Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream Review

Life on Kayfabe Island is simple but never boring. My father has failed at his quest to court Monica Bellucci, who has opted to move in with Sarah Connor and Dracula. My sister recently married Stone Cold Steve Austin and they’re playfully splashing each other on the beach. Heihachi and the thunder god Raiden live happily together in the Kombat Kasa. James Brown just finished construction on his new house, a pyramid made of cocaine. Geoff Keighley’s new pet – a sentient piece of pizza – has been biting people, which greatly concerns Morpheus.

I check in on these denizens daily and do what I can to make them happy. My photorealistic, disembodied hand swoops in to help when Apollo Creed slips and falls on the beach while training. Bret Hart asks me if he should profess his love to Catherine Zeta-Jones, and I encourage him. I feed string cheese to Dr. Melfi from The Sopranos. 

These little vignettes and moments make up the majority of what you’ll be doing in Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream. On the surface it’s very much in the vein of its predecessor on 3DS. More toy than game, it’s a fascinating and often hilarious title that gives back as much as you’re willing to put into it.

At a glance it may seem akin to Animal Crossing, Pokopia, or The Sims. You’re checking in on your little town and community, helping its residents with their daily lives while slowly unlocking new features and advancements. But unlike games where the townbuilding and resource management are the driving force, Tomodachi Life’s primary strength comes in the form of humor.

If you create a handful of Miis and expect to have a fleshed-out experience, you’re not going to get it. You’ll get the occasional funny vignette or sight gag, but it isn’t until you start creating numerous Miis and experimenting with the ample customization options that things get more interesting and entertaining.

Let’s zoom in on one of my Miis as an example. Early in the game, I created Stone Cold Steve Austin. I made his face look pretty good in the Mii editor, and after I set him up in his default house I went to the clothing store to buy appropriate attire. Jeans and boots, easy. I didn’t find an open leather vest like the one he wears to the ring, so I bought the closest alternative which was a closed black vest. If you looked at him, you could tell it’s ol’ Stone Cold.

But as the days went on and my island and the Mii itself levelled up, I was able to customize him in ways much deeper than the 3DS game would have allowed. You can make your Miis happy in numerous ways – feeding them, rubbing their heads, introducing them to other characters, playing little minigames with them, giving them presents, and more. As you do this, you gain “warm fuzzies,” the game’s version of XP. Individual Miis and the island as a whole level up via this currency, which unlocks new customization options.

Thanks to these ever-growing options, the basic Mii version of Steve Austin became funnier and more accurate as my time with the game went on. I unlocked the Palette House, which allowed me to easily replicate the famous “Austin 3:16” shirt for him to wear and beer cans for him to eat (I haven’t unlocked a “drink” animation, so he vigorously chomps down on any beer can I give him). I gifted him a workout DVD, so now he frequently breaks out the weights and pumps out a few sets. A variety of “little quirks” open up for you to gift to your Miis, so I granted him the “walks like a rodeo rider” and “flips out when angry” animations. I unlocked custom expressions and made it so he frequently belts out “WHAT?” and “GIMME A HELL YEAH” during conversation. I turned the interior of his house into a mechanic’s garage and the exterior into a giant beer can with a door. What started as a visual approximation of Stone Cold Steve Austin became a walking, talking caricature featuring many of his trademarks.

These little quirks are among the most substantial improvements Living the Dream introduces. Filling an island up with a mishmash of celebrities, fictional characters, and your friends and family is fun, but it’s way more funny and endearing when you can bestow an impressive variety of traits to them. Once you’ve made enough characters, you’re basically winding them up and throwing them into this silly snow globe to see how they bounce off of each other. The more Miis you have, the more unpredictable and surprising the potential interactions can be, which only made the game more fun for me the more I played and created. 

Customizing your Miis is one of the main draws, but the options don’t end there. The Island Builder feature allows you to quickly and easily modify the island itself. Want to move someone’s house across the map or create a series of sidewalks? With just a few button presses you can rearrange things, throw down some picnic tables and vending machines, or turn that grassy field into a sandy beach. Most of what you do in the Island Builder is free, with the only limitation being the props and items that need to be bought at the store for money. But virtually everything you do in this game puts money in your pocket, so I never found myself hard up for cash.

It’s the variety of customization that ultimately makes Living the Dream such an upgrade over the 3DS game. I’m over 20 hours in and I’m still impressed by the amount I’ve made Kayfabe Island my own. The Palette House has a really impressive editor that lets you get in the weeds and make impressive food items, clothing, home interiors and exteriors, pets, and more. I can’t help but laugh whenever I pan the camera around and see something like Marty Supreme eating a visually accurate box of Marlboros.

The fact that the customization options run so deep is almost frustrating considering that you can’t share your creations online. In games like Animal Crossing: New Leaf, it was great to be able to visit fanmade websites and download lovingly created designs. Such an option doesn’t exist in Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, so if you want to show off your customization skills, your options are far more limited. You could always broadcast to a streaming platform or upload to YouTube if you’re the type to do that, but if you’re a more private person I guess you’ll need to take some phone pictures of your Switch screen and send them to friends via text or Discord. It’s frustrating and backwards, but it’s very much in line with Nintendo’s long history of artificially limiting online functionality. Speaking of frustrations with the customization, you won’t find mouse mode here since it’s technically a game for the original Switch. It would have been a great feature for the Palette House editor, but we’re left hoping for an eventual Switch 2 update instead of getting it at launch.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream has personality and humor for days, but it’s bound to fall flat as a game for some. Doubly so for anyone that doesn’t want to put a lot of time into Mii creation and further customization. Judged purely as a game, there isn’t a TON here. Before long, your Miis will be flagging you down for the umpteenth time to once again play a minigame based on identifying silhouettes or zoomed-in pictures. If you weren’t entranced by the minigame in the 3DS original that tasked you with catching a falling JPEG of a hot dog or pocket watch, you won’t find much more substance in Living the Dream’s minigames.

It may fall short if you’re looking for a deep city builder or life sim, but as a piece of absurdist Dada comedy I absolutely love Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream. Every day I look forward to booting it up, making a Mii or two, seeing what unlikely friendships are forming, and watching ludicrous vignettes play out. I’ll boot up Stardew Valley or Pokopia if I’m looking for something mechanically deeper, but I know I can count on a good laugh whenever I check in on Kayfabe Island.