One of the most appealing aspects of Animal Crossing: New Horizons is that players can do whatever they want with their islands. Placing furniture wherever they want, growing any flowers or crops, and terraforming the island are main attractions for life simulation games like New Horizons. Since decorating is so essential to the series, there are in-game rewards for an aesthetically pleasing island through a rating system. Unfortunately, this rating system also tends to punish players who have particular visions for their island.

Earning a five-star island rating is one of the main goals of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, since it unlocks a special DIY recipe and lily-of-the-valley flowers. Still, the system is majorly flawed for players with specific decorating styles. By speaking to Isabelle in the Resident Services building, players can ask how Villagers and guests rate the island, a score that ranges from one to five stars. The rating system values a clean, diversely decorated island with a fair amount of fences, flowers, trees, and furniture for Villagers to interact with.

If You Love Natural Decor, It's Impossible To Maintain Five-Star

Trees, Clutter, And Weeds Are All Punished

rating on an island is a challenging task that requires balancing numerous elements of decor. The “ideal” island, according to island evaluations, needs the perfect mixture of DIY furniture, normal furniture, and landscaping. This means having an exact number of flowers, fences, trees, benches, bushes, and tables. The problem for players with alternative styles is that they are usually punished for exceeding these perimeters, especially for those who prefer a more natural, campsite-style of decorating.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons naturally fits into a campsite style of decor. The lack of a downtown or main street like in past games, and the fact that the game takes place on a remote island getaway all lend to the feeling that an island should embrace nature, which often entails lots of DIY furniture and flower options. Unfortunately, the five-star rating system punishes players for exceeding certain furniture types and natural features, which makes having an all-natural five-star island especially hard.

Heavily themed islands that use plenty of trees, weeds, and rustic furniture can never score five stars in the current system. For example, having over 220 trees will lead to a lower score and comments from Isabelle that the island is “too rural” and that Villagers are afraid of being lost in the woods. In a similar vein, too many weeds will take away points for scoring, though the punishment is not as harsh as having too many trees. Unfortunately, weeds are treated negatively, especially when they’re so aesthetically pleasing for a more laid-back, campsite style of island.

The Next Animal Crossing Needs To Rethink Scoring

Thematic Harmony Should Be A Decorating Priority

Whenever the next Animal Crossing sequel comes, which will hopefully be sometime soon in the Nintendo Switch 2’s lifecycle, it should reevaluate how towns (or islands) are judged. Rather than requiring players to use every type of item in the game and punishing them for overusing certain items, the five-star evaluation should follow the example of how individual homes are graded. The weekly Happy Home Academy evaluation, like the island evaluation, grades the player’s home and gives it a letter rank from B to S.

The point system for home evaluations is equally complicated, but rewards players for concepts and matching categories, which, in turn, means any stylistic goals are also rewarded. If the player is going for an entirely black, goth style of home, the home evaluation will reward that, despite it not being a diverse style of decoration.

Five-star town evaluations should take a similar approach in the next Animal Crossing by rewarding stylistic harmony rather than checking boxes on the number of trees and fences for five stars. While it does make sense that Animal Crossing: New Horizons would want to reward players for using lots of different types of furniture and punish in-game “clutter”, it makes it difficult for players who prefer different decorating styles to earn their gold watering can and special lily-of-the-valley flowers.