Tomodachi Life is a life simulation video game developed by Nintendo SPD and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS.The game, which is a direct sequel to the Japan-exclusive Nintendo DS title Tomodachi Collection, was released in Japan in April 2013, June 2014 worldwide and July 2014 in South Korea. Tomodachi Collection is a life simulation video game for the Nintendo DS (NDS) handheld gaming console. Released back in 2009, the game features many activities that the player can do with his/her Mii such as doing odd jobs and everyday tasks, interact and give gifts to other Miis, construct various buildings and places, and many more. Jun 06, 2014 Welcome to to Tomodachi Life, the brand new game for the Nintendo 3DS! We live on an island, where your Miis interact together in an apartment building, making friends, fighting, falling in love.
Oh my goodness, guys. We cannot get enough of these games like Tomodachi Life. They are just so good. We had to tell you all about it.
There are lots of great games that are similar to Tomodachi Life. And we cannot stop playing them! There are games like Tomodachi Life for all systems (Wii, Wii U, iOS, Android, you name it). Let’s take a look at the best of them.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Tomodachi Life is a life simulation game. If you want to play more games like Tomodachi Life, you can find tons of them on Amazon.
We love Tomodachi Life because it’s fun and whacky with great simulation mechanics. And there are lots of similar games.
Tomodachi Life is a fantastically bizarre game that falls somewhere between Animal Crossing and The Sims and incorporates otaku culture to create an unforgettably unique gaming experience.
That’s why when we created our list of games like Tomodachi Life (which we’ll get to in a sec) we incorporated lots of life-simulation games that offer unique experiences.
At times, Tomodachi Life is downright hilarious, and at other times it’s completely flabbergasting (editor: “flabbergasting”? Heh.). You’re in charge of looking after a bunch of Miis, who need food and water and also like certain niceties and luxuries. They also love playing in mini-games and letting you know what’s happening in their lives on their home island via a news desk.
Now obviously, there aren’t many games with precisely the same premise as Tomodachi Life. After all, Tomodachi Life is one of the most unique and bizarre games out there, right? But there are lots of similarly weird and wonderful titles.
We’ve put lots of alternative / unique themes in our list.
Animal Crossing, for instance, gives you control over the life of a character living in a cute Japanese style world.
Animal Crossing is a super-cute simulation game from Nintendo.
Animal Crossing is a life-simulator that is a sort of precursor to Tomodachi Life. So Animal Crossing is definitely one game you will want to look at if you like Tomodachi Life.
Almost certainly the thing that’s interesting gamers most in Tomodachi is the novelty of it. It’t is wacky and wonderful, especially if your friends and family are included in your virtual island. You get to create your own caricatures with the Mii creation kit and you can customise voices too. You can also assign stats like energy and mood to your miis to create personalities.
Lots of games offer similar options. In the Harvest Moon games, for instance, you get to create your own avatar and dress them as you like. And then you go about completing different tasks that lead to you completing different missions. It’s a very similar experience to the one in Tomodachi Life, and I’m sure you will love it.
Harvest Moon is the best farm simulation game ever. And a cult classic too.
One of the disappointments of Tomodachi Life is that you can’t customise the island. It’s made automatically. In some other Tomodachi-like apps and games you actually get to create your own room or island as you want. In the classic The Sims series, for instance, there are lots of different options for customising your home. So if you feel like playing a game like Tomodachi Life but with more area-customisation, look into life-simulation games like The Sims.
We also love games that have more realistic simulation elements, like the Sim series.
So that is an overview of Tomodachi-style games. Now let’s take a closer look at a few of my favorite games that are similar to Tomodachi Life.
There are lots of games like Tomodachi Life. These are our favorites.
Harvest Moon
Platform: Wii, Super Nintendo Entertainment System
We love:
Cute graphics
Additive Gameplay
No So Much:
3DS version takes ages to get into.
Description: Harvest Moon has earned itself one heck of a cult following, largely thanks to the fact that it is a hugely original game, combining simulation gameplay with role playing, management and other areas of game design.
In Harvest Moon you will be completing different goals based around the theme of running a farm.
The gameplay has changed with each iteration of the series but the basics of Harvest Moon’s game design center around growing crops and managing a farm.
Animal Crossing
PLATFORMS: 3DS,
We love:
It’s adorable
Brilliant gameplay
Cute graphics
No So Much:
The series has never evolved
Description: A classic Japanese sandbox RPG game with life simulation elements. If you have never played Animal Crossing, you are missing out on a real treat. It is the essential Japanese sandbox RPG.
Rune Factory
Platforms: Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Wii, PS3
We love:
Brilliant simulation gameplay
Fun RPG elements
No So Much:
Dungeons are a chore
Description: Rune Factory is an open world adventure game with simulation aspects similar to Harvest Moon.
In the game you play Raguna, who wanders in search of “Mist,” a property. Ragna has no memory of his life, and you must use him to work a farm and to set out on his adventure.
