The Magic of Animal Crossing New Leaf's Music 

Warning: Subjectivity

The New Leaf soundtrack is incredible. Each hourly track fits the time of day perfectly. For New Horizons it almost feels like the music’s time choices were an afterthought. And the instrumentation is way too intrusive, especially the synth. New Leaf’s music will always have a special place in my heart.

New leaf perfected animal crossing, I remember waking up extra early just to be able to hear the 5am music. Every single soundtrack just added beautifully to the "small town" atmosphere, I especially adore the rainy weather music.

I would do anything for a HD New leaf

New Leaf's soundtrack really is incredible. I can appreciate some of New Horizons music, but it doesn't come close to the heights that New Leaf reached. Every single hourly song is amazing, and it fits it's time period perfectly! And 7pm, what a masterpiece. I also really love 10pm, it's just such a great vibe. Man now you're making me want to go back and play New Leaf!

i love the variety this soundtrack has as well as how well they invoke emotions and atmosphere. 11pm and 1am both gave me this sort of sad, nostalgic feeling, but not necessarily in a bad way. like, the day’s over and i’m kinda sad about it, but i think of all the happy stuff i did that day. they’re simple little tunes but i think they’re absolutely beautiful. edit: 7pm is another great example of invoking feelings. there’s a rush to it but at the same time it’s somber and calm. i felt like it went perfectly with the game as by that point shops would be closing soon and you’d be running around trying to sell stuff and finish shopping and all that, before taking a moment to just stop and relax.

There are 0 bad songs on that soundtrack

I never appreciated New Leaf's OST until I played New Horizons.

Animal Crossing New Leafs Soundtrack is a masterpiece. I have never played a game that, I got attached so emotionaly on and the Soundtrack was a BIG part of why I got attached to it. I couldnt describe it better than you did, just as you said, its magical. It makes you feel like you are actually living in that game for that moment on that specific time. The way you woke up, booted up the game and heard the 5 am music, slowly going up to 7am... Man, I dont want to sound like I am overdoing it but, I never liked waking up so much before playing this game and listening to the Music. I am a big AC fan and I also have now over 500 hours on New Horizons but man.... I cant. Stand. That. Music. Anymore. It makes me drive insane and I usually just end up listening to a podcast while playing because I JUST CABT HEARTHAT LOUD WANNA BE HAPPY BUT DOESNT FIT IN soundtrack. The only tunes I do like in NH is the morning onces. But thats it. The only feauture I want in NH at the moment is just, let me, PLEASE, JUST LET ME TURN OFF THAT MUSIC but still be able to hear the ingame effects. I a m b e g g i n g y o u n i n t e n d o. So I can at least, listen to the god tier NL soundtrack while playing NH. Dont get me wrong, I love NH and has ALOT of good points, but sadly... I just cant get along with the music at all....

New leafs soundtrack just gives me peaceful Saturday vibes... I love it and nothing comes close to it.

The best thing about new leafs soundtrack are those empty spaces. It feels incidental rather than being the focus. I’m a big fan of new horizons soundtrack (even though it’s my least favourite animal crossing) but it’s very loud in the mix and as such feels like it’s music being pumped into the island rather than settling nicely into the background.

I love new leafs music. I like how it matches the time of day perfectly. New horizons feels like it speeds up, and slows down over and over again. For example, at 8 am you have an upbeat track, and a few hours later the music slows down

New leaf was my first town and the reason I have attachments or hate to villagers in fact my favourite villager Freya (Who came to my new horizons island today) and kabuki the cat who I'm currently hunting for as he was the first villager I ever saw

ACNH is my first in the series and I want this music back 😭

The music ruined new horizons for me, along with many things that make New Hoiuzons not a true animal crossing in my eyes

Even if they let you choose to play the older ost it still wouldn't be enough to fully bring me back. There's alot of problems that isn't just the music (music is still a big part of it) that make New Horizons not even feel like an Animal Crossing game anymore.

