Tomodachi Life Living The Dream Critical
Note: Before you buy the game here's a few things you need to know.
This is coming from someone who played the entire game and had gotten several marriages and sustainability, I have seen the credits and please read this before you buy it.
As you may all know, Tomodachi Life is a decades long franchise spawning from the first game in 2009, it released in Japan under the working title Tomodachi Collection for every 2000s baby’s first Handheld Console the Nintendo DS, because the technology wasn’t all that spectacular back then, the game never saw an international release, but that was all about to change because in 2013, four years after the first game was released, a sequel was made Called Tomodachi Life. For the Nintendo 3DS, to say this game was a success was an understatement, a LOT of people loved it, it became a family and cult classic, and was among many of the best selling video games that inspired a spinoff called MiiTopia.
Tomodachi Life is best described as fanfiction, essentially you throw a bunch of miis, the game describes as friends and family and watch them get along, fight or get married. The game was best known for its wacky and random humor that people grew to love. Especially the life simulation aspect. The 2010s were truly the best place to be alive.
However, with the death of the 3DS in 2017, thanks to the Switch’s arrival. Things began to slow down, Now that the Nintendo Switch was Nintendo’s biggest thing and with that came the looming threat of the 3DS’ death approaching much like other consoles before it, there was talks on what would happen next now that Nintendo has a new console, as tradition Nintendo would brainstorm ideas for the next installment of any game really.
After All, Nintendo released Animal Crossing New Horizons in 2020, at the height of the pandemic that accrued a bunch of sales and became one of the most best selling games for the Switch One, and most were speculating when Tomodachi Life would be released for Switch.
Then, finally, one day, our prayers were answered. In 2021, a game was announced and this was indeed… MiiTopia. I shouldn’t really explain what MiiTopia is to some people, but since this is a critical video, I suppose I can.
MiiTopia is a RPG Game that took elements from an optional Minigame in Tomodachi Life called "Tomodachi Quest” this game is essentially what DND is, but in this case, you’re the Dungeon Master defeating the Big Bad Evil.
The appeal of this game is, that you can insert any Miis as the cast of lively characters, the original was released in 2016 for the 3DS but got a rerelease remaster port for the Nintendo Switch adding extra features like, extra occupations, outings, extra customizations and many more.
There’s not much to say other then it wasn’t really what people wanted but we all still bought it, still people made shrines, still held out hope that Tomodachi Life will come to the Switch, in that amount of cope people started making their own fangames that really had their own appeal and content that didn’t really feel like Tomodachi Life or matched the original in a way, there was several Switch Sequels, that were the Switch Lite, and the Switch Oled, but still. No sign of Tomodachi Life in sight. However, in March 27th 2025, Tomodachi Life Living The Dream was announced as the last game for Switch One, the amount of reactions to the game was astronomical, there was a shit ton of the same speculations that dropped like Animal Crossing New Horizons, and people were already planning their islands and the like.
This was a huge hype train that lasted up until 2026. Where the wait and hype continued to grow… And then on April 16th 2026. The reckoning happened. Social Media began to see a boom in popularity, and the fact this game is trending is enough for people to know exactly how popular this game is.
But with this amount of game popularity, I hate to do this to you, but this game has a fair set of criticisms. Besides the complaints of the inclusion of woke content with the game, which isn’t really criticism it’s just coping with optional content in a game that recently has a mod that removes it for these whiners. The game really lacks content.
It’s really not that surprising considering Animal Crossing New Horizons released with barren content and will get periodic updates. However, the issue stems where Triple A Studios will essentially give out games that are filled with promise of “more content” but as time goes on, the “more content” has become an epidemic of "CustomizationSlop" which is a genre of games that have way too much customization and not enough gameplay, or the gameplay they do have is catered to children under the age of 10 with how often they mince or baby the players. And the content is always sold to us in a paywall, which is sub for the par the kind of studio we enable.
Tomodachi Life suffers from the stunted dialogue, at first, I didn’t mind the quirky quips but as time went on I wondered who the fuck wrote these oneliners. But, perhaps, the best example of a downgrade would be New Horizons. To hammer in the point of this, let’s compare New Leaf.
