ri_si

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Living the Dream simply lacks the charm of its original 3ds predecessor. While I have racked up 70-80 hours in its first 3 months, most of that was accumulated in the release week - following this, I feel no incentive to return to the game. Designing your island is a surprising amount of aggravation due to a lack of option to see the entire space while designing, and I personally don't have much interest in custom items as they will always look out of place on the island. The phrase ‘this game was intended for artist’ has been thrown about a bit online, and I cannot help by agree, though I recognise this creativity may inspire some players (such as younger players) to peruse art further, as the custom items/face paint design interface is somewhat beginner friendly. However, the customisation of this game seems to be all that it offers, and is why I believe the original charm of Tomodachi Life was lost. Interactions seem to always be limited, the existence of children in the game is almost futile as they immediately become grown (unlike the original Tomodachi Life in which you can raise the children from babies into grown children/adults over the course of a week), and triggering either love/argument scenarios is always so far and few between. Even the small differences, such as Miis not getting sick and requiring stomach medicine in the 3ds counterpart, add up tremendously, and leave Living the Dream feeling bare in comparison. While I can appreciate the visually pleasing graphics and open space of Living the Dream, I find myself returning the the original 3ds game more.