I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t “get” Tomodachi Life when it released on Nintendo 3DS in 2013. Despite its widespread positive response, I just didn’t see the appeal in a game that was centred around a collection of Miis placed together in a slice of life scenario. My friends at the time were particularly confused, saying that the feel and humour of the game were perfect for me. I regret to admit that, having spent some time with the sequel Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, my friends in 2013 were right.
Living the Dream has a simple premise overall, opening with you naming your little island and putting a Mii on it. You can create this Mii from scratch, use a series of prompts, or use Miis from your Switch or Switch 2 to create your hapless islander. These can be as weird and wild as you want and, if you create from scratch, you have a far greater choice of options than with the standard Mii creation tools. I elected to fill my island with people I know, which for me has added its own hilarity, but the diversity of options here are staggering, even at this early stage.
Once you have your Miis, you can start looking after them. You can buy oddly photo-realistic food items from the Supermarket to feed them, get clothes from the Clothes Shop, or just move the Miis around the island so they interact with objects and each other. As your Miis become happier, you gain wishes to fill the Wishing Fountain in the middle of your island. In the opening hours of the game, this is your main objective. Filling the fountain with wishes will level up your island and allow you to unlock new features for your island and Miis including gestures and presents for the latter.
It’s here that my first gripe with the game rears its little Mii head. There have already been several instances in which I was just… waiting for things to happen. The Miis were wandering the island and interacting with each other with no aid required from me, the onlooking divine entity of the island. This might balance out as I get more Miis and more buildings, or if I had the creativity to make better use the Studio Workshop (spoiler, I do not); but I’ve found myself in situations where I really wanted to continue playing with little available to do. I guess you could spin that as a positive, because when I can play it for a spell I do have a great time.
The main reason for this is the humour in Living the Dream, which could be kindly described as “weird”. If you remember the reveal trailer for the game, there is a scene that shows a Mii having a dream with one of their friends being a surprise giant, and the whole game is a fairly consistent stream of exactly that. Giant guinea pigs, impromptu dance performances, skits where your Miis are lobsters – it revels in the absurd. In fact, I cannot remember the last time a game made me laugh quite this much (or take as many screenshots). Every time I have thought the daftest possible occurrence had played out, it blindsides me with something even more bizarre and unexpected.
So far, I’ve sunk roughly ten hours into Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, and my impressions are positive. The ridiculous humour has me cackling, the aesthetic is a wonderfully jarring combination of cartoonish and photorealistic, and the music is full of delightful earworms. i really feel like I missed out by skipping the original, so if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my island and see what more daft nonsense awaits me.
Want to see if Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is for you? A free demo is out now for Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, ahead of the full release on 16th April.