New Leaf had no control over your game at all, meaning you couldn’t control who moved out or who moved in, you had the ability to have mean (somewhat controlled) villagers, Resetti was here and mean, and you had the chance to either make or break your town.
The customization was not in the way, and in a way limitation was pretty much the great way of making unique patterns. However, New Horizons released and all of that uniqueness turned into a nightmare. Island Creator made you able to control the exact layout of your Island, you were able to customize everything provided you have at least the materials. Most tools were breakable and it became more of a “survivalist” lifestyle mixed with a kids book rather than a game that was once about life simulation, apparently I guess we all forgot the memo, because we all were auditioning as Tom Hanks in the movie Cast Away, while some features I did like in Animal Crossing like the ability to finally grow crops, existed. The game relies too heavily on making kids comfortable when the current youth are… Pretty much different then they were ten years prior.
If you see how late Gen Z and Gen Alpha act, then you know what I mean. This type of behavior moved onto Tomodachi Life’s successor as well. The writing feels kind of bland and or forcing itself to be quirky, which usually it doesn’t unless you add a 67 or an out of pocket line yourself. Inputting what they talk about is a huge upgrade from the DS and 3DS Versions as they were preselected. The only input for both of these games would be for the Concert Hall (3DS) and the Confession and choosing a line option.
But the problem with the input for a conversation is the fact they don’t have the ability to tell what a noun is, so if you’re talking about something that is a thing, in my case, I wanted Goku to talk to Piccolo about Namekians, you can’t. There’s no way you can input Namekians as a Noun as all inputs under thing would be in relation to Object, the same way as any other thing.
Not to mention the same old repeated convos that were not a variation. My Headcanon is, this is what they’re talking about in the DS and 3DS versions under the yapping and bubble speak.
Speaking of the creator, Mii Creator is a glow up, in Collection, the maker was limited as it was based off of the Wii maker, while in the 3DS it was a more improved Wii one, in Living The Dream they upped the ante by adding more content to the Mii Maker, that includes more black hairstyles that made me lose my mind as a Mixed Afro-American I cannot thank the reputation enough, more noses, mouths, ears yes, they added ears, Glasses with or without shades, eyebrows, more skintones, eyes, facial features and of course facepaint.
I have included the many various facepaint things I have done. Including my recent opus regarding the Piccolo I had created. This was a long awaited feature and they did not disappoint, alongside that.
You can set them as gay, bi, pan or asexual, set them as male, female or nonbinary or even choose their pronouns. My criticisms for this, is the fact you can set them as three different pronouns and not have a custom input.
You see, Sims 4 has the ability to set pronouns, either from preselected ones or custom ones, people have argued saying grammar problems, when Sims 4 again, has the ability to set the possessive, subjective, objective, possessive pronoun, and reflexive themselves, leaving the Devs to just fix any issues arose from problems.
I used to go by Ze/Zir, and I know a couple of my OCs still go by optional pronouns. It seemed like a major oversight and some might even call me “ultra woke” for suggesting that. I don’t care.
However, this is where my praise for the game gets split between criticism and rare praise, when you launch the game after making your first Mii, you are immediately launched into a long tutorial that lasts until you are finished with your sixth mii. Good luck playing on a Switch One which is notoriously known for its shitty battery life, because the game would stop you every second after mentioning what to do next.
Now, I know tutorials are there for you to learn but no game needs this amount of handholding, I am not legitimately gonna die if I don’t know where to go next. It’s one of Nintendo’s many many many safeguards for “children” they could possibly add, when you know DAMN well the children that are playing are OUR children and us. (I am speaking for the adults who have actually admitted to giving their kid the game, and them playing. I fully intend on buying this game for my Mom for her birthday. I got her into Animal Crossing New Horizons and I will get her into this game. Mark my words.)
The fact this game’s predecessors had a short tutorial and this one has a extended one, is really fucking ridiculous, and it’s so bad that even one person didn’t believe the tutorials over after they finished it.
Which isn’t a good sign. Sequels to franchises after 2014 are suspect to the most enshittification possible to make themselves more childish and consumer friendly despite the fact that in previous installments they weren’t afraid to push the limits and buttons of gamers at all. Sims 4 is a prime example of this problem. Whereas Sims is different cozy wise, the game has become subject to ridicule due to their toned down approach to most topics that were prevalent in previous installments, but enough of the Sims 4 stuff, I will go over that in another video.
