Nintendo is never afraid to push the quirky button and go out there with ideas. Here is a prime example, so here is what I think of Tomodachi Life for the 3DS.
Tomodachi Life already has a cult following in Japan, being released on April 18th, 2013. Over a year later, the rest of the world is getting their hands on it and experiencing what all the talk was about.
Guys, this game is weird.
I suppose I should elaborate, huh?
This is a life-simulation game, I liken it to The Sims with not as many aspects to worry about. You don't have to worry about sending your Mii's to their jobs or making sure they use the bathroom, or things of that nature. It's really straightforward and easy to pick up, and works excellent as a handheld experience.
The word "experience" may come up a lot in this post since I really don't know if I can classify this as a full-on "game" (not meaning that in a bad way AT ALL).
The game starts innocently enough, asking you to name your island (I, of course, landed on 'Fantasy Island' cause duh!) and creating a Mii look-alike of yourself to be the first inhabitant. You can either import one from your system, start from scratch, or have the 3DS create one for you using photos taken by the 3DS camera. You then can adjust and tweak how you look, add your birthday, then go about setting your personality. You choose spots on sliders based on how serious you are, how fast you are, how expressive you can be, etc. The game then puts you in a personality group (I was an Outgoing Trendsetter, so pretty spot on), these are used to better decide how strong your relationships with other Mii's can be. Finally you set how your Mii sounds like when you talk, which can be downright frightening sounding. You can choose the pitch, speed, quality, tone, and accent of the Mii, or hit random and laugh for about an hour.
After a few tutorials on how to interact with your Mii, he/she becomes lonely and asks you to give them a friend. You can pull a new Mii into the game very easily the same way you brought your look-alike in the game, and you become fast friends.
As you add more and more Mii's into the game, more and more of the island opens up. You can open up such locales as a café, an amusement park, a news station, and more. You will find your Mii's traveling to these locales and it is always amusing to watch your Mii's interact with each other.
You spend the majority of your time at the Mii Apartments, when you see a squiggly-mark icon, that means they have a problem you can solve. They could be hungry/thirsty, they could want a new interior for their apartment, they could want new clothes, they could want you to tell them what to say when they are happy/sad/worried/angry, etc. You can buy food/clothes/interiors at the various shops on the island and new ones are being added on a daily basis. If you solve your Mii's problems, they gain XP, you gain money, and eventually they level up, you can then give them a gift, a special interior, teach them a song to sing, or give them a catchphrase. I believe the level cap is 30, but I could be wrong.
If your Mii is showing an orange-face icon, it means they want to interact with another Mii which could lead to a friendship. You can interact with this by telling the Mii what they should talk about, which plays into the personality traits. Mii's who are friends will hang out at each other's apartment, be involved in cutscenes, visit island locales together, and can also have fights, which could end up breaking up a friendship.
Of course, friends of the opposite gender could lead to more, a full-on relationship, the Mii's can become sweethearts, eventually get married, and have a family together. It is worth noting that there is a setting in the game that disables Mii's having babies.
If the icon is a green person yelling, the Mii wants to play a game, which could range from a match-2 style game, a quiz based on island inhabitants, or a "catch-this-as-I-drop-it" style game. Your reward is an object added to your "treasures", which can be a basketball, an old sock, a toothbrush, and other weird items that you can sell at the pawn shop.
Every night, you can invade your Mii's dreams. One dream involves you being a snail in a never-ending race, one dream had about 8 Mii's all chanting "All hail the Creamy Stew", and they just get weirder from there.
Various events take place at certain times on the island. You can by an exclusive item at the various Morning/Afternoon/Evening markets, you can catch a magic show, you can even play a Final Fantasy style RPG with a party of 4 Mii's. In the quest I played I defeated the evil Disco Ball boss.
Before this post gets to be as long as a Kings/Rangers Stanley Cup game, I'll highlight a few of my personal experiences:
- Napoleon Dynamite tried asking out Elizabeth Comstock, she said "I'm Sorry", I had to give him a lot of food and new clothes to help him feel better.
- Ice Cube celebrated his birthday while his friends gathered around singing to him. Those friends being Captain Falcon, Duke Nukem, Batman and Iron Man. That's a party!
- Doctor Clayton Forrester is currently dating Storm from the X-Men and tried proposing at a fireworks show. Didn't go well since she couldn't hear him over the sound of the fireworks.
- According to the compatibility tester, I am meant to be with either Nikki or Brie Bella from WWE. Apparently I should give them my number like ASAP.
- Louis C.K. discovered a fantastic way to clean dirty floors: rolling around while wearing old clothes.
I could go on and on and this game is one of those experiences that could use a "daily check-in" feature. Every day is something new and exciting and really captures that "I wonder what today brings" mentality that will keep you coming back.
So let's wrap this up. If you like life-simulation style games, then you will find this easy to pick-up and get into. If you normally don't like that style of game, the quirky humor and easy-to-get-into style works great. I spent an entire weekend playing this, only stopping to eat and sleep and if you let yourself get into this game, the hours are going to fly by and you will have memorable experiences that will make you laugh and see your Mii's in a whole new way. This is a lot of fun and I recommend this to anyone who likes weird, new things.
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