2024
WISE Score
A bizarre, surreal puppet show where your Miis live their best (and weirdest) lives on a private island.
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Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is the digital equivalent of a box of random magnets and googly eyes. It’s not trying to teach your kid math or save the world; it’s trying to see what happens when you put a Mii of your grandma and a Mii of Batman in a room with a hula hoop.
It’s a safe, self-contained weird-fest that rewards imagination and a sense of humor. If your kid likes The Sims but finds it too 'grown-up' or complex, this is the perfect, more chaotic alternative.
Perfect for ages 7 to 99. Younger kids will love the slapstick and character creation, while teens and adults will appreciate the high-level irony and absurdist situations.
It promotes friendship and community building in a lighthearted, albeit bizarre, environment. While the humor can be edgy or surreal, it avoids mean-spiritedness.
The game is a massive sandbox for creativity, from designing Miis to orchestrating absurd social scenarios and interior decorating.
As a first-party Nintendo title, it lacks toxic social features and aggressive monetization. The 'safety' concern is primarily the 'unsettling' nature of some surreal humor.
While not educational in a traditional sense, it encourages social observation and creative storytelling through its sandbox mechanics.
For years, fans begged for a Switch port of the 3DS cult classic, and Living the Dream delivers exactly what was promised: more weirdness. The core loop remains the same—you feed your Miis, solve their minor problems, and watch them interact in ways that feel like a fever dream. The Switch hardware allows for much higher fidelity in the Mii designs and more complex island environments, but the soul of the game is still that janky, lovable text-to-speech charm.
Unlike Roblox or Fortnite, there is no ticking clock of a Battle Pass here. There are no strangers trying to chat with your child. It's a walled garden of pure, unadulterated Nintendo strangeness. It’s also a fantastic "spectator game." If you’re sitting on the couch while your kid plays, you’re likely to get a laugh out of the bizarre news reports or the strange songs the Miis perform at the concert hall.
While the game is rated E, it's worth noting that the humor is 'off-beat.' Characters have dreams that involve being a piece of bread or seeing giant versions of their friends' heads. For most kids, this is hilarious. For a very small subset of sensitive or literal-minded children, the lack of logic in these sequences can be slightly jarring. However, in the grand scheme of gaming, this is about as safe as it gets. The 'Living the Dream' edition also finally addresses long-standing requests for more inclusive relationship options, making it a more welcoming island for everyone.
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