OK GANG LETS TALK ABOUT SHOPS AND BUILDINGS!!!!!!
i'm not talking about palette house. not now. please odnt make me. im not ready.
HAHA SORRY IM NOT SCARED WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!!!
no, but really, there's so much to look at in the shops...where to start??? where to end????? well, i have specific enough interests and enough years trying in vain to 100% tomodachi life purely through my weird daily rituals that i know what i look for in a shop. what we've seen most recently...makes me very curious!!
right now, we're gonna take a look at the food mart, the clothing shop, the news tower, the interiors shop, the marketplace, the photo studio, and the hardware store (and touch a little on the places we didn't get to see into!) because they align with my double-standards on what i'm willing to talk about in terms of shops and buildings!
(mostly i just want it to show a menu and/or some purchasing power...palette house doesn't, and its segment is, for the majority, pure customization, so it'll be better covered when i get to my customization-focused post...some of quikbuild will be covered in more depth there, too...)
so...LETSGOSHOPPIINNNNGGGGGGGG!!!!! MY TREAT!!!!
the first stop...and, presumably, the first building we unlock...our scrumptious, postively delectable new food mart!!! isn't it a sight for sore eyes? it's sweet, savory, cute, and candid! heck, it's wearing its internal organs as a hat!
(maybe i ruined the image there...)
but, yeah! it presents as a grocery store and it is passing with colors flying at breakneck speed! unbelievably large bread! more ketchup than any earthly being should ever consume in one lifetime! enough cabbage for one billion stir fries (seriously, try slicing up 1/4 of a regular-sized cabbage, it will fill your entire wok practically before you've even started)! i won't acknowledge the milk! it's fucking taunting me!
perhaps more humble the glorious fruits sported by fresh kingdom's flashy shopping-cart hat, we can see crates of produce stacked around the shop's entrance. yes! a grocery store for the people!! the miiple!!!
truly - that's just the outside! as i'm sure you all know, while it's what's on the outside that counts, the inside is where the money's at. the cash money. sweet cold hard buckaroonies. there is also food. so let's go in! everybody choose a snack, i'll pay!
i'm having too much fun with this and i won't apologize
now, the inside! the menus! oh by jove the menus! food mart here sets a precedent for all other stores that deliver or defy expectations to varying degrees. it is also so charming i could almost cry (it has this in common with most aspects about these trailers, actually!)...
it does have the unmistakable vibe of a grocery store-type establishment! the whole main salesfloor, as it were, is formatted like some kind of coupon - and has personal touches like the time, date, fresh kingdom logo, and even a note on the location ("yoomian branch," it says...quaint)! to me this feels like...the kind of mass-produced false personalization that you get from most chains but i really love it honestly i can't justify it beyond this i just think it's very charming
we get 4 daily specials as opposed to our former 5! prices seem to be retained from the original game (take that, inflation!!!!), as do many of the food items' graphics (some may be replaced, or even edited...for example, the gummy candy's graphic is the same, but it's been duplicated and color swapped to make it seem like there are more gummies when originally it was just the one photo...lol).
whereas the former game divided meals into 4 categories, which varied by region but roughly translated to "large meal," "small meal/savory foods," "desserts/snacks," and "beverages," we now have more like 3.5 categories which seem to be "savory foods," "sweet foods," "beverages," and "custom foods," conjecture based purely on iconography. it's possible that these divisions will have subdivisions (which i think would be cool, like - sweet could be divided into desserts, candy, snacks, fruit...likely not....i'd be overjoyed if true though...), but we have no way of seeing that in any of the trailer or direct content we have now, so that remains up in the air for now...i'll be back for you, food systems...
at the bottom of the screen, we can see a jovial shopping basket! to the righthand side, there's a cash register rung up by one of our adored beloved mii friends!
when you select an item, it hops skips and jumps down to your basket and a little number appears on its menu icon letting you know how many are currently in your basket! you can re-select its icon and put back however many you like before completing a purchase...because at the same time you're browsing, putting items in your cart...the cash register reflects the total price of your trip!
this is quite handy because in the past, you could only purchase one type of food item at a time. up to 99 of that one item at that one time, but still slow if you've got a more complicated order in mind...
