This review is written by my friend Draconicelestial and I! Sections will either have a ୨୧ symbol if it my writing or a for ↻(𓄼 .̀ ̮.́)Ψ dracoic. This review is 5097 words the bottom of the page includes the video review that goes over the same information if it is easier for you :).
This game is rated E for everyone it includes themes of comic mischief and mild fantasy violence.
Today, we are going to be going over Tomodachi Life Living the Dream. The game is available Nintendo Switch! I (Ikki) have played the original! Hey y’all, welcome to Princess Dragon Gaming. Today, we will be going over Tomodachi Life Living the Dream. We have played a combined total of 100 hours, so we are pretty much experts now. Let's get into it.
Living the Dream is actually the third game in the series. The first Tomodachi Life was only released in Japan. The beloved 3DS version is the second game, but it was the first released internationally. This is a social sim game, so you don’t need to know any of the previous games to play this one.
When you first boot up the game, you’ll have to create a Mii. The character customization has gotten a lot better compared to the 3DS version. There’s a decent amount of face options to choose from. The skin color variety is also wider; you can pick from every color available.
There are a lot more hair options. You can pick from a wide variety of sets or pick the bangs and back separately. It's pretty good, but a lot of the textured hair isn’t available in the bangs and back section. You can only pick it from sets. You also have the ability to pick any color as well as a subcolor. You can also swap the direction of hair.
Eyebrows have a decent amount of options. Eyes have a lot more customization. You can pick a base eye and then customize different parts. These include lashes, extra lines, eyeshadow, and lights in the eyes. Noses and eyes have a variety of options. Ears are a lot more limited, but I really like the pointy ears they put in. There is more variety in glasses. You can customize the color of the frames and lenses. Finally, there are options for wrinkles, facial hair, and makeup that you can add on.
The biggest new edition is face paint. Here, you can draw anything you want on your Mii. You can go as simple as an extra mark or draw a hyper-realistic face. The variety of Mii designs I’ve seen online is endless. If you are confident enough to draw with your finger or a stylus, if you have one, then you can really do anything with the Mii. However, if you draw over your Mii’s eyes, mouth, or eyebrows, they won't be able to emote. They’ll keep the same expression for every event, they won't blink, and their mouths won’t move when they talk.
After you finish customizing the head, you can adjust the height and size. If you have other miis, they’ll stand nearby as a reference, but they won’t stand still. They have a tendency to dance or do weird poses while you adjust your new Mii. Once that's done, you can put their name, gender, dating preferences, birthday, and age.
As we’ve mentioned, customization is a lot better than the 3DS version, but compared to another Mii title, Miitopia, it could learn a lot.
There are 10 default voices you can pick from. The first 6 are just child, adult, and old. The last 4 are bear, mouse, and robot. If you want to make it more unique, you can go to custom and adjust the sliders. You can customize speed, pitch, depth, delivery, and tone. If you spend enough time, you can get a mii to sound very similar to whoever you’re trying to make. My favorite thing to do is to just click random until I get a voice I like. It helps me end up with some pretty funny options.
Once you finish the voice, you can set if your Mii is related to anyone. Then you get to customize their personality. You’ll be given a few ranges of two different choices. First is slow or quick movement. Next is polite or honest speech. Then flat or varied energy. Then serious or chill thinking. Finally is normal or quirky overall although the last one doesn’t affect their personality it seems. It instead seems to influence smaller things. No one is really sure, but it seems to influence speech patterns, dreams, animation speed, and interest in some items. Depending on how you pick, you’ll give your Mii a unique personality.
This personality will also set the default color of their clothes and house. If you want a specific personality, you can look up guides online to see what options to pick. Once you're done with personality, you can check all your settings one more time, and your mii is ready to move in!
Quirks are a new addition to the series and they let you customize your miis even more. You can change how miis greet each other, how they stand, how they walk, how and how much they eat, what they do when they’re angry, and how they talk. Your mii can have one of these quirks active at a time.
