Doubutsu no Mori e+

Doubutsu no Mori e+ is an expanded version of released on the Nintendo GameCube exclusively in Japan in 2003. In addition to all content from, the game features new villagers, items, gameplay elements, and expanded functionality with e-Reader Game Boy Advance accessory.

Due to Nintendo of America's successful localization of, Nintendo retranslated the game back into Japanese, added additional new content, and released it as on June 27, 2003, nine months after the North American release of. The game retailed for 6,800 yen and sold 91,658 copies in its first week of sale; it went on to sell approximately 640,000 copies as of October 2004. The game was never localized for North America or Europe, possibly due to the e-Reader's limited success outside of Japan or the development and upcoming release of. Despite this, many features introduced in returned in later entries of the.

was launched alongside the e-Reader+, a revised version of the original Japanese e-Reader that includes the GameCube connectivity introduced in the North American model. Doubutsu no Mori Card-e+, a new set of e-Reader cards, was released in three series from the game's launch until October 2003. The e-Reader+ and the first six cards of Series 1 were bundled with all copies of the game.

e-Reader functionality
now has in-game e-Reader functionality like in. In addition to Doubutsu no Mori Card-e+ cards, is compatible with Doubutsu no Mori+ Card-e cards.

e-Reader cards can be scanned at the following locations:
 * The e-Reader Transfer Machine (eTM) in the post office — Character Cards can be scanned here to receive a letter and item from the character on the card.
 * The town tune board outside the post office — Town Tune Cards can be scanned here to set the melody on the card as the town tune. Additionally, scanning any of the Doubutsu no Mori Card-e+ cards unlocks the ability for the player to request that song for K.K. Slider to perform and results in a specific special character giving the player the live aircheck of that song when spoken to.
 * By talking to Mabel at the Able Sisters — Design Cards can be scanned here to save the design displayed on the card.
 * The wishing well — A villager or islander's card here to have them move to the town or island, respectively. This is the only way to have any of the new villagers move in, or for any of the islanders to move to the island.

Villagers and islanders
There are a total of 66 new villagers and 18 new islanders, bringing the totals up to 284 villagers and 36 islanders. The only way to have any of the new villagers move in, or for any of the islanders to move to the island, is to scan their e-Reader card at the wishing well. Below is a list of the newly added villagers and islanders (names in italics denotes characters whose names have not since been localized):

Items
The following 21 furniture items have been added, none of which can be reordered from the catalog. •

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• Additionally, Tom Nook's store sells s in the latter half of December in anticipation of New Year's Eve.

Insects and fish
The following 16 insects and fish are introduced:
 * Diving beetle, flea, dung beetle, crab, hermit crab, coconut crab, Alexandra's swallowtail butterfly, and hercules beetle. The latter two insects can only be found on the island.
 * Dab, olive flounder, horse mackerel, seahorse, squid, octopus, puffer fish, and swordfish. The latter two fish can only be found on the island.

Music
Three new songs are available from K.K. Slider: "My Place," "To the Edge," and "Forest Life," and 12 new songs are available from K.K. Slider only after scanning their corresponding e-Reader card: "Agent K.K.," "King K.K.," "K.K. Dixie," "K.K. Marathon," "K.K. Metal," "K.K. Rally," "K.K. Rockabilly," "Mountain Song," "Marine Song 2001," "Neapolitan," "Pondering," and "Steep Hill." Additionally, every K.K. Slider song now has a corresponding live performance aircheck that can be obtained from villagers at maximum friendship and played on a music player.

Minigames
Three minigames, collectively known as Doubutsu no Mori e+: Doubutsu-tachi to Asobou!, can be accessed from the wishing well and played on the Game Boy Advance. They feature the player and the villagers living in town, and they offer unique rewards.

SD card support
Photos can now be taken in-game with the Z button and are saved to an SD card using the Nintendo GameCube SD Card Adapter. From there, the photos can be transferred to a PC and edited or printed.

Travel data can also be written to the card, transferred to a PC, and then sent to another player. The receiving player can visit the town, save the modified data, and return it to the original player. This allows players to visit other towns without the need to acquire other Memory Cards.

Town migration
Similar to the Data Moving Service in, a player can migrate to an existing town as long as there is a vacant house for them to live in.

After the migration, the player will retain their name, appearance, and birthday. They will also carry over their encyclopedia, custom designs, and their catalog. They will lose all savings and inventory items, as well as the contents of their house, and effectively begin again as a new character.

save data is unaffected by the migration; the original town and player characters remain available to play as normal.

Objects
Unique objects can be built around the town by Tom Nook and take the place of one of the signposts in town. A random set of three decorations is chosen on town generation. Many types of structures that can be built could only be unlocked from Redd via passwords on the game's official website. The service to generate passwords is now discontinued, however. Object Delivery Service Tool is a tool that replaces the functionality of the original service and can be used to generate passwords indefinitely.

Differences from
features many differences from, largely with the addition of new content and refined gameplay mechanics. Although the game is primarily based on, it does retain some Japan-exclusive content from previous games. This includes the dial-based typing system, certain furniture, and katakana characters on the town tune board. Additionally, Jane retains her original appearance from and.

Controls
The lights in the player's house are now toggled by pressing any direction on the +Control Pad rather than the Z button, as that is now use for taking screenshots.

Interface

 * uses a total of 72 blocks of data on a Nintendo GameCube Memory Card. 57 blocks are required for Town Data, 5 blocks for saved letters in the post office, 5 blocks for saved designs at Able Sisters, 1 block for NES game save data, and 4 blocks for travel data if this feature is used.
 * The game's font has been redrawn at a higher resolution.
 * Due to the higher font resolution, kanji is now incorporated into the game, considerably expanding the amount of usable characters; previous versions only made use of hiragana, katakana, Latin characters, and icons. The player can adjust their fluency with kanji from the options menu, which replaces hiragana with kanji where appropriate.
 * The clock has been redesigned.
 * The ink meter when writing letters or posts on the bulletin board has been removed.
 * Diaries that are dropped on the ground now appear as envelopes instead of brown paper bags.

