Despite my sincere love for Animal Crossing, I found myself rather indifferent to the initial unveiling of Jump Out! (which was just Animal Crossing 3DS at the time). First trailers showed off a few new additions, but not enough to get me excited. It looked mostly the same as before – but today’s Japanese Nintendo Direct episode has brought back that passion in droves.

The episode was a 47-minute special all about Animal Crossing, and there’s more new features than there are bells in Tom Nook’s bank. You can catch the video yourself below, but we’ve summarised the important parts for those who aren’t prepared to watch 47 minutes of Japanese speech (although the game looks awesome in motion). Satoru Iwata opened the show, announcing Japan’s release date as November 8th.

Unfortunately the episode is not subtitled, but YouTube user LinandKo has kindly started translating the video. While there’s currently only 2 minutes translated at the time of writing, he/she promises to upload more.

Going by the translation of Iwata-san, he reveals that you will play as the mayor in this game. You will “be able to build many types of landmarks”, and the gameplay shows the user creating bridges that come in wooden or stone.

You can also customise the exterior of your house – before you could choose your roof colour, but now it seems you have more options than before. For example you can choose between a brick wall or fence. Customisation of your own clothing designs is also more varied than before, but it wasn’t specified how.

While that’s all the translation we have so far, there was still much more revealed visually through the gameplay.

You now have garden/outdoor furniture. Hedges come in different shapes and designs, including Mario’s fire flower. There are also fountains, lamp-posts, and fire hydrants.

There is a new megaphone item which, when equipped, allows you to shout at residents via your 3DS microphone, repeating your recorded voice.

Crossing over the railway tracks will take you to the city which appears much bigger and diverse that the disappointing district in the Wii iteration. Tom Nook’s shop that we know and love is know left entirely in the hands of his children, while the money-hungry raccoon is found elsewhere in another furniture store, in collaboration with Lyle the insurance otter.

New stores include Shoe Shank, a shoe shop ran by cap-wearing skunk. Here there appear to be shoes, wellies and socks available for purchase. Club 444 is the new home of Dr. Shrunk, the pink squid who “teaches” you how to display emotions. It seems that players are no longer limited to four emotion slots, and its possible that you’ll have access to every emotion in the game as you learn them. You can also take photos of yourself for your ID in the photo booth. You can pose after the timer countdown, sneezing or singing as the camera flashes.

The museum is bigger than ever with two floors. The aquarium is big and fancy with circular tanks and a sushi bar, and there is now a gyroid exhibit.

In your house, Jump Out! takes custom decorating even further. Before you could use your designs for wallpaper and flooring, but you can now also use them for table cloths, bed covers, chairs and more. You now have a 360 degree camera to view each room too, and have pyjamas for bed.

The beach is far larger than before – previous games barely had what you could call a beach, with just a thin line of sand and shells beside the water. Now though, you can descend from the cliffs into bigger sandy shores, scattered with coconut trees. Fans may already know that you can swim, and the footage here shows you can dive to retrieve coral (and probably other objects) in the depths.

K.K. Slider is not only a guitar player, but now also a DJ, bringing beats to the live shows in Club 444, complete with autotune vocals and light shows. You can cruise on Kapp’n's boat as he sings along, and takes you to an island where his family runs a gift shop.

Finally and perhaps most excitingly, there appear to be mini-games in Jump Out!. Although you are the mayor this time around, Tortimer makes an appearance before allowing you and up to three other players to run through a maze collecting as much fruit as possible. There is also an odd-looking game where players are given rubber mallets and smacking a moving lawnmower (and each other, naturally).

What else? You can gift each other with ice creams and presumably other items, there are wall-based furniture such as shelves and clocks, and there is another shop operated by a pair off llamas.

Check out some screenshots over on VG247.com.

After that mass of information, there may still be other details that weren’t picked up in the Japanese speech. We’ll keep you updated if anything juicy surfaces from translation, and again you can keep up with Linandko’s videos here.

Animal Crossing: Jump Out! is scheduled for release early next year in the US and Europe.

So, excited? After all that info, you better be! I’m extremely hyped.