(Nurse Fin's) Exciting Animal March: A First Look, Observations about the game Options

[Nurse Fin]

Okay, so I've been playing for about 15 minutes... I haven't met everyone in the town yet (I'm in the middle of doing so) but here are some of the things I've noticed so far.

-Loading times are roughly 2-3 seconds for buildings, 4-5 seconds for large outdoor areas.
-Time flow: 10 seconds = 10 minutes in-game time. That means the days are twice as long as ToT's (which makes sense, because the maps are a lot bigger)
-Time stops indoors. So you can loiter around people's houses and shops as much as you want. :D
-Totally different sound effects and soundtrack from ToT. Which is really nice, because the text scrolling noise in ToT was very loud (it was removed in the US version). Depending who you talk to, the pitch of the text sound is different (kind of like their "voice"). I haven't heard any actual voice acting for this game. Which means no poorly dubbed voiceovers in the US release. \o/
-The graphics have been improved. While the meshes all look the same so far, they have more mobility (like, Cathy's ponytail swishes around a bit when she walks), people have a much wider range of expressions, and the textures are of a much higher resolution.
-There are lots of events. The social interaction that I have seen, so far, feels more "personal" (and/or personable?) than other HM games. Even the regular townspeople get more lines.
-The "cutscene" when talking to people or animals, especially animals-- is much quicker.

So far, it feels substantially different from Tree of Tranquility.

(IMG:http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v226/rinfin/waku_mai.jpg)
(IMG:http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v226/rinfin/waku_chihaya.jpg)

I'll keep editing/updating this topic with more info and media once I stop getting lost everywhere. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/lalaexdee.gif)

This post has been edited by Nurse Fin: Oct 30 2008, 01:47 AM