You’ll also unlock the random quirks which your mii can have multiple of. These aren’t really categorized and can range from being able to change their outfit randomly to farting while out in public. I really wish there were more of these quirks. There are 8 quirks and I honestly feel like that's not enough and there isn’t that much of a variety especially since this is the only category of quirks where you can have multiple active at once.
Once your miis have moved in, they’ll start to have problems they need help with. When a yellow bubble pops up, they might ask for a few different things. They’ll say they’re hungry, want a new outfit, want a new apartment style, or just ask you a random question. You can solve most of these by going to the shops you’ll unlock.
The first shop you’ll get is Fresh Kingdom Foodmart. This is where you’ll be buying all the food for your miis. I recommend checking it daily and buying all the new food. This way, you have access to everything later.
For clothes, you’ll need to unlock the Where & Wear store. This store also has a section that switches out daily. I recommend checking it out often so you can grab clothes that you like. The store will have a small collection of base outfits that you can pick from as well. You have the freedom to combine and switch out different pieces, so you’re not just stuck with sets. If you want other clothes and costumes, those are usually unlocked from dreams and other events.
T&C Reno Home Supply is where you’ll be buying apartment looks. Once a week, there will be a new apartment on display that you can get. There is still a base amount of apartments to choose from if you don’t want the special. If you want to unlock more apartments, you’ll have to use the wish fountain and do other events.
Sometimes the miis will specifically ask for things you made yourself. You’ll have to go to the palette house workshop to design new items. Once created, it will be sold in the regular store, and you can rebuy it at any time.
The next type of bubble that will show up is orange. Orange bubbles appear when a Mii wants advice on whether they get along with someone, want to make a new friend, or want to move in with another Mii. Most of the time, they’ll take your advice, but they still have free will. They will sometimes disagree with what you said if you try to get them to do something they don’t want to.
When a Mii asks to be friends with someone, they’ll ask for a topic of conversation. Here you can type in whatever you want. There are no filters. You can choose between a thing, an activity, a person, or something else. Once you add in new lingo, then miis will start bringing it up randomly in different conversations.
Sometimes when miis talk, help, or just see each other, one of them will get a crush. You can tell them whether or not it's love. After a crush is formed, they might ask later if they should go ask out their crush. If you encourage them, then you help them pick where and how they should confess. It's pretty entertaining to witness, and a lot of different surprises can happen during a confession. If they accept the confession, the miis will start dating. If they reject it then the miis will get depressed.
A blue bubble appears when Mii is depressed. You can give them different items or pat their head to try to cheer them up. There will be a blue bar covering the level bar. Once you make it go down all the way, they will stop being depressed.
The last and probably rarest bubble is red bubbles. If two miis get in an argument, a red bubble will appear. You’ll have to calm one of them down so that they can apologize to the other mii, although the other mii may not accept the apology. If this happens, your Mii will become depressed.
After your miis have dated for a while, one of them might decide to propose. You’ll have to support them and stop the distraction in their head. It's a weird bullet hell game where you dodge and shoot the thoughts. You have to do it three times, and you get three lives to complete it. If you get hit, then that thought will interrupt the proposal. If you lose their chance, the other mii will still propose, but that's not for sure, so try your best. Once you win, you immediately get married.
After the couple has been married for a while, they will start to think about having kids. After they ask, a kid will normally appear the next day or two. You can customize gender and names or let the game pick for you. The kid will look like a combo of both parents, and yes, that includes face paint. Unfortunately, you will not get to raise the kid as you did in the old game. You just get a montage of the kid growing up, and then they’ll be grown up. They can become a new Mii on your island and interact with your other Mii.
It's honestly something we heavily dislike, especially me (ikki) personally. I’ve played the 3Ds version since I was a kid and I thought it was so cute. You used to be able to help your miis with their baby and be able to see them as they were growing up. I loved checking in on the miis and seeing stuff like the mom cooking while the dad plays with the kid in the living room. The scrapbook that we see in this newer version feels so empty and dull. The kid miis feel like an afterthought. In the 3Ds version seeing them grow and helping their parents really make you attached to them before they are essentially their own person. You just don't get that feeling in the newer version.