and finally, my most favorite detail of all time forever...recall how items have funny little descriptions? tells you about the food, clothing, interior, or treasure in an adorable blurb bursting with personality? back when our shopkeeps were mostly stand-in buddies, it was pretty up in the air as to just who was expressing these sentiments to us - as we know, narration and subliminal metatext are notorious in the tomodachi life community (to be perfectly clear this is a joke i've never heard anyone question this ever)...BUT NOW.....
our robotic/wooden block/tastefully masked friends seem to have stayed behind when we embarked on this journey to live out our dreams. that's right, now, as established, our mii companions gleefully perform acts of retail service...and are bestowed the honor of delivering our fan-favorite item descriptions!!!
sometimes the text fits some characters' vibes better than others (in my wildest dream of dreams, the description text would differ by individual personality, but i would never ask this of anyone except maybe myself)...which is par for the course. juxtaposition is a valuable comedic tool!
anyway, that about wraps up our cursory dip into all things grocery! we've got a new menu, slightly altered iconography/categorization, more convenient purchasing system, adorable descriptive delivery, presumably minimum wage...that's about what we know is in store for this particular store! how bout the others?
if you can't tell i love the food mart
heeere we aaaare the clothing shop hooray! its distinctive color scheme sets it apart from the other stores - even unbuilt, its land plot's sign tells you that this shop will be a cut above the rest.
its exterior is a cool gray-blue accentuated with striking pinkish-purple details. the roof itself resembles a collared shirt and, looking closely at the fashionable adverts on its walls, we can see our own miis modeling its diverse catalogue!
(hopping out of tour guide mode for a moment, i will admit this is probably my least favorite building design, though i can't deny it's grown on me...i for sure prefer the 3DS's whimsical art-deco clothing shop...maybe it's the color scheme that throws me off of this new one?)
confession time: this shop is still something of a mystery...there's plenty to see and get excited about, but something's nagging at me...it feels like something's missing...
ah, well! it's probably nothing! let's grab ourselves some fresh new outfits!
or...fresh new socks? shoes? skirts? shirts? any of the above?
that's right! at long last, outfits are not purely ensembles...although they certainly can be! we're presented with several full ensembles (dolly/dungaree dress, sunny-side up outfit)...and their individual components! it looks as though we now have the choice to buy a full outfit as well as the option to buy individual components! combining the price of each component does amount to the full outfit's same price, so there's no loss or gain for a particular purchasing style - in other words, clothing consumerism is currently an equal opportunity optimization!
maybe you just really like the dolly dress socks! not to worry, you can buy yourself 14 pairs just like that! maybe you like the whole dolly dress outfit but you REALLY like the socks! you could buy 1 dolly dress outfit and 13 pairs of socks! it adds up! this is purchasing power, folks!
we can see, looking at the different clothing options, that they're divided into different categories for sure. i don't see any explicit demarcations, so here's what i figure:
full-body clothes (like dresses, costumes, or suits...)
bottoms (pants/trousers, shorts, skirts...)
glasses (these may fall under head accessories...)
backpacks (or items equipped on the back)
note that glasses are both a mii feature in and of themselves and now, seemingly, a clothing item to be equipped (as seen in the JP direct...). in the past, certain clothing items HAVE modified mii appearance (like a hat that hides a hairstyle...), so maybe equipping in-game glasses would temporarily negate that facial feature? i dunno i just work here
we can also see here, after 2025's mostly toned-down trailers (clothing-wise, anyway...) that costumes have returned to overwhelming quirkiness! they are funny! they are silly! they are high definition! - unfortunately, they have fewer color options as well...wonder if this will be changed because the hot dog suit is now monocolor but i distinctly remember being able to turn my miis into radioactive blue hot dogs if i so pleased in times past...please nintendo peak IS within reach....
AHAH but anyway! clothing being exclusively divided between ensembles and hats has been a point of interest for a long time! tomodachi life's outfits are stunning for their time - i've asserted since i was a small child that i would absolutely wear just about each one and this will hold true until the day i die. please can i have my mii's wardrobe!!!
the clear divide between hats and ensembles was interesting, and perhaps it did make sense at the time - as juicy and fresh as the nintendo 2DS, 3DS, 3DS XL, etc. were, it was also the early 2010s and our games, consoles, and devs could only handle so much. considering how versatile the concept of a hat on its own is, it makes enough sense to recategorize clothing in this way. just imagining trying to manage so many different clothing varieties on my little 3DS is making me quite nervous, actually...(although, animal crossing new leaf managed it quite well, come to think of it- let's not go there or we'll be here all night! more shops to visit still!)
