This Week In Retro: Tomodachi Life (Patreon)

April 18, 2013: Mii so horny

by Diamond Feit

Nintendo has come up with a lot of winning ideas in the 21st century, but I consider Miis one of the company’s most underappreciated. Long after the Wii U ran out of interesting software, I still switched mine on to check on my Mii collection and download new creations I found online. Trying to build a private version of the internet at large with the Miiverse was a mistake, but in abandoning that platform Nintendo threw out the baby with the bathwater in giving up on Miis. Tell me the Switch home screen wouldn't benefit from the addition of those cute little figures milling about and I'll call you a liar.

Along with the runaway success of the Wii, Miis caught on so quickly back in the late 00s that both Sony and Microsoft rushed to offer their own, high-definition interpretation of Nintendo's cute caricatures. Neither imitation found much success; I know my Avatar still lives somewhere on my Xbox One but I couldn't tell you how to find it. The personal facsimile I made in order to explore PlayStation Home, however, got dragged into the recycle bin many years ago.

While the release of the Nintendo Wii in 2006 introduced millions to the Mii concept, the genesis of their creation actually predates the console by over a decade. Shigeru Miyamoto first fancied the idea of enabling players to "put your virtual self into the game" back in the 1990s. He never managed to make his dream a reality, but other Nintendo developers would later create their own prototype version of Miyamoto's brainchild. He liked their ideas so much, it eventually spawned the Miis we all know today.

Yet even as players enjoyed Mii-driven titles like Wii Sports and Wii Music, Nintendo's efforts to build a game entirely centered around those characters wouldn't see the light of day until 2009 on the DS. As a handheld experience, Tomodachi Collection would defy genre pigeonholing and sales expectations, leading to a sequel and a minor controversy when Nintendo attempted to export the Japanese exclusive to the West.

For the non-Japanese speakers out there, let's break down the title of this sleeper hit series: Tomodachi means "friend" and Collection means "collection." Set on a remote island, the game prompts players to fill an apartment building with Miis. Aside from the usual cosmetic options, Tomodachi Collection also includes personality sliders for each resident which helps shape the character's behavior. Do they have a negative or positive view of life? Are they a straight shooter, or do they beat around the bush? Establishing these traits determines how the Mii will behave in-game.

Besides these under-the-hood settings, players also assign each Mii a voice. Tomodachi Collection uses speech synthesis software to generate recognizable dialogue from text, granting residents the power to talk to the player and each other. The game offers a selection of preset voices but also allows players to fine-tune the speech settings to give each Mii as much individuality as they want.

Once the Miis move in, Tomodachi Collection acts as a fishbowl, providing the island residents with homes, shops, and places to hangout. The player's role becomes that of observer, not master; if anything, the player ends up responding to the whims of the Miis, not the other way around. Each Mii has a visible mood meter and a stomach gauge, offering an in-depth view of their current status. If they're hungry or bored or angry, they'll say so and rely on you for help. Doing favors for Miis nets the player money which can be spent on food, drinks, costumes, and so on.

Tomodachi Collection uses the internal clock of the Nintendo DS to run in real-time, meaning players who turn the game on in the morning will see lots of sleepy Miis just waking up, while in the evening they're more likely to be socially active. Miis do not require sleep or toilet training like a virtual pet might, but they definitely move, act, and forge relationships on their own accord. At times the residents may ask the player their opinion about becoming friends with a neighbor; should the player voice their support, the two Miis will meet up for a brief chat. If they hit it off, they will become friends.

Dating in Tomodachi Collection works a bit differently. In line with Japanese tradition, when a Mii decides to pursue a romantic partner, they will “confess” their affection in a one-on-one confrontation. Before this, however, the lovestruck Mii will ask the player for advice about where and how they should approach their target. The two Miis then encounter each other in a dramatic scene, as the player watches in anticipation. Sometimes a third party may interrupt to confess their love, forcing the confessee to choose between two suitors. Should two Miis become a couple, they will spend a lot more time together, and eventually they may even get married.

Tomodachi Collection became a surprise hit, moving more than three million copies in Japan alone as Nintendo never released it in any other territory. At the time I understood the decision; by that point international DS software sales were slumping and the company was already hard at work on the 3DS, so investing in a major localization for Tomodachi Collection must have presented too great a risk for very little reward. Yet the unusual game’s runaway popularity meant that a sequel made perfect sense, so in April of 2013 Nintendo released Tomodachi Collection: Shin Seikatsu in Japan for the 3DS.

Shin Seikatsu, which I would translate as “New Life,” took everything that people loved about the first game and expanded upon it with the new features of the 3DS hardware. Superficial improvements include higher-resolution graphics, a better frame rate, and an island featuring even more attractions. The sequel also includes the means to import Miis from the DS version, incentivizing fans who loved the first Tomodachi Collection to continue their game without the need to start from scratch.

A much bigger change, one that the game’s subtitle hints at, was the addition of procreation. In Tomodachi Collection, a Mii marriage prompted a credits roll; the game did not end but matrimony represented the biggest event any Mii could experience in the game. Shin Seikatsu enables Miis bound in wedlock to cohabitate and, with the player’s blessing, have children. While players retain total customization control over every resident, including newborns, the game tries to create babies that represent aspects of mom and dad, and even generates an autonym based upon a fusion of the parents’ names.

Tomodachi Collection: Shin Seikatsu presents an expurgated form of child-rearing. Women do not get pregnant, they simply elect to reproduce and, a few days later, receive a little bundle of joy. As cute as baby Miis look, just like their real life counterparts, they can create stress for their parents, who may ask the player for help from time to time. These babysitting mini-games include soothing crying infants, playing peek-a-boo, and rocking restless kids to sleep.

