By Isaac Espinosa

Ever since the Nintendo Wii came out in 2007, the Miis have remained icons in Nintendo’s avatar gallery. The idea of being able to create anyone you wanted through a Mii has stood as their primary source of appeal. And although Nintendo has tried to introduce new avatars for players to use, such as the Sportsmates in Nintendo Switch Sports, players stayed loyal to Miis. So when Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream was announced, it was met by me with great excitement. 

Here, a player creates a host of Miis who live together on an island, and witnesses them interact and evolve with the player’s instruction and assistance. The original Tomodachi Life was released 13 years ago on the Nintendo 3DS, but this current iteration is so much more advanced.

Living the Dream is a simulation-based game, so there isn’t much of a set story to follow. Instead, you’ll mostly be watching the lives that your Miis decide to follow. The game provides numerous customization options that let you construct just about anything. You could build someone you know, a character you have in your mind, or one from a cartoon or video game! This is enhanced with the brand new face paint feature, which gives you the option to draw on a character’s face and add specific details. Once you make your Mii and give them a personality, their life on the island begins.  

Throughout, you’re encouraged to populate your island with many different kinds of Miis, and adding them this unlocks more things to do. You can buy food for them to eat, renovate and decorate their homes, or even give them gifts – which they might like – or completely hate! The Miis will also interact with each other, and hopefully become great friends. As Miis develop and form bonds, their happiness will manifest in the form of wishes, which you can fulfill at the island’s wishing fountain. These include specific personality traits such as how they greet others, their style of walking, what and how much they eat, the way they furnish their homes, and how they acquire materials to help spruce up the island itself.

As life goes on, you’ll even be able to add your own ideas for food, or even unique pets that will follow the Miis on their day-to-day activities. There are so many interesting ways the game allows you to innovate and make the island your own, so the only limitation is your imagination. 

The best part about Tomodachi Life is how each layer of its gameplay loop influences the others, and how everything you do leads to some kind of benefit. A great example is how, on occasion, Miis will ask you to play a game with them. These can range from “Red Light, Green Light” to flipping a coin, or even doing an object shadow quiz where you’ll have to guess the shadow of three random objects to win.

Completing these will not only grant you gifts that you can give to your Miis, but the Mii you play with will also gain an increase in happiness. This cycle of engaging with the Miis as the island grows larger and more populated is the core of what makes Tomodachi Life so enjoyable. The further you go, the more rewarding and satisfying the game feels. This all can be quite addictive, especially when the Miis do something you don’t expect. You’ll just be idly watching over the island when suddenly three of your Miis start acting like a punk gang, complete with mohawks and synchronized suits, or one of the Miis will suddenly start swooning over another. 

The strength of Tomodachi Life is that it’s an excellent simulation that creates a unique and customizable paradise.

But in some ways, the game struggles to keep up the novelty of its charm. What I mean by this is that a big portion of Tomodachi Life’s appeal is seeing how your Miis, based as they are on characters of your own invention, interact with one another, often leading to surprising shenanigans.  Unfortunately, this part of the game usually only comes in short bursts. Unless you’re fully dedicating time towards a particular set of Miis, those moments when something funny or unexpected happens will be few and far between. I understand this: Nintendo wants you to ideally be overseeing the whole island, rather than just focusing on a select few Miis. But perhaps this issue speaks more to the person playing the game than the game itself. You can easily overcome a challenge like this if you dedicate more time to decorating the island as you please, in order to create an expressive but suitable place of living for all of the Miis. 

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is what I would describe as a near-perfect expansion of the series, a compelling and often fascinating island simulation game that continues to reward the player as they advance through it. It feels immensely satisfying to maintain your Miis’ happiness, making you feel like a true caretaker who watches over these creations as they live their lives and develop relationships. As the summer moves through August, and people have more leisure time, this game is one you’ll want to spend many hours on. I know own my fascination will continue – beyond summer and into the fall.

Bronx native Isaac Espinosa is a Member of the New York Videogame Critics Circle. Along with being named the Circle’s first assistant Mentor, Isaac also coaches students for CEI Esports.

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