As you play and your miis get closer with each other they can ask to live together. Friends can live with each other, couples will live with each other automatically after they get married, and children will live with their parents until they ask to move out.
Miis will ask you whether or not they can live with others in most cases and they will ask you whether or not you think they should move out.
Mii houses consist of one very large room on the bottom floor which is essentially most of the house. It's a living room, kitchen, dining room, and bathroom all in one. Your miis will interact here often. Miis will essentially have their apartments moved to the top floors of homes.
Since we're on the topic of homes, allow me to discuss some things I think the older 3Ds version did right. If you didn't know mii couples would be given a home which felt a lot more homey-er I guess? You'd be able to see mii couples sharing the same bed, cuddling eachother. You’d see them interacting in the living room, their backyard, and the kitchen I feel like more often than the newer version. It felt more real in the older version. Like the couple was really a couple. You’d also be able to see their kid co-sleeping with them until they eventually become old enough to have their own bed in the room.
Couples keep their own rooms which is fine I mean they kept their own apartments in the older version but like there isn't that much detail in their home life I feel. A lot of the interactions they can have is done through those small events that happen randomly or by making them interact near items. Miis can watch TV together and cook together but that's about it and more often than not I don’t see them doing it. This issue is kind of a big thing considering this game is meant to be an idle type of thing or a game you open a couple of times a day for like 10-20 minutes at a time. The tuning for events should be a bit better to give more variety, because if players see the same thing every time the miis feel less real and boring. It just feels less natural, less real, and more like the mii couples aren’t really connected.
The miis in the newer version I feel like interact a lot less with their house which is wild considering how big the homes are now. I often found my miis hanging out in their room which is fine, but they would even do their large hangouts in there. Like if the whole house is gathering why would it be in one miis room instead of I don’t know the giant living room or at the comically large dining table?
Let's go over some of the other buildings you’ll unlock on the island. Quik Build is how you will get items to decorate your island. Foto Tomo is where you can take photos of your Mii with different backgrounds and poses. Tomoria Restaurant is where Mii's will go to hang out and chat. The marketplace will sell different items at different times of day. Night Market will sell mystery bags, which I love to gamble with.
The news has returned. It will appear whenever something new happens on the island and give you a new report about your Miis daily. They are still fun, but feel a lot less unhinged than the previous games' news reports. They feel pretty boring compared to the older game, and we’ve gotten the same news story multiple times. It just feels like there's less than the older game.
The older game gave us two news stories daily, but with the amount of repeats we’ve gotten (especially considering there is one a day and the game hasn’t been out that long), it's maybe for the best that they aren’t as often.
Dreams have also returned. When a Mii falls asleep, you can sometimes click on a zzz bubble to see what they’re dreaming about. There are infinite dreams that don’t kick you out, and they essentially go on forever until you back out. Ending dreams have a specific ending to them. Intractable dreams are dreams you can impact and play around in. Intractable dreams can either be infinite or ending.
These are fun, but I wish there were more dreams. I feel like I’ve seen the same few dreams over and over again. They are also a lot less quirky and unique. So many feel just like reskins of each other. This problem is especially prevalent with infinite dreams. I could just be playing the game too much, but I wish there were more dreams.
The wishing fountain will be the central point of your island. After helping Miis with their problems, you’ll fill up the fountain and level up. Every level you gain wishes, and you can use these to unlock a lot more things for your island. This includes personality traits, customizable items, travel tickets, and more. You can gain a lot with the wishes, so make sure to check the fountain whenever the icon turns orange.
You now have the freedom to customize your island. You can change up the land and add an assortment of different items for your Miis to interact with. With the palette house, you can create some custom items to really make your island unique. I’ve seen castles, 1984, Twin Peaks, Red Room, Castle Town, and more created on these islands.
While the creative freedom to customize your island is great, it isn’t perfect. There’s a good amount of items, but I have seen complaints that they wish there were more finished sets rather than a variety of random items. For instance, there’s some playground equipment your kids can play on, but not really enough to build a full park. My biggest issue is that fences don’t touch. There is always a gap between fences, and it bothers me so much; I hate it.