Modern Day gaming is a problem in general when producers oftentimes promise an enriching gameplay but the release does not actually show that. Probably this is because most of the trailers are on a special dev build of the game, which makes it harder for you to replicate in its entirety ESPECIALLY if the game is sold to you in a broken manner, and it is still broken years later after.
Tomodachi Life Living The Dream promised all sorts of “wacky scenarios” and so far, my Island had become home to “Do Something Miis” and “Hoping my Miis start drama” I have over 49 Miis in this cesspit and none of them have gotten into fights, I have been gaslit into believing I play too much, but the reality of the situation is, this game is literally crack. Alongside it, the game is too easy.
You can easily set two characters you want together, and they’ll end up together, that’s how Piccolo and Orion ended up together. The repetitiveness isn’t the issue, it’s the lack of unique problems and uniqueness that really defined the original game for me. The game has big promises but because the golden standard for video games nowadays is releasing it half baked and introducing features that would drag any person desperate to shill out 60$ to pay for it, until they get tired of it, is not a valued strategy, I would argue this standard would not fly for Indie game developers, especially since they don’t have money to throw away like that.
This is a colossal waste of resources in an already overworked environment and the fact we were JUST talking about boycotting Nintendo is ridiculous, it feels like a controversial youtuber being exposed and they dropped something so they could watch it, boycotting is a long term commitment that doesn’t work if you’re gonna fold to whatever content they push out, that’s why EA doesn’t care about simmers.
Now onto more bitchy complaints, the clothes in Tomodachi Life Living The Dream are asset flipped from Animal Crossing New Horizons or ported from MiiTomo, I don’t know if you remember that, but MiiTomo was Nintendo's flop mobile app, a functional Snapchat/Facebook but for Miis! Basically a revival of MiiVerse minus anything that made MiiVerse tangibly fun.
MiiTomo was the first failure that Nintendo created, killing it three years later. Most of the clothing features Mii Tomo had, was also ported to Living The Dream, the mix and match clothes aspect. Speaking of which, Bitchy Vincent Mode engages.
You can tuck in your shirt, but there’s no option to have your socks layered over your shoes? I know, I know limitations, but what if there’s an outfit I like to recreate that has socks over shoes, there’s a shoe item that exactly has that, but it’s not the ones I am looking for, this game is ridiculous.
I want to make the Postboy Outfit Piccolo wore, on a side note, that’s the most unbelievable goofy shoes and socks combo, sure, Android 17 wears the same socks over shoes combo but that shit fries me, the only combo that would make sense would be the legwarmers Raiburu from Yandere Sim wore. Because it at least makes sense and looks good on the eyes, but what do I know? I ain’t Velvette. Plus either way I think the two of them are hot in their own ways.
Tangent aside, the clothing options are cute. 10/10 would recommend. On the topic of customization for your miis, let’s move on over to Palette House, Palette House is your custom content hub where you can make custom crap for your Miis, I have seen some interesting custom items in game, someone literally recreated Cell’s Arena for his house, Raphael lives in a small pothole and I created
Yes, I am not joking I created PornHub as a TV Item and set it to Romantic and Educational. What, what are you looking at? It’s educational for the next time you invite a hottie over and want to try things out for them, don’t look at me, you know you don’t just watch it for the plot.
Moving on, you can create custom pets, music, books, food and a plethora of other things. These are able to be given to your miis that will take up a slot in their inventory but can be removed later on. This also comes with Custom Video Games like the ones you receive in Minigames. But be warned, any treasure you make appears in shadow quizzes or any cutscenes, including the one with the babies.
Speaking of Minigames, there’s some fan favorites in the mix, like the Pixel Quiz, the Mii Shadow Quiz, and my personal killing yourself game, the Shadow Quiz both Food and Treasure, and as you guessed it, it’s the same!
There’s some new ones like Red Light, Green Light, Bowling (Which is frickin rigged dood.) and No Repeats, it’s a game that most people below the age of 18 would not know. Back in the ye olden days of pre-switch and 6 7 memes, there was this concept called going outside. Yes, Yes a dated concept that I know most of you haven’t heard before.
