Animal Crossing: New Leaf was released in the summer of 2013, when I was 8 years old. I don’t remember when I got the game, but I’ve been playing it for a long time. When I was 10 years old, I wanted an iPod instead. My mom said she would get me one for my birthday if I got rid of my 3DS. She said I didn’t need that many electronics. I was heartbroken at the time, but I eventually forgot about it, until 4 years later.
During that time, I had a part-time job at a grocery store, giving me some disposable income. Using my own money, I made a purchase on eBay—a limited edition 3DS XL bundled with Animal Crossing pre-installed. The game card slot was broken, so I bought an identical console with a working game slot. Long story short, I somehow messed with the software and permanently deleted Animal Crossing from it, so I had to buy the game card. Since then, I’ve been through multiple towns and tons of different villagers. I would go through phases of playing for hours each day, and then forgetting about the game for months.
I found out how to hack my 3DS around 2 or three years ago. With a hacked console, you can download whatever themes you want for the home menu, and get any game you want for free. Hacking your console is surprisingly easy. All I had to do was put my console’s SD card into my computer, download a ton of files, and put them on the SD card. With a hacked 3DS, you can also use cheats in your Animal Crossing town. I found out how to do this recently, but all you do is search “ACNL Save Editor”, click the top search result, and drag a file from your SD card. After doing that, you have free reign of your town.
I recently started playing again because I was able to modify my town to my liking. I hacked my town and gave myself only cat villagers and moved their houses. You can do anything you want, but I’m keeping the cheating to a minimum because I still want to reach the big game milestones on my own.
I don’t know why I suddenly wanted to start playing again, but I’m determined to unlock all the stores, grow every rare flower, and have a perfect town. I never made it that far in the game when I was little, so doing it now feels like a major accomplishment for me now, and me 10 years ago. I’ll continue making both of us happy by playing one of my favorite games in the world!