The game also includes seasonal items you can put on your island. Right now, the spring items are available and are mainly things relating to cherry blossoms. It's a pretty small collection considering we have to wait until summer for the next batch of items. I do like the look of what we did get, though, so hopefully future seasonal items also look good.
I mentioned earlier that there are different items Mii can interact with. It's entertaining watching them play with different items, and occasionally, these will trigger little cutscenes. You might see them grab something weird from a vending machine or think that they are leading a pack of animals as they ride the toy one. For some reason, Mii's will turn the lights on and off repeatedly. Miis will also sometimes ask to add things to the island. You can decline them, but they’ll get very sad about it. They like to put things in the weirdest places sometimes, so don’t be afraid to tell them no anyway.
Miis can ask you to play games with them. You should definitely do this as winning at these games allow you to choose a prize which gives you items to give to your miis.
Coin Spin is pretty self-explanatory. Your mii spins a coin and you have to guess which way it’ll land.
Shadow quiz is a game where you have to guess the item by the shadow it produces. This can range from really easy to very hard, especially when you are just given the outline of a plate which could be any dish. This game has 3 rounds to it.
Red light, green light is you know… red light, green light. Pretty self explanatory. You’ll be on a time limit for this one.
No repeats is a pretty divisive game. Your miis will say a food and you have to say a different one. It ends if a food is repeated or if someone says something that's not a food. Multiple miis can be a part of the game. It can range from pretty long to very short duration wise. I personally like this game but it's the bane of draconic’s existence.
Double shadow quiz is the same as the shadow quiz in every way except there are two shadows that are overlapping. Thats it.
Zoom quiz has you guess the item from a very small zoomed in portion of it. There are 3 rounds of this.
What’s missing has you pick out what's missing from the images in front of you. The third and final round has the objects overlap and they are shown in shadow making it much harder than the rounds before it.
Mii shadow quiz has you guess which mii the shadow belongs to. Pretty easy, there are 3 rounds.
Bowling has you rolling a bowling ball into your miis as they act as pins. You have limited tries to knock them all down. I personally dislike this one.
Pixel quiz shows you an item with a pixelated filter over it. You have to then guess what the item is. There are 3 rounds in this game.
Poke the Ferris Wheel only unlocks after you’ve unlocked the ferris wheel. You have to poke it with just the right amount of force to get it to stop at the bottom.
Moving cups only happens in the cafe I’m pretty sure. Your mii will put a coin under one of 3 cups and you have to keep track of where it's at. This happens 3 times with each time getting faster. I haven’t gotten this game, but Draconic has.
Odd one out is a game neither of us have gotten as of writing this script. You guess which mii is different from the others.
And now the final mini-game. Latte art quiz is a game I haven’t gotten, but draconic has once. A mii’s face will be the foam in a latte and you have to guess which mii it is. It gets harder as you keep going with the 3rd and final round being nearly impossible in draconics words. The miis face gets really swirled around.
One of the weirdest and honestly stupid omissions from the previous version are proposal destinations. In the 3DS version when miis proposed you were able to choose where they did it. Some examples are at the train station, at the amusement park, and at a firework show to name a few. These destinations could be places on your island or they could be unique locations that can’t be accessed otherwise. Here in living the dream you cannot choose where the proposal happens and perhaps the worst part is that it just happens in a miis room.
What makes this so weird and stupid is that you can choose where your miis ask each other out at. Why wouldn’t the same system be in place for proposals? It's not like the decision was made to avoid issues when the player doesn’t have all the locations unlocked. There's already a safeguard for that. I cannot see a reason as to why other than they did it solely so they wouldn't have to make more animations which would be a valid reason I think if it wasn’t a game from Nintendo.
Rap battles/word chain were events that happened at specific times at the water fountain. They were nothing special and they only really existed to give you something to look at and watch since miis back then weren’t able to really interact that much outside of their homes. They aren’t that big of an issue and I don’t think many people complain about these events being missing, but I think they would have been fun to see especially with the expanded lingo feature.
