I will admit that watching the presentation for Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream was weird. At least weird to me. But maybe it's the kind of weird I want. My 5 year old has watched the presentation 3 separate times. Hear me out.
This game, to me, looks a lot like The Sims, and I don't like the Sims. I know it's a pop culture icon, and I know that people love it. It just want for me. I do have the 3DS version of Tomodachi Life, and I think I slept on the concept. I wasn't aware that you can just keep creating people. As you're creating people, you can give them names, nicknames, personality traits, and even pick their favorite color. You can even teach the game how to pronounce your character's names. If you want to create these Miis from scratch, you can, but you can also use a wizard.
Your main job is to keep them happy. To keep them fed. To keep them safe. Check in with them as the island opens up. Watch news briefs. Make them get along. You are essentially an entity. You can make them make conversation with each other. This makes their relationships stronger. They sleep, and go to the beach, and get jobs, and everything. The difference here, is that they actually talk. It gets weird all things considering.
The upcoming iteration turns everything up to 11. The island is now fully customizable. There are many more places to visit. While the core experience here stays the same, they've added more flourish, options, and character slots to create your own custom utopia.
The game released April 16th for both Switch 1, compatible with Switch 2. I think I'm going to have to buy it, and in the mean time, pry the 3DS away from my 5 year old.