BUT NOW!!!! now we are in a future of customizability! switches, switch lites, switch 2s, for goodness sake! it's been 12 years!! we can do what we want!!! fuck it mii ball!!!
all this to say, nintendo has the tech, the mettle, the artists, the time, and the businesslike drive to pull this off. another point for upped customizability!
something is still off though...what could it be...i already covered the hat situation - erasing the dividing line between ensembles and other articles of clothing already covers that (no need for a hat shop if you don't need a sock or shoe shop either, huh? ...sorry, kicks...) - so what could it bE OH CHEESE AND CRACKERS THAT'S IT?!??!!
THE MENUS?!??!?!!?!? WHERE ARE THEY??!?!?!
well, we DO get to see the purchasing menu for individual outfits! it's cute, simple, reminiscent of miitopia with that vacantly smiling gray mii mannequin (not that that wasn't present in tomodachi life 2014, but the sleek graphics make one think of miitopia 2021 fondly...).
here, we can see our mannequin donning the outfit of interest. we can see the outfit broken down into its individual parts (shirt, socks, shoes, etc.), and we can see our different color options, should there exist any. we can see the total price of purchase and how many individual parts we've selected. unlike the food mart, it looks like we do still have to look at one outfit at a time and purchase that way (this would make sense since most outfits consist of individual parts anyhow), but...there's our problem! that's our mystery! we don't KNOW if it's like the food mart or not because...
they never show us an overall menu!!! we get to see individual outfits, but we don't get to see a larger selection menu as we do in the other shops! we have no idea which categories we may be able to sort through, speaking nothing of daily, weekly, or monthly specials...the items also clearly have to be broken down into their own categories (as mentioned above, shirt, socks, shoes, etc...), but we don't get to see precisely how they're sorted, or how we get to interact with those distinctions.
so...we've learned that outfits can be sold as-is or broken into constituent components! we don't need a hat shop because hats now count as those components (will they be sold on their own? well, that's being kept from us for now...). we DON'T know what the overall categorization system will look like, how the specials system will work, or what the opening menu looks like. something, presumably! we'll have to wait and see i guess.
aha! we have arrived at last at news! do you guys wanna watch a news with me?
spoiler alert it's exactly the same (gleeful)
essentially, the whole thing's just been renovated. per our modernistic, whimsical theme, it's amped up for the new decade (although note that tomodachi life buildings have always tended to lean in the modern-yet-gimmicky direction!) - sleek, shiny, improbably shaped...its downstairs lobby curls around the glass-panelled elevator that passes through sharp blue broadcasting screens, straight up to its signifying, single-ringed globe of a recording studio. truly the ideal woman, draped in blue and somehow both chaste and fervent in its marriage to the grind!
aside from its charming new look, as established, the news tower is about the same as it always has been. yes, the graphics have been updated, but its typical tales remain as tall as ever before. no "bystander commentary" segment is shown in the direct, though it's too early to claim if it's been removed or not (probably just omitted for efficiency, right?).
thanks to the new studio shape, it's taken on a more "global" theme, and the graphics reflect this - we've seen as much in teasers past! this to say that the updated graphics feature ringed globes resembling the actual building's glorious noggin.
players can progress text with the "A" button as shown in the corner textbox! this was a feature in the last game as well - players could either press the "next" button on the bottom screen or press "A" to skip a line, but this wasn't completely necessary because the stories automatically progressed regardless of player input (all you really had to do was open the broadcast and then it would play out in full and exit the newstower once it finished...the news waits for no one!).
as in the old game, players can also rewatch old news broadcasts! also like in the old game, they can "lock" certain old broadcasts to prevent them from being deleted once they maximize out their backlog.
now that we're caught up on current events - new building, new graphics, new packaging, same delicious flavor! - it's time to give our wallets a workout once again!
anybody in the market for a new bedroom? i know i am! i've needed to repaint mine for nearly 12 blinding years!