I remember the most formidable parts of my childhood was spent playing that game, the person in question also had Tomodachi Life and was as obsessed as creepypastas with me. The basics of the game is called Concentration, it was a playground game that a lot of us played. The baseline of it is, is that it tests your reflux, memory and of course, your patience.
The game always had a different rhyme or rhythm depending on the house rules you played, but the game seems to get the point across, the game however, is different. There’s a different category every time for the actual game (Though in some iterations the category is called topic.) it can range from Celebrities, Video Games, Names, or in this case, Food.
This is an easy game to play if you aren’t ADHD or if you are and you’re locked in then it is, the game always picks food as a category. You have to be quick and swift because the hesitation part is really an asshole, the repeating is also a loss, if a Mii loses by repeating you win. No Repeats seem to replace the Memory Game that was present on the 3DS Version as this also has a Duo Version of the game, that up to three Miis can play!
Another Minigame that’s exclusive to locations would be the Mii Latte Quiz, which is just the Mii Shadow Quiz but you’re fucked, the more miis you have the more difficult it will become. It’s essentially harder the more you play.
Then if you have the Mii Ferris Wheel, the game launches into moving the Mii below to the end of the Ferris Wheel, which functions just like the hiccup minigame. Then there’s the What’s Missing Minigame which is unlocked in the house, pretty much you have a timer to correctly guess the items missing, the last one is a complete and utter troll because it’s a shadow related one.
The Minigames are pretty repetitive and those are the only ones I came across. Now onto the Dreams. The Dreams in this game are also pretty much different from the 3DS Minus the Worship Dream, rather than a bunch of miis gathering around a randomly generated Item, they form a circle around said object and do their little dance.
My main issue with the Dreams in Tomodachi Life is the fact they would wake up in a shock/jolt and comment offhandly or sometimes look at you and go about their business.
I do wish there was a quirk that basically causes Miis to be flustered about their dreams or at least have them react positively to a dream. There’s some Dreams Miis have that don’t seem as bad.
The New Dreams are as followed, all named by me specifically and I will describe each and everyone in detail as best as I can:
This dream was showcased in the Direct, basically the dreaming Mii would be faced away from a Mii that looks like it’s a regular height from afar, then wave, then they ran towards them before revealing they’re very much a giant and asked “You called?” It's different in various translations.
This dream is a clothing related dream, and will always either have several miis with or by themselves.
This Dream starts near the fountain as the Mii who's talking to the miis says greetings to the others, and some will respond back to the Dreaming Mii in various other languages, and eventually in a stunned way they would ask if they’re on the same Island. I don’t know if this dream strikes me as a tad bit racist in a way, but I can’t really be so sure, so people can actually fight that in the comments.
The sleeping Mii would have access to food, but it’s so far away. By bringing it close to the Mii and clicking A, the food will be censored and it’s obvious that the food is rancid, it’s funnier when I got tap water as a meal item.
Amptly titled, three Miis, wearing different costumes, Karate, Prince and a robot are all fighting a randomized item. They obviously lose this battle at the end of the dream.
This is just one of the few endless dreams I have noticed with a variation that ends the dream. Basically it's the Mii telling unfunny jokes to a Retro Lamppost and it responding to flickers.
Showering Mii With Items Dream
A mii ends up getting showered by items of the RNG Gods, they would obviously be happy about this.
Depending on the dream, the watering can be either flowers or frog miis that would end up dead after the dream.
Literally how the Dreams go.
This was also present in the Direct, where the Mii would appear with food on their body but oftentimes would be ignored by other Miis.
Where the Mii is in their room but upside down.
Where the Mii is like Mario, and goes through platforms.
Where a Mii is floating in a white room usually items three of which are selected by you to throw.
This replaces the Snail Dream I am assuming. Basically self explanatory.
So far, the dreams are not really well thought out. There’s not that much variation in the reactions each Mii has when awoken in their dreams. Nor do they seem to ever react positively, I think if you comment “I keep having the same dream” maybe it’s time for you to invest in a dream catcher.
Now that’s out of the way, I do want to focus on the relationships in the games. The best part of Tomodachi Life is the fact you can form wild Crackships in games and witness a plethora of fun things. The relationship mechanics in this game are wildly improved with more control and more precautions/guardrails in place to prevent an Ashley and Andrew Graves situation from happening.
