Differnces between this and AC are things like slightly enhanced AI that grows relationships and spreads gossip and the like.
You can even get a date with one of the cute Animals if your into that sort of thing.
Though once you get one as your date then they'll just seem to like you even more than more normal and want talk about the relationship and play more.
Speaking of play, they pretty much hang out with you and do whatever you do for awhile when they or you ask to.
Something AC never did.
Another thing is the classes wich teach you magic you can perform in game to do a number of odd things.
Cause someone to fart, zap with lighting, transform into them, pry into their relationships, search for treasure, and even propose love so you can get a date from them. Whole bunch of fun usefull and useless magic you can use.
The mystery feature is the one that really breaks it from a basic realtime walk around alot game.
Pretty much you can turn on this Mystery Time, thing that transforms the town into a sorta paralell version of itself. Everythings the same more or less, but strage bugs and fish are all about and instead of the normal classes you get a special class. Bug catching, fighting tournaments, sorta things.
After the day you activate it there will be a special character of whom you'll have to talk to and solve whatever mystery is related to it.
The world also is more than just a town, you get a small forest, hunated house, beach and an island of sorts all open from the start.
Besdies that though theres all the basics AC would have.
It does things a little differntly but it has the same feel with alot of things that AC should have had.
So theres a slight sense of story that'll last ya about a year or so.
After that its all about collecting and making money, but theres no debts to pay so you use your money just for that.
You can also play music with friends and animals, but its more or less just a midi playing and the NPCs break out instruments and play with it. Sounds nice now and then, but its mostly an extra.
Overall I'd suggest this game over the same ol Animal Crossing.
You may wanna spend some time with AC and get bored with it first though as you'll like this one even more then.
I've played the first two AC games and by the time the third one came out I tried it and gave up on the series. Just the same ol crap all over again.
This game is a nice fresh bit of compitition and I hope its only the start as AC needs a reason to evolve some. If not, this is a nice alternitive.