Animal crossing: City Folk, or in PAL territories, Animal Crossing: Let’s go to the City, was released in 2008 for the Wii. This game was mainly seen as just another Wild World, and even editorial reviews after E3 suggested it wouldn't get good reception from earlier fans. I mean, this time they were right. The gameplay was almost identical to earlier games, and the general design was very similar too. Some main differences was that they re-introduced holidays, and added some new NPCs to go along with them! Zipper T. Bunny and Pavé were added, and re-named to their Animal Crossing world versions. Also, a huge area was just added: The City! The City was accessible through a bus line (?) and was basically a town square with a lot of shops surrounding it. Some of the people running these shops were previously traveling NPCs, but were now stationary at their respective businesses. Another new thing was that the neighborhood layout was set up differently, but I'm not sure if that was a feature in Wild World. I really like this game too, and I may actually get it in the future, since I own a Wii.
Animal Crossing: New Leaf was released in Japan in November 2012, and later for the rest of the world in June 2013. It was made for the newest console, the Nintendo 3DS. This game was a big fresh start, and many consider this game to be the one that “saved” the franchise. I can see why, considering the bad reviews that City Folk got due to its monotony. The first main difference is that the player characters' model is designed differently, so that the body isn't shrunk down to insane proportions. Instead, they get necks, and a normal length torso and legs! This allows for more mobility and other animations to be implemented, like swimming. Swimming also was a new feature after the Welcome Amiibo update. The Welcome Amiibo update was released around 3 years after the games initial release, and introduced a lot more features to the game. One of them, clearly, is amiibos. Amiibos were NFC chips that could “invite” NPCs and villagers to your town on-demand, rather than finding them by chance. They came in card forms, but you can also make your own. Not completely sure how legal it is though. Also, around 50 new villagers from past games were also added, making the villager index for New Leaf up to 333 total. Also, two new minigames were added, lots of new furniture, and there was a lot more interactivity with your environment! Players and villagers could sit on rocks, some animations could be shown when you interact with an item, and the player can shake trees while having an item equipped. It was a really big event for New Leaf players, and copies were also being sold with the update already inside. I like how they implemented the new console features into the game, and after 4 years of no main Animal Crossing games, and 7 years of no major updates to the gameplay, it was so refreshing to get an entirely new game with new characters, features, and even a new plot. I mean, you were mayor now! It was a great way to re-introduce their original concept while still keeping the essence of Animal Crossing.