we find ourselves at T&C Reno, the new interiors shop! T&C? uhhh... tomodachi & collection? renovation? once more i do not know i only work here and when i say here i do not mean nintendo (would do concept art for sesame sticks pls it would be such a good deal)
ANYWAY!!! if i was waxing poetic about the news tower before, i will be shining epic about THIS. STORE. i am ABSOLUTELY taken with it!!!!! my extremely rusty vocabulary shudders because to use my 5 remembered praising lexicon would do this design injustice. under threat of immediate death lest i declare my undying love for just one tomodachi life: living the dream building design, this glorious shop's name would have no trouble bursting to the forefront of my mind (although the next one is probably my favorite overall, our current mistress's design just can't be overstated...because obviously that's not what i'm doing right now...ofc...)!
the shape language...by mr. nintendo himself, the shape language! many things are called deceptively simple but i'd almost (and with endearment) call this building deceptively complex...it has a main body shaped like a rectangular prism, accentuated tastefully with various triangular projections. these shapes, distinguished by color and angle, offer our building a classy, mature shape without the limitations of truly bizarre architecture. this building drinks its whiskey with water on the side. an intellectual!
what gets me more than anything has to be the top portion - shaped like a cube, 3 of whose faces are paneled with glass to give the viewer a hearty glimpse of a charming living room scene. the cube's remaining faces are brick, plaster, and wooden paneling respectively, giving the displayed room an air of modern sophistication. sealing this look both inside and out are plants of various make and shade, a classy accent to a complete establishment that i desperately need a model of.
only normal things happen on this blog!
anyhow, let's head in. we're greeted with a pretty classy catalogue showing off the store's great many room décor options, once more presented by one of our existing residents (they get to deliver the room descriptions!)! hooray!
the catalogue lines up 3 interiors and shows a straight view of the interior's entrance and surrounding walls. some interiors carry over (generally with some modification) from the previous game (ex: log cabin, midcentury modern, garage)! underneath each interior, we can also see...color choices?! oh hell yes!!! interiors, like clothing, now come in an extra variety of colors! some have more choices than others, and have different palettes as well (poppy, minimalist, monotone, etc). let's actually go?!
the menu bar at the top shows us 3 categories...currently, we can only see the one, but the icons look like "preset interiors," "custom interiors," and "custom exteriors" respectively. that said, the tab the direct shows open is the first - the one i listed as "preset interiors," which is described in the game as "weekly specials" as opposed to previously established daily specials, which does raise a few questions...
will it keep a catalogue of formerly purchased interiors like before?
(like, if i buy a weekly special for the first time and it's no longer available as a special next week, is there a way i can still buy it next week?)
think i had another question but i forgot it...
just a funny detail i noticed as well, but in each direct, the furniture displayed behind the vending mii is different? i wonder what affects that...
personality? (that would be REALLY FUNNY considering patrick has a bunch of hearts and cute pink stuff behind him lol...its ok if you're into that kind of thing patrick...be true to urself)
season? (direct came out a little early for valentine's day and nobody else has hearts stuff...)
preset by player? (possible!)
randomized when you open the shop/randomized by day? (possible!)
depends on your last purchase or viewed interior? (possible!)
well, we have no reason to judge...live and let live!
*UK ver doesn't have the weekly special button, fsr?
when i gave the last two shown icons the "custom" title, it was in reference to that paintbrush which general signifies customization in video games...you guys play games you know what i'm talking about...so i guess this means we can make our own custom interiors?
that means drawing tool, i'm sure...
could you use things you bought from quikbuild? like, existing furniture or paths?
....that's assuming you could put furniture in a custom room...
could you make your own???
soundscapes? particle effects? other stuff that animal crossing has and that tomodachi life interiors sometimes have?
based on so many other customization factors in this game, it really only makes sense that that'd be the case...but why would that be in T&C Reno and not the palette house? suppose it tracks with the whole interiors theme, of course...but what about custom exteriors? would that be better off in quikbuild or palette house? - i suppose i always assumed that exteriors would naturally fall under quikbuild, but thinking about that more, it probably does make more sense for it to belong to...y'know...the home renovation store...heh...
as established, the interior shop's exterior looks EPIC and we can see now that we have lots more choices of different interiors and their potential colors and customization! it looks like we can adjust custom interiors and exteriors here as well. looking forward to seeing more of this one for sure...