i honestly wish i started out with new leaf! seeing all these comparisons between new horizons and new leaf make me sad about only starting with new horizons bshdgshd. once i finish high school maybe i’ll try and grab my old ds and get acnl! thank you for your content dude, its amazing ahhhh

I wish the villagers in New Horizons were more unique. Yeah they have different phrases but that's based on personality, not a specific villager. I think the game over all is feeling stale. I pre-ordered the game and was so excited, played for 2 weeks straight, then stopped. I keep getting the itch to go back, but I run around for 15 minutes and then get bored.

Imagine we get a New Leaf port for animal crossings 20th anniversary in April

I agree! New leaf's soundtrack is really awesome!

Good atmosphere, something New Horizons misses on

I cried at the 8:00 soundtrack bc that was when I first played it 😭😭

I wish their was a choice to choose hourly music

I've cried for the last month about how much I want to go back. I've gone back and listened to the soundtrack again, and I feel that my nostalgic needs have been fufilled. I don't think I can play that game for another 4 years, but I will remember those 4 years as the best gaming in my childhood.

my favourite new leaf track is by far 5pm, every time it’s 5pm in real life, i hear that music.

7pm from New Leaf is the most amazing track of the series. The entire soundtrack is cozy and sadly only 5am of NH comes even close to what NL had.

The biggest issue I think with New Horizons hourly themes is they don't fit their time or they do fit their time, but also could fit in a bunch of other times too. New Leaf's hourly themes fit their time perfectly. I am glad New Leaf was my first Animal Crossing game and not New Horizons.

New Leaf has a few masterpieces, but City Folk's soundtrack is the one that really outshines all the other ones for me :)

Yoooo a video on the amazing soundtrack of Animal Crossing: New Leaf? This is gonna be a good one!

I do love new leaf’s soundtrack but new horizon’s soundtrack is my favorite. I love almost every song in the OST (Maybe I like it so much because it was my first animal crossing game)

Honestly, the only song in New Horizons I really like out of the hourly music is the 6 p.m. theme, and it's mostly because it sounds like a song you'd hear in City Folk or Wild World with the Accordion. I'm just not a huge fan of the main theme being used in every hourly song. Another thing, is that my favorite piece in New Leaf is the 3 a.m. theme. It incapsulates the hour perfectly, and it's just really calming. I know people say the 5 a.m. theme is creepy, but I honestly really like that one as well.

I absolutely love the funky sounding drum machine music from the old games but new leaf is just so amazing

animal crossing new leaf is an art in video games. thank you for making this video.

Damn all your videos respect my fucking opinions and my nostalgia Love you man

In New Horizons' defense, there are some songs that capture the atmosphere for me, such as 2 AM, 5 AM and even 6 PM.

Animal Crossing New Horizons Desperately needs a huge new update

I will always say that I truly believe new leafs soundtrack is the most superior, wild world's is nostalgic for me, population growing is the classic, I never really played much of city folk but I've heard it's similar to wild world, and idk, the new horizons tracks...I'm not really feeling them, they're relaxing but I feel like they're missing...something, and that "something" is definitely present within new leafs soundtrack, I miss it so much

Dude! Everything you said about New Leaf's music made perfect sense! You get a like from me!

7:15 omg I laughed out loud 😂

I know this video is a little old but thank you for this, I’ve been obsessed with New Leaf’s soundtrack for so long, and 8PM NL is one of my favorite tracks in the entire series :”) 💗

THANK YOU I LOVE NEW LEAFS MUSIC. My oldest animal crossing new leaf footage is a random video I recorded with something on July 9th 2013, it’s me and my friend and me and her were just sitting there just with this creepy as hell 1 am music... it really shows how new leaf at night had a more “ eerie “ soundtrack. It was happy in the day but has a little creepy, sleepy atmosphere to it

7pm from new leaf calms me to my core

I completely agree. Thank you for spewing facts

I totally agree with all that you said, also i would like to say that I LOVED the 7:16 editing, made me laugh... a lot, ty.

