There's a lot to recommend about MTaP, but the "features" in the design drive me nuts.

The translation issues into English (and the more than occasional difference between the voice acting and the written part) break immersion; when two of potentially marriageable NPCs marry each other, they don't convert into "non-marriage" for some reason. I suppose this means you could become a home wrecker if you pursue dating them, but I figured that they're being "off the market" would show up in-game. And the path finding in the game drives me nuts, especially once you marry someone. At least with Stardew Valley you get toons that actually get into bed and fall asleep, but your marriage partner will still just wander around your house or sleep in a chair.

Now, it's been about 4 months since I finished a playthrough, so some of these items might have gotten fixed, but I've waited to see mentions of improved pathfinding in the periodic patch updates but have yet to see them.
 

Thanks for the recommendation. I'm downloading the demo now. I think the important factor you're leaving out, though, is that MTaP doesn't appear to have anthropomorphic animal characters who become your surrogate friends. That is pretty much the entire point of Animal Crossing so on the face of it the two are barely even part of the same genre.
 

MTaP has AI friends, just that they are depicted as being humans like you. I guess some people prefer their friends to be penguins or the like. I must say, I kind of liked the dodos, although they never become your friends.