Nintendo’s Made A Weird Animal Crossing. Tomodachi Life Makes Me Live Like a Strange God
On an island in the middle of a distant ocean, I have been gathering people to live together. I check myself. I watch them react to the food I feed them and the strange clothes I wear. They call me Divine.
I call this island Together. This is totally cool, right? All is well.
This has been my experience with Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, Nintendo’s oddity Change game for a long time. A sequel to a Nintendo 3DS game that I’ve never played, it’s a life simulator — kind of like Animal Crossing, if Animal Crossing wasn’t so focused and filled with people you’ve created yourself.
And it’s where Miis — Nintendo’s game avatars that have been around since the Wii — are most visible. You make them, meet, watch them do weird things and just… move on. They offer an incredible amount of customization and come with their own monstrous generated voices, which you can tune to be as annoying as you like.
I have found comfort and joy in the past few weeks with Pokémon Pokopia. This time, it’s about laughter and mayhem. Don’t expect much agency in Tomodachi Life. You are not “personally” on the island controlling a character like you are in Pokopia or Animal Crossing. Rather, he is a creator — he builds the world and introduces both useful and disruptive elements.
It reminded me of something I can’t even put my finger on. Then when I was watching a TV show with my child that he had never seen before, it hit: A Good Place.
That’s why I created Miis based on all the characters from The Good Place. I made Chidi and Eleanor fall in love and get married. And Thahani and Jason live next to each other.
You can customize Miis in many ways. I like mine weird — this one is not mine.
For the other islanders, I made Miis named after all the drug commercials I saw on Hulu while watching The Good Place. Dupixent, Breztri, Nurtec, Tremfya…they’re all here and doing well, mostly.
“Ant farm” was a thought I had as my island slowly grew — more residents arrived, new establishments appeared, which were introduced to the game by headlines: a clothing store, a home goods store, a restaurant, a news station. As you go, new features start to appear. Miracles. Sometimes the islanders go to sleep and have dreams that you can watch, and things appear in them: a toy robot, a make-up kit. Mii sometimes quiz me on my childhood questions.
As you go — feeding the Miis things that make them happy, helping pick them up when they fall or playing games with them (red light/green light, guessing games) — you earn money, and they go up. Unusual custom words or gestures can be superimposed. You can give them gifts or send them on mini-holidays (just to take selfies that I keep on my Switch). You can suggest topics for them to talk about — phrases included in conversations like Mad Libs, like “Weird Al” or “smooth grandma.” At one point, Jardiance and Lybalvi were concerned about talking about Sam Darnold. Or was it Kisunla and Neffy?
Did I mention sometimes you throw Miis into the mini game?
I felt a little drunk on my energy. Bored god. All of these Miis multiply as I add more — they call me God (my choice), they do their weird little things. The weird daily routines made me and my kid laugh, but it’s also such a game after an hour session. You do your best, buy things, solve the problems of the residents, then watch for a while, close and come back later.
How far does this go? I don’t know. I played for about 10 hours and built homes for twelve settlers. I can go further. You expand and customize the island by buying — or by painting or designing your own items. You can only build as much land as the game allows within a fenced border around the surrounding ocean, but that border keeps growing as you add more inhabitants. Each day, or every other day, brings new discoveries. Also, I’m a terrible island designer.
It’s hard to recommend Tomodachi Life. If you’re looking for the odd Mii to take care of — or the odd Nintendo in your life — step inside. But Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Pokémon Pokopia are better, more engaging games. Tomodachi’s passive nature also feels like it would be better suited for a phone or tablet. And for $60, it feels like a lot.
Sometimes your upper hand needs to come down to pick up a fallen Mii.
But am I happy to see Nintendo so weird less than a year after the launch of the Switch 2? Yes. I also like that this game allows for non-binary characters and gender-flexible relationships, which is rare for Nintendo.
And yet, Nintendo has done the unusual thing by preventing you from sharing screenshots — moments that are almost worth remembering — on its phone app so you can show it off. Maybe that’s to keep your Tomodachi dreams private and safe. Or maybe it’s to protect Nintendo from old players of bad or bad times that they won’t see aired. Just be prepared to keep your Tomodachi experience to yourself, unless you resort to taking a screenshot of your switch screen, which I’m sure many people will. This game sounds like a meme industry.
At least it’s playable on both Switch and Switch 2, unlike recent Switch 2 exclusives like Pokémon Pokopia. But I’m still not sure what to do with my citizens on Togetherness Island. Do I love them? Kind of. Will I take care of them? Probably not.