I was literally searching for "why animal crossing new leaf's music is awesome" and it brought me to your video. I 100% agree, New Leaf's music is the best in the series. Everything in New Leaf's hourly soundtrack fits the hour it's in perfectly. New Horizons tries to hard with the summer theme in its music and feels the need to make every track flow with the hour after it. Also, you don't need a guitar to evoke a summer feel in music- er... except for New Leaf's 12pm which I think is a guitar?? But still, New Horizons tries too hard to fit the guitar in everywhere in the music. I think the piano is a better fit than the guitar anyways but that accordion from Wild World/City Folk will never be matched in it's nostalgic value. (Also not to mention that AC GCN's 1pm has a cat meowing in it) It's unfortunate that we may never see a perfect Animal Crossing game like New Leaf. However, New Leaf still exists and I play it today, nearly 10 years later. Even Animal Crossing on the Gamecube is a stellar game, despite it being released in 2001?! That's 20 years ago, and it's still an amazing game. Albeit the GCN release doesn't have much customization, it retains the ideas that the creator of Animal Crossing had for his game.

7PM is a masterpiece.

Wait wait 😂 let me remember which hourly music makes me panic and goes fast

I hope I can watch a video of your opinions on each hour in new leaf's music individually and hear how it connects like you said

I have a video suggestion: Wild World vs City Folk ost or a City Folk video because out of all 5 mainline games City Folk is the least talked about. And even when it is the discussion is about if City Folk is really just Wild World on Wii? I just think it'd be nice for City Folk to be acknowledged for excelling in something since nobody seems to praise it much, at least not on RU-vid. Sorry for going on a tangent. You don't have to take my request into consideration if you don't find City Folk that interesting. Ironically I never played City Folk, but Wild World instead. I just feel bad for how overshadowed it is by the more successful Wild World. I guess I can't help, but root for the underdog.

To be honest, i wish new horizons let us change what music from what game we want

New horizons was my first AC game and the music was amazinngg

8am is the BEST one

I love this game Animal crossing New Horizon

Nice Stardew Reference 😄

I don’t think the music is bad in mew leaf but I find some of the tracks depressing and almost gloomy. New horizons makes me feel happy all the time and relaxed and connects with the chilled out island atmosphere and vibe. It’s different for me because I have zero nostalgia as I didn’t play new leaf until after I got into the series with new horizons I feel like this whole new leaf vs new horizons is like morrowind vs Skyrim. It’s whatever you started with.

A way that can fix this is Spotify or RU-vid music because we already have RU-vid

I personally prefer Animal Crossing Gamecube and Wild Worlds music better, in my opinion I think Wild World catches the atmosphere the best in the series while the Gamecube has the best beat. New Leaf still has an amazing soundtrack though I just wish we could have older soundtracks in New Horizons lmao

8 pm best nl music

Nothing is as ridiculous to me than the fact that a fan soundtrack for a fake animal crossing game is so much more than the New Horizons sound track. I love animal crossing music, and new leaf is a perfect example of why. Such a shame that they skipped over something so awesome. That said, you seem to look over Population Growing's soundtrack! it's perhaps not as well built as New Leaf's, and it does already sound a little dated, but there's a magic attached to it that no other games have gotten close to. It has a LOT of personality.

Animal crossing new horizons is really good but it doesn’t feel much like an animal crossing game should the reason I think new leaf the best is music atmosphere and the textures like grass dirt also Isabelle being more prominent and Main Street house design like unique doors and nostalgia I just wish new horizons gave you a design for your island such as a Main Street bus stop or train station

why would you compare 9 and 10pm to 6 and 7pm? apples to oranges

New Leaf>>>>>>

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New Leaf is a better game than New Horizons