Locations

 * Tom Nook can be woken after-hours by hitting the shop doors three times with a shovel. Nook will be in his pajamas and allow the player to shop, but he will move much more slowly, item buy prices are inflated by 20%, he will purchase items from the player for 30% less, and the catalog is unavailable. If the store has been upgraded to Nookington's, Timmy and Tommy will also appear in their pajamas after-hours.
 * The Reset Surveillance Center can be accessed after encountering Mr. Resetti twice. Once a week, a random rock around town will become the entrance to the center and can be broken with a shovel. Mr. Resetti and Don Resetti can be found here.
 * Tom Nook offers a greater variety of items during his sales, such as party poppers, fans, balloons, and pinwheels.
 * Animal Island is no longer accessed by connecting a Game Boy Advance to the Nintendo GameCube. Instead, each player must now first purchase their private island from Tom Nook (after paying off all house loans) to access it. Players can visit another player's island after the other player has repaid their loan.
 * The island initially does not have an inhabitant. An islander must be introduced by scanning their e-Reader card, which makes them wash ashore. The player can revive them, and they will then move into the smaller bungalow on the island.

Villagers

 * It is possible to become "best friends" with villagers after interacting with them a lot and performing many favors for them. Best friend villagers react to seeing the player by waving or calling out to them and can also give the player special items.
 * It is no longer possible to request errands from villagers. They can only be received randomly from general conversation, as is the case in all subsequent games.
 * Pursuant to this, when working for Tom Nook he no longer instructs the player to perform errands for the town's villagers in between the jobs he assigns.
 * The player can now eavesdrop on conversations held between two different villagers.
 * New villager dialogue is included that is conditional on the player's accomplishments, e.g., the size of their house, whether they own an island, the size of Tom Nook's store, etc.
 * Villagers can become ill and must be given medicine to treat their illness. Medicine can also be used to treat the player's bee stings.
 * When delivering gifts as an errand for a villager, the request-giver may ask the player for the recipient's feedback.
 * The gifts and letters that villagers may task the player to deliver can now be opened and kept, incurring their anger.
 * Lost items can be found on the ground and returned to villagers in exchange for a reward.
 * Villagers can have fleas, which can be removed by the player with the bug catching net.
 * Villagers now have a favorite and hated clothing type.

Items
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 * The and  have shorter bases. This change is carried over to the Australian and European versions of, which released after.
 * The is mirrored, tapering to the right instead of the left.
 * The following items return from after not appearing in :

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Interactivity

 * Flowers can now be picked up and held in the player's hand.
 * Jacob's ladders appear near the town's cliffs when a "perfect" rating has been achieved.
 * Players can make announcements using their personal Gyroid. These can be scheduled to play at a specific time or set to play after a certain amount of time has passed.

Events

 * During the Fishing Tourney, Chip will now give the player a free fishing rod if they do not have one in their inventory.
 * Holidays are now identical to those in, with Japan-exclusive events removed; however, Mom will send the player letters about Tanabata (Starcrossed Day) and Setsubun (Bean Day).
 * Villagers now wear hats on Christmas Eve and during the Harvest Festival.

Music

 * The game's title theme has been remixed with added percussion.
 * K.K. Slider will stage a live performance to celebrate the player's birthday, where he performs a new song, "K.K. Birthday." The town's villagers will attend and celebrate with them.
 * Gyroids can now be set to sync with music that is playing in the player's house, and will now remain in sync even when the player leaves and returns.
 * Kapp'n's songs use different syllables to go along with what words he actually sings. This was present in with the old melody ("Marine Song 2001"), but in  all songs used the same syllables no matter the lyrics.

Miscellaneous

 * The color of the Nintendo logo when loading the game is now blue. In, it is red, and in , it is white.
 * As there was no Memory Card bundled with, the bonus originally that was included with the Memory Card and contained two NES games and a song from K.K. Slider now arrives in a letter from Mom when the player moves to town. Additionally, the included song is changed from "K.K. Love Song" to "K.K. Lullaby."
 * The coelacanth's shadow size is increased and it now only appears once per play session. Even if the player fails to catch it, it will not reappear until the save is reloaded.
 * The amount of debt that the player owes Tom Nook for each house upgrade has been altered. The final repayment is for the purchase of a private island. After paying off the loan for the island, Nook will offer to build the player a statue outside the train station, but the player now has the option to decline to have it built.
 * More custom designs can be saved at the Able Sisters.
 * A maximum of 800 letters can be saved at the post office, an increase from the 160 letters in.

Related media
received two tie-in manga: Doubutsu no Mori e+ 4koma Gag Battle and Doubutsu no Mori e+ 4koma Manga Ōkoku.

Trivia

 * Due to its Japanese-only status, some Western media outlets erroneously reported as a sequel to  named "Animal Crossing 2" in December 2002, after an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto on the Japanese lifestyle magazine Sabra reported on a potential new game in the . The claim was backed by a Famitsu article releasing details regarding Nintendo's upcoming game lineup for Japan in 2003 including どうぶつの森2 (Doubutsu no Mori 2, Animal Forest 2) as an explicitly tentative title for the game, with the only information being that it was a GameCube game with an undecided release date. This Famitsu article was reported on by Western outlets such as GameCubicle and IGN, the latter of which created a web page for Animal Crossing 2 as a GameCube game, later incorrectly guessing that it was canceled in favor of  when in actuality it simply never was released outside of Japan.