Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream Review: A Diorama Fever Dream

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, the latest entry in the social simulation game coming from Nintendo, is a total fever dream. It’s ridiculous, hilarious, and you truly never know what the next interaction brings. The creative suite is expansive, letting truly artistic players make almost anything, while letting those less creatively inclined still feel like they can make stuff. While the longevity of the game will really depend on the player, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream has had a giant grin plastered on my face during every play session.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream makes you the overlord of an island of Miis, Nintendo’s custom avatars that have been around now for 20 years. You kick things off by creating your first Mii, which can genuinely be anyone or anything. The creative suite at default is largely fine; there’s enough granular control that you can make some great creations without much effort. 

For those really looking to get into the weeds and make something incredible, the pro suite awaits. You can essentially paint on the Miis, taking them to an entirely new level. Players online have made some truly impressive creations, really pushing the tools to both beautiful and horrifying extremes. The extent of my artistic ability is drawing a scar on Mii Luffy, but hey, it was easy to do at least.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is for everyone, come as you are.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Praise really lets your Miis be whatever and whoever you want them to be. You choose their gender, relationship preference, real-world connections, and more. It’s awesome to see proper representation here, with same-sex relationships, pronoun choice, and nonbinary inclusion. Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is for everyone, come as you are. Everyone can join the chaos. 

Once your first Mii is unleashed, you start adding to the island itself—slowly at first. From unlocking a grocery store to keep your motley crew fed and clothing stores for fresh threads, to home and island design shops, you have a lot of agency in how your island comes together. The Miis can ask for specific upgrades and things, too, and granting their wishes raises their happiness.

As you add more Miis, you’ll need to manage their happiness. Raising their happiness unlocks new items, quirks, vacation destinations, and even more, allowing for even more weirdness on the island. It can be as simple as giving them food or new clothes, or picking them up like little rag dolls and tossing them at other Miis for friendship-building.

Playing Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is like peering into a virtual diorama.

These interactions are hilarious, especially as you give them ideas on things to talk about. There is no content filter here, at the cost of easy online sharing, but because of this, some truly unhinged interactions can happen.  Every new bit of language you give to the Miis gets added to an overall lexicon.

The Miis can and will use the language that becomes commonplace on the island. Sometimes, you can pop in on two Miis hanging out and talking about BTS. Other times, they may be talking about whatever profanity-laden phrase you’ve introduced to these innocent little creatures. It’s always hilarious, especially when you don’t see it coming.

The Miis run around and exist without your direct intervention. They’ll go to the restaurant to hang out, chat on the beach, play with toys they’ve been given, and get curious about one another. Your role as the player is the Watcher from Marvel, influencing and pushing them together whenever you want. Playing Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is like peering into a virtual diorama, seeing all the little pieces at play, and joining in on the fun.

Digitizing my loved ones was a trip down memory lane.

I spent the first while on my island recreating my partner and closest friends. There was something genuinely heartwarming in watching them interact, fall in love, move in together, and get married, like flipping pages in a book of altered memories of a different timeline.

Watching my partner and me fall in love all over again actually made me walk through my own mind, recalling adventures and instances I hadn’t thought about in a while. It’s adorable and hilarious even before you introduce utter and abject chaos.

Once I was done digitizing my loved ones, chaos reigned. Creating Luffy from One Piece and Gintoki from Gintama and watching them fall in love wasn’t something I expected to do this year, but it was incredible. Introducing Joker from Persona 5 to Breaking Bad’s Walter White just felt like a match made in heaven, even if I couldn’t tell you why.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream doesn’t demand a lot from the player.

Being able to pull Miis from other people’s worlds would’ve been amazing, especially for those of us less artistically inclined. This is the major trade-off to not having a content filter, but it does feel sorely missed. This lack of sharing extends to sharing screenshots and videos. While there are ways to get them off the console, it’s so many steps that most people just won’t bother. 

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream doesn’t demand a lot from the player, really; you only need to hop in for a few minutes throughout the day. All you really need to do is check on your Miis, buy whatever new daily items are available that day, then check back in later to see what else is new. You can spend hours designing and playing with your Miis, but then you can really start to see the limitations of the experience.

Interactions start to loop, especially when two Miis are interested in becoming friends. Mini games, like guessing what items are pixelated, start repeating. It all starts to become uniform very quickly, meaning the shine starts wearing off if you spend too much time playing it every day. It feels like an experience that you’re just supposed to stop by throughout your day. As such, the seams start to show more and more over time. It doesn’t help that there just isn’t a ton to do or experience. 

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is a chaotic breath of fresh air.

Despite the lack of varied content, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is a lot of fun. It won’t be for everyone, an experience that feels ripped from someone’s dreams and drenched in absurdity. The creative suite is deep and really lets players make their favorite characters from whatever medium.

Seeing all these disparate parts come together in wacky and wild ways is a blast, even if it starts to get repetitive. Those looking for a digital playground to play in will find a lot to love here. Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is a chaotic breath of fresh air, even if it doesn’t offer a ton of things to do.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is available now on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2.