After one week, babies mature into children who are capable of living independently, presenting players with a new choice: The youngster can move into their own apartment and become a full-fledged resident of the island, or they can venture out into the real world. Travelers pack a bag, say goodbye, and depart via the 3DS Streetpass feature, occasionally sending back postcards or returning for a visit bearing souvenirs. Likewise, any player who Streetpasses another Shin Seikatsu owner may receive wanderers from other islands who will chat up their local residents and offer players a gift.

Nintendo treated Tomodachi Collection: Shin Seikatsu as a major release with a national media campaign including a custom 3DS model, and the game topped the retail charts at launch en route to surpassing the original's total lifetime sales. Yet given the Japan-only history of the series, it came as a huge surprise one year later when the company revealed that an international release was in the works. The game understandably needed a new title for Western markets, but Nintendo didn't change the word you'd expect, dropping the "collection" and going with Tomodachi Life.

As in Japan, Nintendo made a huge push for Tomodachi Life in the United States, creating a dedicated Direct announcement on YouTube and offering custom celebrity Miis based on stars like Christina Aguilera and Shaquille O'Neal. The gambit of pitching this niche product to the public at large worked, as the company reported strong international sales of Tomodachi Life, exceeding one million copies in just a few months time. As of this writing, with the 3DS eShop shuttered and the console officially defunct, Tomodachi Life sits just barely outside the top 10 highest-selling games on the platform, a remarkable milestone for a game with no Mario, no Link, and no Pokémon—unless you make them yourself.

On paper, the Tomodachi Life saga looks like an unmitigated success story, but in bringing the game to a worldwide audience, Nintendo inadvertently stumbled into a hot-button human rights issue. For an experience built entirely around social interactions, both platonic and romantic, Tomodachi Life strictly upholds a heteronormative gender binary. Every Mii must be either male or female, and Miis can only date or marry Miis of the opposite sex. These restrictions turned few heads in Japan, given the country's extremely traditional outlook regarding gender roles and marriage, but that was not the case in other nations.

When Tomodachi Life launched in 2014, the fight for marriage equality was in full swing in many different territories, particularly in the US where individual states battled their own citizens and courts over the matter. Same-sex marriages became legal in England, Wales, and Scotland that year, joining nine other European nations which had already approved the practice. Gay Canadians could wed one another as early as 2003. For millions of people around the world, the right to marry was not a fringe issue or philosophical exercise but an active, heated battle with the highest of stakes.

The moment Nintendo announced Tomodachi Life, the harsh spotlight of public expectations shone directly upon the game, and players rightly asked what if anything could be done to address this apparent oversight. Sadly, the company issued a woefully tone-deaf initial response, claiming the release "never intended to make any form of social commentary" and "The relationship options in the game represent a playful alternate world rather than a real-life simulation." Ah yes, an alternate world where only straight people exist, how delightfully exotic.

Nintendo attempted damage control a few days later, apologizing for "disappointing many people" but reiterating that adding same-sex marriage to Tomodachi Life would not be feasible. "Such a significant development change can’t be accomplished with a post-ship patch," the company explained, instead pledging to design any theoretical future Tomodachi games to be "more inclusive, and better represent all players."

A decade on, no new Tomodachi games exist, and I firmly believe Nintendo as a corporation has decided the nascent franchise carries too much baggage to revisit, especially now that Miis are on the outs. Notably, Nintendo did attempt to translate the series' friend-collecting social gameplay to smartphones in the company's first app, Miitomo. However, Miitomo notably omitted all relationship options, turning the now sexless residents into a simple series of talking heads you could converse with on your phone. The freemium app failed to build a long-term user base and Nintendo pulled the plug on Miitomo back in 2018.

I consider the apparent death of Tomodachi Life a cruel outcome, for the quirky miniature simulation clearly appealed to a broad range of players around the globe. These disgruntled fans' calls for inclusivity came not from a sense of outrage but from an urge to belong, a desire to have the same social access and opportunities that straight people receive by default. Whenever an influential media property opts to ignore LGBTQ people, they set a dangerous precedent that we just don’t matter. It’s on par with the recent spate of horrific “don’t say gay” laws popping up around the United States; rendering us invisible makes us easy targets.

I say "us" because I identify as a bisexual non-binary person, something I had yet to come to terms with 10 years ago, but even then I saw first-hand how Tomodachi Life's rigidity could hurt. A gay friend of mine living in Osaka at the time picked up the game at launch just like me, and we ended up adding each other to our respective islands. Sure enough, in my game his Mii fell in love with a woman, a situation that ran counter to everything that I knew about him. He told me that in his game, he tried to create a "woman" who looked like his boyfriend as a means to circumvent the restrictions, but his would-be partner did not return his Mii's affections.

If Nintendo did resurrect Tomodachi Life, I would not expect them to include absolutely every possible spectrum of queer lifestyle. As much as I would prefer a gender or sexuality slider, I could live with a male/female binary so long as the game made room for gays and lesbians. Incorporating all five letters in the LGBTQ umbrella would be a tall order, after all; asking a video game to create and maintain polycules sounds messy, but surely selectable pronouns are not beyond the reach of modern technology.

Navigating these waters poses a challenge to any developer big or small, but I don't think queer acceptance is too much to expect in the 21st century—especially in a title like Tomodachi Life that emphasizes friendships, dating, and hanging out. Ultimately, my interest in any virtual world comes down to how welcoming it feels; a game literally called Tomodachi shouldn't force me to consider which of my friends fit inside its narrow parameters and which ones do not.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but is forever online, sharing idle thoughts about video games, films, and dessert.