Regardless of what platform you choose to play it on, Animal Crossing is broadly identical: as a lone human settler in a forest clearing full of animals, you settle into an idyllic, dreamlike existence of gentle adventuring and crafting. You can collect shells on the beach and exchange them for money, dig up bags of gold and go fishing. There are battles to fight, and you’ll never die. It’s like a fantasy retirement village for the people who love shopping and collecting things. The reality Animal Crossing’s society of doe-eyed, sweet-talking creatures masks the game’s horrifying agenda. It’s actually a simulation of capitalist oppression, first saddling the player with a crippling mortgage that grows as fast as they can pay it off, before luring them into a materialistic treadmill of drudgery and spending. Before you know it, you’re in thrall to Tom Nook, the apparently benign shop owner who rules the state of Animal Crossing with an iron fist. As the game goes on, Nook’s megalomania grows, his initially tiny shop gradually increasing in size until it’s become a sprawling department store. At the same time, your home gradually swells from a tiny hovel to a palace, allowing you to fill your life with an ever greater accumulation of furniture, trinkets and other pointless tat. (via When cute graphics mask evil games – Den of Geek)