The Flower Shop: Summer in Fairbrook
Platforms: Android, Windows, iOS, Linux, Mac
We love:
Visual novel aspects are fantastic
No So Much:
Simulation elements are dull
Description: The Flower Shop: Summer in Fairbrook is a visual novel game created by video game developer Winter Wolves and released in February of 2010. It’s a game that will greatly appeal to fans of Harvest Moon and Rue Factory, with similar Japanese style graphics and life simulation aspects.
Atelier Annie
Platforms: Nintendo DS
We love:
Story and dialogue are quirky and fun
Solid JRPG gameplay
No So Much:
You get stuck at times, and frustration sets in.
Description: Atelier Annie: Alchemists of Sera Island is a Japanese role playing game released in 2008. It is the first in the series to have been released in the US and, in comparison to the other games in the series, has less emphasis on RPG and more emphasis on resource management.
Get Atelier Annie on Amazon
Viva Pinata
Platforms: Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo DS
We love:
Bright, colorful and fun
No So Much:
A little old now
Description:
Tomodachi Life Metacritic Review
Rare’s 2006 Viva Pinata is a life simulation game with a twist. You tend to a garden that is overrun with weeds. Your mission is to breed different colour Pinatas in order to stop the weeds from spreading. Viva Pinata has beautiful, bright and colourful graphics and vibrant presentation, but it does suffer a bit of a hiccough in the form of a frequent autosave. Definitely not the number one life simulation game of all time, but worth a spot on this list mostly because it offers something different to the genre.
Re:Legend
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC
Description:
Re:Legend is a JRPG in which you get to go farming, fishing, and crafting, and you get to build a village. But…. it’s not out yet. Still we are excited about this one.
Watch this video on YouTube
Check out our list of games like Animal Crossing for more similar games.
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Tomodachi Life is a life simulation video game developed by Nintendo SPD and published by Nintendo, and was put for the Nintendo 3DS.
Why It Rocks
- The game lets you make Miis and make them live in an apartment in a hotel on an island. The idea of it seems interesting. You can also feed your Mii, dress them, give them interiors, and even dye the Mii's hair. It's more of a simpler version of The Sims.
- Spawned Jeff's Tomodachi Life Blog.
- The graphics are good, even by 3DS standards.
- It also can have relationships such as friendship (or best friend), sweethearts, and even better, marraige.
- Speaking of marraige, the married couple can have a baby and grow up to be either a resident or a StreetPass traveler.
- You can even watch your Mii's dreams, which is pretty funny.
- For the first time ever, your Miis get to speak in full English and other languages.
- You can give your Miis gifts such as a Wii U or a punching bag. You can either give them a song, interior, or a catchphrase.
- You can even make your own lyrics for your Mii, so your Mii will actualy sing the lyrics.
- Great soundtrack.
- When you feed your Mii, they have a food reaction. They go from blasting to outer space from melting in a puddle.
- The dreams the Miis have are very funny.
- If it's your birthday, the Miis will send you to one of the apartments and give you a birthday cake. If it's another Mii's birthday, it'll be on the news rather than a generic everyday news report.
- Fun events and minigames like Morning Market, Magic Show, Tomodachi Quest, Word Chain (EU version only), Rap Battle, Judgement Bay, Quirky Questions, etc.
Tomodachi Life Metacritic Full
Bad Qualities
- Some glitches. (Example: When a Mii is yanking something fast on a normal fight, the hand can go off the item for a couple of frames for several times. You wouldn’t know that without taking pictures.)
- Fighting. Almost every day, Miis get into fights, while sometimes they forgive each other the first time, they will not be over it, leading the Mii who apologized to become depressed. This can get extremely annoying. However, the Mii will forgive him/her later on sometimes. It's worsened that they can also get into a huge fight, causing 2 Miis to be on fire. Sometimes, if you are unlucky, when the Mii will try to get the 2 flaming Miis to calm down, it doesn't work and they will continue to throw things and each other and break up and not forgive each other ever again.
- Curing a Mii's depression (especially when their bar is full) is annoying and very difficult. Fortunately, if you have a travel ticket, you can give it to them and when they come back, their depression is fully cured.
- Taking care of the baby is also annoying and very difficult as they constantly cry.
- The Miis don't pronounce some words correctly (Examples: 'Echidna' is pronounced 'E-chid-na' instead of 'E-kid-na', and 'Memes' is pronounced 'mehms' instead of 'meems'.).
- Someone the Miis' gift reactions don't mix (Examples: Giving a Mario Mii spaghetti and not liking it or giving a chef-related Mii a chef uniform and heavily disliking it.).
- Extremely difficult to get SpotPass and StreetPass items nowadays.
- The animation in the Miis’ movements are kind of terrible and stiff at times.
- Can only hold up to 100 Miis.
- Just like Miitopia, it can only have one save profile. If you wanna create a new profile, you have to delete the current profile.
- There are only 7 food slots, so sometimes, or most of the time, when you feed your Mii more than 3 items that they like, (excluding the Super All-Time Fav / All-Time Fav bar) or when they don’t like it that much-don’t like it at all, it’s hard to tell what type of food your Mii likes since there is no Disliked Foods bar.
Reception
Tomodachi Life has received generally positive reviews. It holds a 72% on Metacritic, an 8.4 on IGN, and a 7.5 on Polygon. It is one of the best-selling 3DS games of all time.