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3DS

NWR Staff's 10 Favorite Games of 2014

Tomodachi Life

by Neal Ronaghan - December 24, 2014, 11:24 am EST

Heartwarming and ridiculous, Tomodachi Life is one of the best experiences of 2014.

I honestly had no idea what to expect when I bought Tomodachi Life earlier this year. My only exposure to the 3DS game was weird, quirky videos and images highlighting the insanity of this The Sims-meet-Miis experience. After creating an island and filling it with Miis, I became enveloped in this ant farm of a world.

Tomodachi Life's greatest strength is the way it plays with your emotions. By giving Miis a voice (though an impressive speech synthesizer), it gives them life in a way that no other Nintendo game has done. Your Miis develop personalities, and when they're based on your friends or celebrities, those personalities start to gel with how you see those friends and celebrities. As the omniscient being in this world, you can even guide the Miis to do what you think they should. However, each character still has some appearance of free will. You might try to orchestrate a grand romance between Snoop Dogg and Princess Peach, but that doesn't mean it will work. It's that kind of mystique that keeps Tomodachi Life engaging. You watch as much as you interact.

This isn't a game for everyone, but when we started discussing Tomodachi Life as a possible entry on this list, the staffers that got deep into it couldn't shake the emotional ties they had to their island. It wasn't the best "game" per say, but it was assuredly one of the best experiences. Tomodachi Life is crazy and insane, but it also gets very real and emotional.

I recently said goodbye to my island. It took a lot to say goodbye to my Mii friends. The love affair between Samus and George Washington was never going to see its happy end now. The reason why I deleted my island was so my wife could start her own. She filled it with friends, fictional characters, and celebrities. Recently, our Miis married and had a baby. The other day, our Mii baby grew up. We silently sat in bed and watched the in-game baby book that gets shown when your Mii baby becomes an adult. By the end of that video, I wanted to have my own child so I could experience what the Mii version of me just did. That's the true power of Tomodachi Life, and why it earns it spots on this list.

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Talkback

pokepal148Spencer Johnson, Contributing WriterDecember 24, 2014

I'm noticing a distinct lack of Layton vs Wright.

Leo13December 24, 2014

That just means James Jones was NOT part of that group.

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