Even as this happens, there’s still too much “friends being made” people have been dismissive over concerns regarding the friendships progressing too fast, I feel as though the meeting miis trick is a bit abusive, because I can have any relationship I want just by forcing them to be IRL Partners or just forcing them to meet.
The problem with this feature is, that it’s more easier to drag them to meet the other without letting RNG ask about them, which is still present, they still won’t become friends unless you give them permission too. But the point still stands, this game is really easy if you have the time, patience and effort to withstand it.
A new mechanic is crushes. Have you ever got tired of the random wanting to ask out Miis? Well, here’s the news! Miis can develop crushes on other Miis, if two of the same Miis have a crush on each other that’s a mutual crush.
The CRUSH mechanic has several different cutscenes all of which are variations, for instance, if a Mii drops an item on the floor, the other can fall in love, the typical bumping into another Mii cutscene but that also has a variation where the Mii that gets bumped into gets flung into another's arms, Sniffing the flowers in the flower planters causes Miis to immediately fall for the miis, the little hiccup/falling/paralyzation can occur with a crush, a yapping mii can cause another one to develop a crush… And that’s all the ones I know.
Naturally, Miis can organically lose a crush if they have a new crush or if the miis enter a cutscene where the Mii was yapping about a topic, that leads into the Mii falling asleep, Or they get rejected from a confession, or sometimes by other reasons.
The crush mechanic also doubles as a confession that can also entice other miis who also have a crush on the same person to also cockblock them. Just like in the 3DS Version, the Mii would go after the highest rival with the relationship they have, if the Mii has a mutual crush they would accept it.
The crush mechanic is fun, but I feel like it could be better if the Crush Mechanic was a bit… more flexible, like they have multiple crushes rather than one crush. I mean a lot of people have multiple crushes. It was also present in the 3DS Version where a Mii said they had feelings for both Person A and Person B.
Though, they do have it, but it’s more for crushes. There’s also cutscenes that I label fantasies for the sake of simplicity. There’s around four or more fantasies I have witnessed which are all viewable by random. Three can be viewed in a Miis Home, and one can be viewed outside.
Confessions however, are a step up from the original, you have the various locations such as their place, the restaurant and Wheel, as well as setting a custom spot, on my Island there’s a Cherry Tree. Where I force all my Islanders to confess under.
The more romantic option in general is the His Place option and choosing to set the mood, which is really adorable in my opinion. When the Miis successfully go out, you will have a counter that tells them how long they’ve been together for, in my specific Toriyama Save, King Piccolo and Dende were the second couple to form after Piccolo and Orion Married, After them was Bojack and Dabura, Goku and Chi Chi… It seems like they can slowburn it.
Miis who are dating can enter cutscenes like the crushes, one of which can be randomized. For these various cutscenes you can view them outside, usually when you hover over one mii, one can be with both of them at the beach, or in the cafe. I have yet to get all playable cutscenes so this might change, this is completely different from Tomodachi Life and is a cute addition to this game albeit a bit too frequent.
An important cutscene that plays between two dating Miis is a cutscene that is a misunderstanding, if a dating mii or a crushing mii notices their partner talking to another Mii, the other Mii can get jealous (for me BoJack assumed Dabura had a crush on Fu, which is weird and they’d walk away, it’s usually ended with a misunderstanding due to how close the Miis looked.) However, I pulled this clip from Poofesure, and it turns out Miis can get into fights over the other miis jealousy which I haven’t seen before.
Which brings me to my next point, Miis who fight often get red bubbles, but seeing as I have yet to receive a single red bubble. It is really confusing, it seems Miis would get slightly upset and no fights will happen, the RNG seems to be broken in this game for me, and I am not sure if anyone else is facing the same issue. Because people are all NPCs with the same opinions around this game, and it’s legitimately freaking me out.
Marriage in this game is different, the minigame in this game is easy if you know how space invaders work. Compared to the previous minigame, this was much better and less stressful. I was able to win all the minigames, all you have to do is dodge or blast the intrusive thoughts. The cutscene involving the marriage scene is really romantic too.
