived at a point where I have achieved pretty much everything I wanted to on my island.

 

The Final Villagers 

Most importantly, I have finalized the selection of my villagers, now that the Zelda collaboration characters finally have arrived. The ones from New Leaf didn't return, however, where instead we got Tulin and Mineru. With one exception, this didn't really change my original plans, and it gave me the room to keep some of the villagers I already had and liked. So, this is who I have on my island right now:

• Cephalobot (Smug Octopus)
• Audie (Peppy Wolf)
• Phoebe (Big Sister Ostrich)
• Coco (Normal Bunny)
• Lucky (Lazy Dog)
• Knox (Cranky Rooster)
• Sterling (Jock Eagle)
• Tulin (Jock Bird)
• Mineru (Snooty Deer)
• Sylvana (Normal Squirrel)

With Wolf Link and Epona out of the picture, I was in need for a smug and a peppy villager, where I already had the right candidates with Audie and Cephalobot on my island, both of which were introduced in New Horizons. The former is a wolf who looks like a fox and that's really all there really is to her. There is no intended connection to Zelda, though I could gift her the Link outfit, so she runs around like the fox from TUNIC.

Cephalobot on the other hand looks like a mechanical Octorok, which reminded me of the Automatons from Echoes of Wisdom. I even redesigned his house to resemble Dampé's studio:

So, that was an easy choice. If you want another villager inspired by enemies from Legend of Zelda, look no further than Lucky, who is basically a Gibdo dog... A Gibdog! I even gave him "gibdo" as his catch phrase, while he greets me with "Leeeeave it!"

Knox keeps saying "Kakariko" and "cucco", where he is my Cucco Knight. And you can't have Knox without Sterling. Well, you can, but you shouldn't. They belong together.

And Sterling is basically Revali, a blue eagle obsessed with being the best, though he is much nicer. I'm not the biggest fan of the jock personality, where now I have two of them, but at least they have different sub types (Tulin is A, Sterling is B). And it's actually a good fit, where the two Rito can compete with each other.

Phoebe is the only one in the list where I'm not certain that she is the best choice for her personality (big sister) on my Zelda-themed island. She used to be for when I planned with the New Leaf cameos, where you had Epona. But since Epona didn't return, I'm thinking that Reneigh (who is also a new addition in New Horizons) may be the better choice, because she fills that horse slot and even gets a little harmonica jingle, which gives Lon Lon Ranch vibes whenever you talk to her.

However, I had Reneigh for a long time on my island already, so I still went with Phoebe in the end, because I liked her design quite lot. She is a an ostrich on fire, who has a lava cave for her house, where I like to associate her with Eldin. She also reminds me a bit of the Furnix enemies from Skyward Sword, the Phoebenix from the ashes.

Finally, there are two normal villagers, which is my favorite personality in the game next to the crankies, because they are always cute and never annoying. Coco is the one I chose for the theme, where she represents pots. I know that she is based on the Gyroids, but her dark, black eyes and mouth also remind me of Hollow Knight, so that's a plus.

Sylvana on the other hand has no proper reason to be on my island. She was a tourist visiting my island from when the hotel was new and I instantly fell in love with her cute design, so I simply had to get her.

Originally, I was going with Tipper to have the full Lon Lon animal trio of chicken, cow and horse present in my recreation of Kakariko Village. For that reason she has been on my island ever since the beginning, but I never really liked her that much, to be honests. Plus, I'm having another snooty villager with Mineru, so I decided to replace her with Sylvana. And I have not regretted it since.

Sylvana still got the milk bar in the end, where I designed her house loosely based on the one from A Link Between Worlds. (That's not the house in the above picture, but the one from Knox, placed at the Cucco den. He lives right next to her.) Her design also reminds me of caffè latte, so it's not too far off from the whole milk topic.

As for alternatives for the Zelda theme, there is also Boris if you're looking for a discount Ganon. Octavian could pose as an actual Octorok. And Lionel can make for a good Lynel, but this character got ruined by Happy Home Paradise. These are just some ideas, but I'm good for now and probably keep my current neighbors until the next game.

