Lance Hulsing

Tyrion the cat lazes around and plays “Tomodatchi Life: Living the Dream” with his owner–he loves the warmth of the video game console and being with his owner.

I’m sure by now many of us have heard about the game “Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream.” It is the long awaited sequel to “Tomodachi Life” for the Nintendo 3DS and has been everywhere on the internet since its release on April 16, 2026. But with the hefty $60 price tag slapped on the game, is it worth it?

In the game you are an omniscient being and you create these characters called Miis, a play on the word “me,” as you can create yourself and whoever you want. These Mii characters have relationships with the other Miis and will sometimes go to you, the player, for requests.

The game has a simple premise and is similar to the “Sims” franchise and the “Animal Crossing” franchise in a few ways, but its charm comes from its absurdity and customization. Sometimes the Miis will ask you a question, and you can answer with whatever you want, no censorship, and they will repeat the phrases you tell them.

You can even create items in the game and they can be whatever you want them to be, like a pet cat, a box of cigarettes, (which many people have made) a notebook, or anything else.You can customize your Miis to the same extent as well, with a feature called “face paint” that allows you to draw on your Miis.

In the original installment in the series, it was censored–not allowing you to say anything inappropriate, but in “Living the Dream,” Nintendo decided to make a bold move and allow you to add anything, no censorship–with one caveat. You cannot share Miis or items with other players, or share footage of the game, but many people have bypassed the latter. However, you can share things locally.

This has been controversial, but in the age of censorship being rampant online, I believe it is a breath of fresh air to allow anything in the game, and since you cannot share it, young children won’t be exposed to inappropriate content unless they see it on the internet, which is a whole other issue. Additionally, this new game in the series allows gay relationships and even nonbinary characters, features missing from the previous game.

Similar in gameplay to the “Sims” franchise, where you watch over your Sim characters as they get into different shenanigans, becoming friends, lovers, or enemies with the other Sim characters, you watch over the Miis and their interactions between each other. However, in “Tomodatchi Life: Living the Dream,” the Miis mostly all get along with no conflict. This is the main criticism of the game; everyone is too friendly and fights are rare. Sometimes Miis will get upset with each other, but it is always mild. The game is fun for a while, but can get boring fast because of the lack of conflict.

I have played the game for 80 hours now, and have not had a single fight. All of my Miis are friends or acquaintances, with a few couples and marriages, but there have been no negative relationships besides Miis sometimes not getting along. I have tried to cause conflict, but to my dismay, it has not worked.

I adore games in this genre, I love seeing characters interact and all the things that ensue, and so I love these games even when there isn’t much conflict, however, for many people it gets very boring. This game is meant to be played in small bursts; it isn’t the type of game you play for hours on end. Even so, I have played this game for hours on end, and it has led to me unlocking everything I can at the moment, very fast.

In the game, there is a wishing fountain, and with it, you can unlock several things for your Miis when you make them happy. Each time you fill the fountain, you get a wish and your island levels up. With the wishes you can unlock things for your Miis, and some items require a certain island level to unlock. This is a fun concept, but since I have played this game for so long, I have racked up hundreds of wishes and my island is around level 200. I have nothing to spend the wishes on because I have unlocked everything else, and it is true that I have played the game for a long time, but I believe games should be fun for everyone–those who play it in small bursts and those who play in large amounts of time.

Additionally, some features from the original “Tomodatchi Life “are missing in “Living the Dream.” With that in mind, the game feels very empty at times, and I want to play it, but it just doesn’t feel like it has enough features. The Miis will talk about all the things that you tell them which is very entertaining at times, but eventually it gets old, and the novelty of your Miis speaking about profanity wears off.

Usually, games like these captivate me for much longer. I am very much a video game addict. I will play games for hours and hours, even when the gameplay is repetitive. The game was 100% worth $60 to me, but I feel like we have been allowing Nintendo and other game companies to publish half-baked games for a lot of money. The same thing happened with “Animal Crossing New Horizons,” the game was sold for $60 and it was missing many core features. Thankfully, however, free updates came out to fix that, but I think they shouldn’t be publishing games for so much money without all the features out. It isn’t even a guarantee that there will be updates for Living the Dream adding more features, or that they’ll be free like Animal Crossing.

Since Nintendo is so popular, they are able to get away with publishing unfinished games for $60. I love their games and always will, even though they are expensive, but I think they should publish games like indie developers do.

For example, “Hollow Knight Silksong” was highly anticipated and took seven whole years to develop, and when it was finally released, it lived up to the hype. They kept adding more and more things to the game which is why its release was so delayed, and with all that content it was only $20.

I’m not saying Nintendo has to make their games more affordable, though they should, but they should at least create games that live up to the price tag. Sixty dollars is a lot of money for many people. I am lucky that I am able to afford $60 games, but I think the games need to have enough content to warrant the price. I have many $60 Nintendo games that were not worth it at all, but I still purchased because it was a Nintendo game, and Nintendo is known for their quality games. Lately they have been becoming greedier and their games have been decreasing in quality and content. Though I play games for much longer than the average person, those games have been so good that I would keep playing them, but lately Nintendo games haven’t been like that.

I think this game is a 7/10. I loved it, but I think that it needs more conflict and more content. I think the game is only worth it if it is a genre you particularly enjoy and if you have the money to spend on it.