Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream review for Nintendo Switch

System: Switch
Release date: April 16, 2026
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

Nintendo’s loveable avatar characters are back and wackier than ever in Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, a sequel to the cult-followed 3DS sim, which in itself was a sequel to the Japan-exclusive DS title Tomodachi Collection. The charm of the Nintendo 3DS release came in adding Miis based on your friends, family, and celebrities into one building and seeing how they got on together, how their interactions went, and meddling with their affairs. This holds true in the new entry; you play God, and on a brand new island, you invite your Miis to come and live in a paradise of your own creation. As cool as it is to create and customize new residents, giving them new toys to fiddle with, finding out what foods they like and what clothes they prefer, and how creative you can get with building relationships between Miis, unfortunately, as is classic Nintendo, for how creative and innovative you can get with the game, the overall product is held back by the company’s antiquated approach to online sharing and interactivity.

There is no outright plot to the game, although there is an ending of sorts tied to the wishing fountain at the center of your island, and the whole adventure is more of a slice-of-life simulation where you play God to the islanders. After adding your first Mii, you’ll be walked through some of the basic mechanics to put them in a positive place like feeding them and giving them gifts. In response, they will award the player with “Warm Fuzzies”, which fill up a jar, and once that jar is full, you can make a wish at the fountain. The options for wishes become bigger and wackier the more you play, going from something as simple as getting a football for your residents to play with to as extravagant as a trip to Hawaii.

The entertainment value largely comes from seeing what your Mii will say to another Mii. As you level up from keeping your Miis happy, more residents will be allowed come to live on the island. The player can create them from scratch, import them from the console or receive them via amiibo. The Mii Creator is the most diverse and laden with options than it has ever been, lightyears from its original simple iteration back on the Wii, and allows players to get really detailed and precise with the islanders they create. Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is a title that rewards creativity, and that comes right from the outset of booting up the game.

The graphical style is simple similar to its 3DS predecessor, but thanks to the HD visuals, that simplicity actually looks really sharp and clean. It is very appealing on the eye, and the colors really pop to sell that summer vibe the game is going for. The sound effects are top-notch, and every dramatic turn a conversation between Miis takes is amplified by the music accompanying them as well as the SFX used to emphasize a moment or phrase in conversation. A change that players clamored for from the Nintendo 3DS game which is present in this title was more diverse options for the Miis gender identity and sexual preferences, which were quite basic and un-inclusive originally. Here, there is a non-binary option for your Miis, as well as the option for same-sex coupling, which is a commendable change from Nintendo. The romantic misadventures of your islanders, and manipulating relationships to get specific Miis to pair up is part of the silly fun you can have with the game, so allowing more options here is a welcome addition. In the case of my island, I kept the people living there to be Miis based on friends and family I know in person, rather than celebrities or friends I have online, and there’s a specific reason for that I’ll get to in a bit.

For as much fun as it is reshaping the island’s pathways and design in your image, choosing who gets to live in your paradise and who doesn’t, a box of toys can only be so fun for so long on your own. Eventually, you are going to want to share your experience with someone else, to see how they react to the wacky world you’ve created, or maybe if they are a fellow Nintendo player, to include their Miis on your island to see what shenanigans they get up to. These options are disappointingly limited, and unfortunately, in my view hampers the entire experience.

The only way to share Miis between Nintendo Switch consoles is locally – there is no method to do this online, so the only friends I could add to my island were ones that were already in my console or were in traveling distance to me. As I’m not the most skilled Mii creator in the world, I cannot create some of my friends’ Miis 1-to-1 in the game, and so it never truly feels like that friend is really there – more like their slightly similar looking cousin. Screenshots (and videos) can’t be shared, which stopped this review from including a screenshot of me and my younger sister Naruto running around my house. On one hand, I understand this is with the safety of younger players in mind as this game surprisingly has little to no censorship at all. You can get truly wild with some of the things you can say and design on your island should you choose to. However, I’m sure there could have been workarounds, like only having Nintendo Switch friends be allowed to share Miis between each other, or something along those lines. I only air this grievance because it is my sole criticism of the game, but it was such a big problem for me that it detracted from the whole experience.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is a fun, silly adventure that will keep players on their toes with what their Miis will get up to next dozens of hours into playing, with vibrant color, imaginative and sharp comedic writing, and a charming tone that keeps players smiling as they play. Nintendo still has that little bit of stardust under their red cap whenever they make an original title and that magic is on display here. Unfortunately, that fun is going to be largely had on your own because the game has such weak connectivity options with other players, and my hope is that an update or DLC down the line will allow me to invite other Miis to my island, or indeed allow me to visit theirs. It is the one thing stopping this game from being a virtually flawless life-sim, but it is a detrimental enough issue that it holds the whole experience down. Still, if viewed through the lens of a single-player experience, I still think it is the most fun I’ve had with a simulation game in a long time.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream copy provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.