Miis used to be able to cook and sew if you gave them specific items. This was something I personally loved. I loved that we could get food and items from our little miis. This feature has been completely taken out and it's instead something that only the player can do. Technically miis cook in their homes, but you can’t get what they cook and it's just a for looks type of thing.
The observation tower is missing in this new game and thus so is quirky questions the mini-game that took place at that location. The observation tower wasn’t anything special and its only real importance was housing quirky questions. Quirky questions was a little game that allowed you to ask your miis some questions. The answers were random and they didn’t really tell you anything about the miis it was just something meant to be funny. I’m not too upset or dying for them to make a return.
Judgement Bay is a game that happened on the beach. You’d write out two options and every mii on your island would choose one to vote for. The one with the most miis wins. Like quirky questions this game was mainly meant to be a way to have fun and create funny moments. I do want to note that many people wish that this came back. It's got a lot of fan fare surrounding it because of I assume funny moments they’ve seen or had. It's essentially a lot easier to have funny moments in this game rather than quirky questions which explains why this one is a lot more loved and remembered than quirky questions. Again this game would be a cool addition to the new one, but I ain't dying without it.
Compatibility tester is a pretty small thing. Its purpose is in the name. You could see how easy it is for miis to get along with each other or fall in love. It showed you a relationship forecast that told you how likely it was for miis to get along with each other for each day of the month. It might’ve been axed because I just feel like testers like these aren’t as common or aren’t as talked about as they once were. I actually don’t think this feature would work all too well here as miis are pretty overly nice in this new addition to the series.
The rankings board held a bunch of different things your miis were ranked on such as the most popular girl, the most popular guy, how much you’ve spent on each mii, etcetera. It's a small thing that held and made info a lot easier to see at a glance rather than doing the calculations yourself. I really don’t know why this didn't make a comeback. There's a section in the game to look at your island’s info. I think these rankings should really make a comeback.
The concert hall is without a doubt the most missed feature from the previous versions. It was a place where your miis could sing preset songs or songs with custom lyrics. Everyone only really used it for the custom lyrics thing though. I personally never played around with it, but I know it is very dearly missed by a lot of people. I’m not exactly sure why this feature has been taken out but I would have to assume it's due to the game having no filter to it.
The Amusement park is missing in the newer title. I know this may be confusing since there is a ferris wheel in it, but I wouldn’t class that as an amusement park at all. There used to be more rides and attractions. It feels so so weird just having a single ferris wheel in the middle of nowhere, especially when considering that the game has no decor to really go along with it to make it blend in more naturally. The amusement park was home to Tomodachi Quest and the magic show. I personally don't care about the magic show and with how it worked in the 3DS version it would not work with the switch since a camera would be needed. I think most people don’t even remember it so truly no lost there.
However, I do really really wish they kept Tomodachi Quest. It was my absolutely favorite event. It was a bit long, but it was so immersive to me. It was a great mini game that kept my attention. I truly felt stressed wherever my party’s health was low and I felt so accomplished when I won. I really miss this feature a lot and seeing the homage I guess you could call it in one of the few dreams in the game to it only makes me want it even more. I’m pretty sure these features were cut in the name of giving players more customization which I honestly don't understand. I feel like there could be at least one way to add these features back into the game without changing its fundamental design of customization first.
The park and its very small events are another thing that isn’t dearly missed. As with the previous entries in this section the park location was likely cut due to the customizable design of your island. Also the entire island sort of acts as a park now so that's also another factor.
Tomodachi Life Living the Dream isn’t perfect, but we still managed to have a lot of fun with it. I think some of the biggest complaints from other people come from trying to do everything at once rather than playing it over a long period of time. The game is meant to be checked in on in short bursts, not just played for multiple hours straight. I think taking your time with this game is the best way to enjoy it. However, the game is lacking in some areas, and even while taking your time starts to get repetitive very quickly. I also think all the Mii's are too friendly with each other and wish there was a bit more drama. While I don’t think the game is worth a full 60 dollars, we put in so many hours into it that it was still worth it for us at the end. If you think you’ll have fun with the game, go ahead and get it anyway. Even with some flaws its incredibly fun.