I love the original Animal Crossing for all the things it does do, and maybe even more for all the things it doesn't. It doesn't let you traverse a big world, fight anything, or ask you to do much other than wander around and engage in a relatively small pool of actions.
If great power means great responsibility, then being powerless gives you permission to be irresponsible. Like going on vacation to a small cabin where there's not much to do, the limitations Animal Crossing puts on you frees your mind to wander to places it might not otherwise go, unencumbered by any distracting hustle and/or bustle.
With each new entry in the series, I worry that Nintendo will succumb to the urge to make the game bigger and more complicated. Thankfully, New Horizons refrains from trying to transform Animal Crossing into some sort of massive Minecraft/Fortnite social game juggernaut, though it is inching in that direction in more than a few ways.
