Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream - Switch Review
"Often fails to recapture the magic of previous entries."
Ever wondered what Steve Buscemi and your old friend from high school would talk about if they met? Or would Princess Peach really choose to marry Mario if the question were prompted? Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream lets your imaginations run wild, allowing you to place any character you can possibly imagine into wacky and wild situations. The newest entry takes place on an island (a la Animal Crossing: New Horizons), bringing with it the ability to customise the world your creations inhabit.
The Good
The Tomodachi Life series is famous for its hilarious, absolutely nonsensical humour, and Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream knocks this out of the park. The scenario and dream sequences are absolutely wild, and when you play with characters based on people from your own life as well as celebrities and characters you love, it’s a recipe for hilarity. My favourite moment so far is when Monkey D. Luffy fell in love with my real-life wife, only for my character to come barging into his house to confess my love (she chose me, hooray!).
I really enjoyed the quick and snappy UI navigation, as well as how clean the island is laid out. Everything feels intuitive and instead of searching around the island for a character, you can simply go to the menu and jump straight to them. It feels like this was a primary focus in this iteration to ensure that the player was never encumbered by bloated menus or having to tediously find characters.
As someone who isn’t very design-creative, I always struggle with games that require it. I’m more of a practical kind of gamer, optimising my Stardew Valley farm to be the most efficient and not worry about the aesthetics or layout. So I really appreciate that Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream doesn’t force this on to the player. Don’t worry; if you do enjoy that in your video games, the option is there in spades, allowing you to decorate your characters and island to your heart’s content, but for the non-creative type like me, the characters will ask for touch-ups to the island (e.g. more trees, paths, etc.) and will show you an example of what they want. You can then say yes, pay for it, and job done. Now that’s living my dream!
TL;DR
- The hilarity we’ve all come to love from the series
- Quick and snappy UI navigation
- A creative sim not forcing meticulous creativity is refreshing
The Bad
When you boot up Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream after some time, you’re greeted with a fair amount of things to do: residents need something, donations are at the wishing well, new news broadcasts to watch, etc. However, once you do these things, you’re often left with the feeling of "What do I do now?”. You’re encouraged to start conversations by bringing people together, but (at least in my playthrough) I found that the conversations tended to repeat themselves and when there was something new, I had a quick giggle and then it was back to the same old lines. I can certainly understand that the game wouldn’t want to show its hand too early to preserve longevity, but I feel like it instead does the opposite, where you’re often sitting around waiting for something new to happen.
One of the biggest features in Tomodachi Life on the Nintendo 3DS was the ability to share things with others. The best feature was the QR codes, where you can download other players’ Mii creations, thus creating a social ecosystem that players can share and enjoy together. Nintendo went conservative with Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, likely out of fear of bad PR through players sharing unsavoury creations, but as a result, your island tends to feel isolated, and the social aspect is a shell of what the series is generally known for. This also doesn’t help with the “What do I do now” aspect.
TL;DR
- Can often leave the player wondering "What do I do now?”
- Lack of online sharing sucks a lot of fun out of the game
Final Score: 6/10
Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is filled with a sea of wild scenarios hindered only by one’s imagination – it's just a shame that it can often take so long to get to its most magical moments. The island motif is certainly a nice touch, providing the player with the autonomy to mould the space to fit the scenes in their minds. But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows on an island paradise; due to certain decisions likely decided on during meetings with Nintendo’s legal and marketing departments, Living the Dream often fails to recapture the magic of previous entries.
Thank you for checking out our Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream Switch review, thank you to Nintendo AU/NZ for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:
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