Just days before the latest revelations regarding the Nintendo Switch 2, the Kyoto-based company managed to catch its players off guard with a truly unexpected announcement. The Nintendo Direct on Thursday, March 27, unveiled Tomodachi Life: A Dream Life, the long-awaited sequel to the wacky life simulation released on 3DS in 2013 (which itself followed a Japanese DS exclusive, Tomodachi Collection). Established as a cult game after being the source of memes for years, the franchise has already broken records.
On social media, the game's trailer managed to garner more likes than other major announcements from the studio, both recent and past. Metroid Prime 4, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, and even the Switch 2 announcement tweet: not a single post comes close to Tomodachi Life. Players are getting impatient at the idea of placing their loved ones' Miis in ever more improbable scenarios, but what does this sequel really have in store? The trailer was limited to a few images and a year of releases, but some excerpts prove more revealing than one might think.
More limits for romantic relationships?
The representation of atypical relationships, which do not conform to the codes of heteronormative society, has long been a complicated subject in certain Nintendo productions. Titles like the most recent Fire Emblem, and of course Tomodachi Life, have made the formation of couples an essential, even inevitable, gameplay element. But these mechanics lose all their charm and interest when players have to settle for extremely limited choices. In Fire Emblem, homosexual characters can be counted on the fingers of one hand (even more on the male side than the female side, which reinforces the taboos), while Tomodachi Life completely erases the existence of same-sex romantic relationships.
The question of “forced” diversity when including such relationships in games shouldn’t even arise, since The Sims has been doing it since 1999 without anyone being offended. The famous life simulation even built its success on an illegal lesbian kiss. Despite banning these relationships in early test versions of the game, a bug eventually led to the first same-sex relationships between Sims, which made the game's booth one of the biggest hits of E3 1999.
So it's high time for Tomodachi Life: The Dream Life to follow the path previously taken by Maxis and EA following public feedback. Has Nintendo finally listened to the criticism voiced by players when Tomodachi Life was released on 3DS in 2013? Everything suggests so. In addition to the manufacturer's historic stance on recognizing same-sex relationships for its employees – at a time when the country still viewed the issue differently – the recent pronouncements by the Osaka Supreme Court regarding gay marriage – the lack of official recognition of which was presented as unconstitutional – demonstrate a profound change in mentalities in Japan.
Thus, it is not surprising to discover a first scene associated with homosexual relationships in the trailer for the new Tomodachi Life. While having nightmares about confessing to one of her acquaintances, the young brunette Mii appears in what seems to be one of the many wacky altercations specific to the franchise, aimed at revealing a love affair.
On the 3DS, this kind of situation is usually followed by a question from the Mii concerned, asking whether or not to pursue this crush. So yes, we're extrapolating, but Nintendo could well be trying to normalize these new social relationships between Miis by presenting them little by little and discreetly in the trailers. Who will find it strange if the game makes us believe that this feature has always existed in the franchise.
Build your own island
The first shots of the trailer were intended to be treacherous: Animal Crossing fans were quickly disillusioned when the Miis appeared on the screen. It must be said that the paradisiacal setting presented borrows heavily from the artistic direction of New Horizons. And against all expectations, the comparisons don't stop there. One of the wide shots of the island shown in the trailer allows us to see a new building called “Quik Build“.
Its appearance suggests that it will be possible to customize the structure of the island and the buildings using a terraforming tool, certainly less daunting than that of Animal Crossing. As an omniscient force that acts for the good (or not) of the Miis, players will likely be able to shape their island with a few clicks using a hand-shaped cursor. This is reminiscent of a cult feature of the Mii Channel on Wii, which allowed us to grab these poor virtual doppelgangers by the neck and move them around as we wish.
The Miis have ears!
This last detail manages to be as discreet as it is unsettling. If the Miis in the trailer seemed strange to you without even understanding why, it's not your brain playing tricks on you. The Miis now have ears. With the addition of these few shapes, the faces of the little characters appear more realistic. This also suggests the inclusion of a Mii editor as advanced as the one in the Switch version of Miitopia. If the Mii sharing feature also makes its way into Tomodachi Life: A Dream Life, this opus promises to be one hell of a meme community experience. class="wp-caption-text">© Nintendo
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