Nintendo's answer to The Sims... for kids! And for some adults, apparently.
You play a young person who leaves home to take on the world solo. During a quick train ride, you meet a cat who helps you choose your name, gender and new town (which, oddly enough, you also get to name). Once you're all set, you two chop it up before arriving in your new hometown.
Right away this cat's buddy, who owns a shop, sets you up with a house (of your choosing, although their all essentially the same) and a job (in which you do a few easy, random tasks). Aside from the tasks you're assigned in the beginning, you're free to roam and explore the town.
What i like about this game, aside from the colorful characters & enjoyable gameplay, Animal Crossing incorporates a couple very important aspects that should carry over in real life - paying bills and communication.
Mortgage! That's really the only "boss battle" you'll find in this game. The house the shopkeeper sets you up with ain't free. Thankfully, though, and unlike real life, he's no greedy slumlord; meaning, you've got all the time in the world to pay him back. And how do you pay him back? With bells, of course! Bells are currency of choice in AC and you can get them in lots of different ways, although in the beginning you can only get them in 2 different ways - do jobs for neighbors or shake trees. Yes, money seems to grow on trees, both literally and figuratively. Some trees have bags of bells hiding in them while others grow fruit which you can sell. Later on, when you've gotten enough money (and the shop carries them) you can purchase certain items that can help you get certain things in certain ways, certain things that have certain uses. But i don't want to give that away.
That second important aspect is communication, i.e., with your neighbors. You'll want to take the time to converse with the locals, not only to get work but every now and then a few of them will flat out give you free stuff. You'll also want to keep in touch with them so they don't move AWAY, which will just make you feel lonely.
An important form of communication - and one i find a little annoying - is writing letters. All your neighbors LOVE to receive letters. In fact, they HATE to NOT receive letters (remember the "moving away" bit?). But they do write back and sometimes they even include a little gift, be it clothes, furniture or more paper to write letters with.
Aside from those two aspects, there are other points of interest related to reality, like fashion and home decor (which i won't go into). There's also a few town essentials to visit, like the post office, police station and even a dump. The post office serves as a place to send and store letters and is also where you deposit bells towards your loan with the shopkeeper. The police station mainly serves as a lost & found, where you can go to collect items that "you lost" (you never actually lose anything but the cops don't stop you from taking the items). The dump is useful for dumping whatever you don't want to keep, sell or give away, especially the garbage you'll find every now and then around town (mostly when fishing). The cool part about the dump is the locals also leave stuff there, but they leave useful stuff like clothes, furniture and stationary.
Animal Crossing is really just a simple & fun game (which i first mentioned, i know) that goes about at a leisurely pace, with or without you. Which i forgot to mention - time progresses in the game just like it does in real life... non-stop. People move into town, people move out of town, weeds grow, seasons pass, days go by, mail goes out, the dump gets cleared out regularly, etc. It's like a home away from home... where your neighbors are talking animals and bills don't come with an overdue notice.