Tomodachi Life Review - Insane in the Membrane

Back in April, Nintendo revealed Tomodachi Life with what was arguably the most hilarious debut trailer gamers have ever seen. It depicted Nintendo management, including Satoru Iwata, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Reggie Fils-Aime, doing wacky stuff in a 3D world. Seeing them rock out on stage to metal music, and battling over Princess Peach made it an instant-buy for some 3DS owners. But is the game as ridiculous and comedic as its trailer indicated?

Tomodachi Life is an interesting game to say the least. Fundamentally, it’s a life simulation game where you create virtual people, who will likely represent those you know in real life—although they don’t have to—, and watch them interact with each other. The behavior of Tomodachi Life‘s residents is where a great deal of the laughs come from. You have some control over their mannerisms, whether it be how quirky they are and other personality traits, or how their voice sounds—all dialog is spoken verbally with a vocal synthesizer. Although this could have been a game that took itself seriously, it certainly doesn’t. The subject matter is, in one word, insane. You’ll see things that will make you question the sanity of the developers, and at the same time make you laugh uncontrollably. Watching your residents converge in this crazy world is unpredictable and fun to watch.

Although the interactions are the best part about the game, the bulk of your time will be spent creating characters and then performing menial tasks, such as feeding them and buying them new clothes. Satisfying the needs of your residents results in money and experience rewards. Money can be used to purchase items including food and new apartment designs. Meanwhile, experience results in characters leveling up, which makes them much more entertaining individuals. They’ll learn how to sing songs in concerts, say pre-determined phrases depending on their emotion, and earn gifts to place around the apartment.

As with other life simulators, there is no clear objective in the game, it’s a sandbox of sorts. However, marriage and relationships are a big part of the game that requires some effort. Residents will grow fond, or resentful, of one another. If they click, you might end up with a newborn in your town. Between building relationships and leveling up characters, there’s a hint of RPG flavor here that can keep you invested and give you high value for your purchase.

The problem with Tomodachi Life is it never quite gives back as much as you put into it. The game has many pre-scripted events that can occur that make for quality laughs. I’d go as far as to say this is the funniest game I’ve ever played. Some of them are so good that you’ll want to share with friends, which is made easier by a readily available screenshot feature built into the game. However, these events are relatively infrequent, and many times duplicate themselves. Consequently, you’ll spend a lot of your time trying to arrive at the next memorable moment which is barricaded by repetitive tasks.

A lot of the time it feels like there’s nothing to do. There are a couple events per day, but for the most part you’ll be busy maintaining your residents. Unlike games such as The Sims where there’s a layer of creativity with erecting structures, there aren’t any novel gameplay mechanics here. One minute you’ll be excited to show a friend a great scene in the game, and then you’ll struggle to find something to do next.

Although the gameplay is a bit hit and miss, the graphics and audio work are well polished. Hearing voices from characters is a very nice touch that gives them added personality, although some voice settings result in drowned out audio. The music is reminiscent of Animal Crossing with upbeat tunes.

After seeing the debut trailer, I can’t help but feel disappointed; the hilarious events are some of the funniest I’ve ever seen in a video game, but are only a fraction of the experience. Building a community of people and responding to their daily needs is time consuming, and in some cases laborious. This results in a game that has moments well worth sharing with others, but requires more investment than it returns.