Not too long ago, Nintendo released a fairly large new update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons – the first in almost four years. It adds all sorts of new features, from Splatoon and Zelda items to a brand-new resort hotel to classic games you can play within your town. It also makes some really helpful quality-of-life changes: you can access crafting materials from your storage no matter where on your island you are, and you can craft multiple items all at once. Between these changes and the ability to access your storage anywhere via the storage sheds, it’s so much easier to fully decorate your island now than it was when the game first launched almost six years ago. That being said, Animal Crossing: New Horizons still has one major flaw that may well never be fixed – tool durability.
Something was up at Nintendo from 2017 to 2021 or so. Many games released during this time period, including Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Paper Mario: The Origami King, include mechanics that wear down your items over time. Eventually, these items break, and you have to recreate them and start the process all over again. And unfortunately, this does make sense for the first two games – they’re both full of materials you can farm over and over, and having to recreate tools does add longevity to each title. Just not the right kind of longevity, is all. Paper Mario: The Origami King has no excuse, though – why can updated boots and hammers break?!
Back to Animal Crossing, though – I think New Horizons’ biggest flaw is one that could be easily fixed. Why do golden tools break at all? Each golden tool requires that the player go through plenty of challenges. For the golden axe, you have to break 100 axes. For the golden rod and golden net, you have to catch every single fish and bug at least once each. For the golden slingshot you have to shoot down a golden balloon, and for the golden watering can you simply have to have a 5-star island rating.
The golden shovel, however, is a nightmare in and of itself. To get the recipe, players need to assist Gulliver 30 times. Unfortunately, this is much more difficult than it sounds – Gulliver generally shows up around once a week, but half the time, Gullivarrr the pirate shows up instead. And his quest does not count towards the 30 you need for the golden shovel. All of these quests, especially this one and catching all the creatures, take a very long time – likely months and months of continuous playing. Once you’ve got the recipes, you have to use a gold nugget and the base tool to craft the golden tool. Gold nuggets are fairly rare, only popping out of rocks extremely infrequently. And after jumping through all those hoops, golden tools still break. Animal Crossing is generally a very creative and relaxing game, but the feeling when your golden net or rod breaks is a truly terrible one. After all, you’ve already caught all the creatures – why are these tools breaking?
I think Animal Crossing: New Horizons still has its fair share of flaws. The 3.0 update helped a bit with adding more variety to villagers thanks to the new tourists, but that weakness can’t be fully solved via an update. An update can, however, fully solve the frustrating issue of the golden tools you’ve worked so hard to earn breaking. Infinite golden tools would pose one issue: players who craft them for others who don’t have the recipes. That would give new players a huge boost, given that the golden versions of tools are often better in some way. For example, the golden rod and net have larger hitboxes compared to the normal ones. Still, making these tools unbreakable would give players a clear goal to aim for – unbreakable tools. As it stands, it makes more sense to buy deluxe shovels and axes from the Nooklings rather than use gold nuggets every time your shovel or axe breaks. If golden tools are outclassed by normal ones, you know there’s some kind of issue there.
Are you okay with golden tools breaking in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, or would you rather them be infinite-use as well? Let us know in the comments down below.
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