After Miis get together they automatically move in one another and if the situation calls for it, a news broadcast will announce that these two were related and if depending on the setting the relationship could be true, my main gripes with that, is that relationships are ONLY ever recognized officially if the Miis have moved in, sometimes you get lucky and if you set the relations before the marriage/move in the news broadcast will likely mention this too if miis are friends beforehand, you can choose to either move them in or not.
Married Miis have a chance to have a baby, and this is the biggest cope you’ll see from me, Miis can wait upwards to 1 to 2 business days for a baby, a week if possible. Then once the baby is born you can’t even see it grow up, meaning that the game gives you a montage and the child is older, you can send them off to be killed, and you won’t be able to see them again because there’s no such thing as Streetpass, Nintendo would have the ability to have kids be shared if they didn’t cuck out of the Sharing shit early, you hid Gamechat behind a fucking Phone Number Verification for the Switch but can’t even figure out how to kiddie proof sharing features for this game, fuck this company man.
The fact that the montage for babies in this game is 2 minutes shorter then the one we had as a credits scene in the 3DS is criminal. Though the baby speak is adorable, it doesn’t make up for the missed minutes I could have spread out within a week. There’s a lot of things I could complain about but to finish off this section I like to save this one issue.
The Island Editor, every game has it, Island Editing is not touch screen, meaning everything has to be by hand or suffer, the fact the game is gridlocked is annoying too Sims had cheats that removed the snap if you pressed alt, the fact the game doesn’t allow symmetry either is ridiculous, my Confession Tree is permanently off with the fengshui because the grid prevents it to be centered. There’s no way you can fix it by extending the shit either. FUCK THIS SHIT.
Then the lack of outdoors items, most were lifted assetwise from Animal Crossing like the flowers, which they were lazy enough to include the same flowers but recolored but not any other flowers? Hydrangeas especially blue ones aren’t really my style for what I got, give us roses now.
Come to think of it, I think Nintendo's trying to tell us to do their jobs for them, because this amount of rampant Customization is enough time for Nintendo to ADD MORE SHIT TO THE GAME. It feels like at the board meeting they were brainstorming inconvenient ways on handling things, it feels like most of their games are ripped from their Mobile games, Mario Kart World being an indication for Mario Kart Tour. This game really is what sets the bar for GOTY, then I feel very worried about what Nintendo would do next. The fact we seen this type of predatory practice from EA and it took 12 years for Simmers to put their foot down, it’s really no wonder why Nintendo fans are often mocked, no one seems to understand that quality matters over quantity, if a game includes LGBTQ+ and half baked features and is worth the 60$ to you, then that’s an opinion I will respect.
But as it stands this game is incomplete. There's no concert hall, no quirky questions, judgement bay, the babies got sims 4’d and most importantly, the game is too easy. Knowing Nintendo they seem to treat their viewer base as spoiled brats rather than consumers for a product. The way they throw all these features at us and then we praise them from doing the bare minimum is ridiculous.
We should feel like we’re being ripped off, believe it or not, there used to be a standard for games where they actually finished completely in its entirety, and not in the state where it’s non playable especially on the easiest settings, but I doubt most of you know what that feeling is, you had to experience the feeling of games like that in the era they were created.
Games are meant to entertain you, not bore you after you pick it up, or in general, if the new gimmicks is what your game offers as new content, then that’s the only thing going for it, 80% of the game is customization while the rest is just dedicated to reused assets and new mechanics. There’s a level up system you can have, but it's easy to farm warm fuzzies and unlock everything, 60$ is not worth the price tag for a game that delivers but fails to actually show me what’s new without relying heavily on features that are forcibly shoved down your throat, the game would’ve been better with just the LGBTQ+ Themes and original wackiness that the game had, but too much and yet too little is happening and not enough Tomodachi for me.
Should you buy it? Depends, do you want to be bored fast? Or do you want to fulfill your crack addiction sooner? The game in its state is “playable” but the replayability is dependant on your enjoyment, we’re both gonna have different opinions of the game, but at the end of the day, the best option from me is waiting for Nintendo to either update it, or just by waiting for a sale, you can buy it at it’s full release but the game really isn’t worth the 60$ that can go into other things, in the meantime, thanks for watching and Until then, I’ve been your local asshole Vincent, please leave your top hats in the bucket by the door and thanks for reading.