 

Villager History

Over the years I had a total of 33 different villagers on my island. Some stayed only briefly, some have stayed for multiple years, but I have collected at least two photos from all of them. Here's the full list with who had replaced whom:

• Billy → Cephalobot
• Fuchsia → Cranston → Coco
• Anabelle → Alice → Reneigh → Phoebe
• Pekoe → Ankha → Lucky
• Deli → Julia → Audie
• Tex → Gayle → Henry → Roald → Sterling
• Vic → Knox
• Eloise → Pashmina → Ricky → Tulin
• Drago → Mitzi → Lily → Molly → Mineru
• Tipper → Sylvana

The ones I had in the meantime were Alice, Reneigh, Roald, Ricky, Lily and Molly. As already said, my favorite personality types are cranky and normal, where I had my fair share of the latter. There were eight, about a fourth of the total: Pekeo, Gayle, Mitzi, Alice, Lily, Molly, Coco and Sylvana. However, this also made them feel more interchangeable to me, even more than they already are. So, it's nice that Coco feels somewhat unique at the end.

And just because I didn't have many of a certain personality type, it doesn't mean that I don't like them. I only had three different Crankies, but that's mainly because I liked Vic so much and didn't want to see him go. And since I already had a cranky villager on my island, I usually opted for someone or something else when looking for replacements. However, at some point I got Ricky and then had two Crankies at the same time for a while. Ganon also would have been cranky, by the way.

Home Sweet Home

As for my island itself, it hasn't changed all too drastically since 2022. It still has the same layout, where the biggest change is probably the addition of a lake area on the upper level (which is actually a river, so you have more space to find the clifftop fish). I've also added elevations to certain areas to make them feel more cozy. Overall, it really became this virtual second home, where I'm happy to return there.

Generally, I like to keep everything in a more minimalist style, so I'm not one of those people who feel the need to fill every single square of their island. Everything needs to be quickly accessible and have a clear purpose.

There are my (flower) fields, the fruit forest, the campsite, dedicated fishing spots, the main village, and so on. Of course, I have still decorated most of it, but less is more, and I tend to avoid bigger places that are just there to look nice. That's what the new Slumber Islands are for.

Also, I'm still not using any custom designs, because I prefer the natural look of the game. Until now that was the only way of doing "something Zelda" on your island, but the 3.0 now brought the official decorations that I was longing for. Well, there isn't actually that much to work with, but it's nice to see a Goddess Statue or a decayed Guardian here and there.

The one place where I probably could go crazy with decorating is my house, because I rarely ever go inside. I keep crafting tables, cooking stations, storage sheds, and even "wardrobes" everywhere around my island, so I only need to go inside for a bed or a toilet. I even have a mirror hidden behind my house for convenience. As a result, I'm using it mainly as some sort of gallery. I have a trophy room in my basement, where I display the photos of all my past and present villagers. There is a "Gyroid freezer" room and a retro gaming room, where the latter has some Super Mario items in it and the playable consoles that were added with version 3.0. And my bedroom looks like this now:

So, I made my house a small museum of fun things. The only exception is the bathroom, which is really just a nice, little bathroom, as you would expect it, because I didn't want to put a toilet anywhere else. And you don't even need the toilet in the game all too often – it's only there for getting rid of unwanted food boosts, in case you ate something accidentally.

If you want to have a look at everything yourself, then you're in luck, because I've just recently updated my Dream Island. You can find it via the following:

• Name: Dodolint
• Dream Address: DA-0278-1243-2976

But as I said, don't expect anything extraordinary. I may update it again every once in a while, but I don't think that I'm going to make any more major changes going forward. Certainly nothing worth blogging about.

Old Horizons

The 3.0 update really was the push I needed to "finish" things in this game. To complete my collections, finally get the villagers that I wanted since the beginning, and also realize the Zelda theme. And with that it feels like a long journey is coming to an end.

That doesn't mean that I will stop playing any time soon, but the frequency will probably slow down, because I have truly run out of goals. Maybe I will start collecting all clothing items after all...

But Animal Crossing: New Horizons has made me interested in the series, something that I never thought I would be. So, I'm looking forward to the next game, where hopefully it won't take them six years again to add the Zelda crossover contents...