For almost 13 years following the 2014 release of Tomodachi Life on 3DS, Nintendo’s quirky social simulation series was on an unannounced hiatus, and its fans were antsy as hell. Some players who yearned for a new entry in the oddball life sim series speculated that Nintendo had abandoned the series and its Mii avatars entirely. Others stayed hopeful and turned to creating elaborate mods, conceptualizing the theoretical third entry in the series with detailed art, or…doing whatever this was:
So, naturally, when Nintendo announced Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream last year, it was massive news. Now that fans have had a taste of the game thanks to more trailers and a free demo over the past few weeks, they’re almost all really, really excited, so much so that they’ve finally swapped out the Mii summoning circles for fanart of the Miis from the game’s Direct and endless replays of the demo. But if you’re a bit of a newcomer to the series, you might be wondering why everyone is suddenly freaking out about Miis like it’s 2006 again.
The Tomodachi Life series is like a quirky cross between The Sims, Animal Crossing, and the ant farm you kept in your bedroom when you were 12. Essentially, you run an island by creating Miis and then take a back seat to watch them befriend each other, get in fights, and even get married and have little baby Miis.
Along the way, you help your Miis out by feeding them, playing minigames with them, and encouraging them to form relationships. Still, you don’t really get to make any key decisions — mostly everything is up to the Miis, leading your interactions with them to unfold more like a wacky TV show than a game. This friction keeps things interesting, and at times, it’s also hilariously unfortunate. (A few years ago, a Mii I created to look like my childhood dog decided that his absolute favorite food was chocolate.)
The series kicked off with the Japan exclusive Tomodachi Collection on the DS in 2009 (fun fact: Miis were created and added to the Wii because of this game!). The game was a runaway success, and Nintendo brought the series to the rest of the world via the 3DS sequel Tomodachi Life in 2014. It was an even bigger hit and became one of the best-selling games on the 3DS, but the series strangely went dormant until Living the Dream was announced last year.
Even during this upsettingly long hiatus, the series continued to be a pretty big deal, and you’ve likely seen its content even if you’ve never touched either of the games. If you’ve ever seen that “all hail the cracker” meme, chuckled at a clip of a Peter Griffin Mii belting a sentimental ballad to a massive crowd, or even made a Mii at all, you have Tomodachi Life to thank.
wii people in circle all hail the cracker pic.twitter.com/jS6tAZIKFs
— reactions (@reactjpg) August 18, 2019
Now that Living the Dream is inbound, we know it’s bringing plenty of new features to be excited about. The island’s layout can be customized, profanity is allowed (at the expense of Nintendo making it harder to share screenshots), and you can even draw entire items, pets, and Mii faces that will then exist in your game. The game also adds gay marriage alongside a host of options for making Miis more diverse, which are long overdue but still pretty neat to see.
However, aside from customization, the basics of the game seem to be generally the same. Nintendo didn’t spend those 13 years drastically overhauling the way we’re able to interact with Miis or adding a crafting system or anything like that, and I’m honestly happy about that, even if it means Living the Dream is just a more customizable version of its predecessor.
That’s because the series has a really singular and whimsical framework to begin with. Sure, sometimes you feel the need to play through a decade-spanning adventure that involves swinging a cool sword around and saving the universe. But sometimes you might just want to play with a virtual dollhouse where you can witness a love triangle between Geralt from The Witcher, Isabelle from Animal Crossing, and Tenna from Deltarune go awry, and Tomodachi Life is probably the most fun series to make such enjoyably absurd scenarios possible.
Now that so many people know they love games like this thanks to 2020’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons, I could see Living the Dream (which looks strikingly similar and is also set on an island — I’m convinced this isn’t a coincidence) becoming Nintendo’s next breakaway cozy hit. For now, I’m still checking in on my poor Miis from the demo, who were lobotomized and turned into soulless corporate advertisements once I reached the end.