NOW IT'S TIME FOR MY FAVORITE OF FAVORITES!!! THAT'S RIGHT!!! I CAN INDEED GO MORE FERAL THAN FERAL!!!!!! I WANT TO BITE THIS ONE TO PIECES AND RIP IT UP AND GO BACK FOR MORE!!!!! OM NOM NOM NOM NOM!!!!!!!!!!!
quite literally the SKETCHIEST place on this blessed island (apart from our lovely palette house)?!?! WHO MADE THIS???!?!?!! WHOSE IDEA WAS THIS??!?!! I WILL BITE THEM!!!!!!
no this is amazing it's so good it PERFECTLY conveys the whole resident daily market type vibe - it was already beautiful, gorgeous, glorious in the original game - and they just consolidated it into the most exquisite crime scene you ever did see?! get dunked on, redd?!?!
as per usual, let's start with what we see! an absolute treat for the eyes! if our last stop was a tasteful, full-course meal, this is an absolute FEAST of candy wrappers, soda bottles, cans of various other beverages...some empty some not....but there are so many that you'd never have a chance of telling which was which... that's right, folks! we're at the marketplace buffet!
really though, this place is marvelous. vending straight from a literal shipping crate, we've got our beloved marketplace! noted, we only see it in action late at night, but we're told its wares differ by time of day, and we can see this aspect of its conception on its flashy lights display indicating time of day.
there's an awning over the vendor's window (underneath which are some tastefully placed wooden planks for shorter customers to reach...) that notably does NOT extend over its pristine-condition CRT, balanced atop a wheeled cart replete with crates of unknown substance...
closer inside, we can see a CD player or radio that entices customers forward....within, there are TV screens which, at least at night, promote an atmosphere of mystery (by displaying question marks....that's about it). there's room in the vendor's space to display a surplus of goods and the CRT, which sports an image of said goods, most certainly does NOT visibly buffer or flicker because this is a trustworthy establishment with only the highest quality equipment!
it is so funny i could die. or cry. or both. at the same time/?!?!?!?!
GAHHHAHAHAHAHAA!!!!!!! I LOVE THE MORNING MARKET!!!! I LOVE THE AFTERNOON MARKET EVEN MORE!!!!! I LOVE THE EVENING MARKET MOST OF ALL!!!! I COULD NEVER HAVE IMAGINED A MORE PERFECT REALIZATION OF EACH ONE QUITE LIKE THIS?!?!?
a real genuine concern of mine was that they might remove the daily markets from the game altogether since it's more - sort of - open world/custom setting kind was sort of incongruous with the daily markets i grew up with - stalls that miis set up in the morning, afternoon, and evening to sell one thing and one thing alone (and ream into you if you browsed without buying...). i didn't know what nintendo may or may not keep in the new game, or how they might change it...in the first few trailers, we hardly saw a hair of anything like this...until this direct (and still! it took me a few rewatches to confirm it for myself), i wasn't even sure if the fountain would be an integral feature of the island or just another decoration, and the ferris wheel hadn't been shown either...and even now, there's not really a "park" equivalent...
...but those were the main locations for the 3 daily markets! without those places explicitly present in-game, how could the daily markets' legacy be carried over? it made no sense!
...UNTIL NOW!!!!!!!!!!! DON'T KNOW WHERE TO PUT EM??????/ THEN MAKE YOUR OWN SPACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT'S GENIUS!!!!!!!!!!!! not only does it solve the space problem - it also solves "what if i don't have this unlocked yet!" and "what if those places aren't in the game anymore?" BECAUSE NOW WE HAVE AN EVEN BETTER PLACE AND IT ALL HAPPENS RIGHT HERE IN ONE SPOT!!!!!
as much as i wish we could have seen more, i'm glad we didn't because i am PSYCHED to discover more about this place on my own. the daily markets are one of my all-time favorite parts about tomodachi life 2014 and i'm unbelievably ecstatic that they've not only been carried over but given the royal treatment and offered their own palace in this new game! we truly are living the dream!!!
that being said, we are granted a hearty glimpse into the marketplace's night life, so let's eat our fill and express our thanks by dissecting it with our rudimentary brain scalpels.
the moon is low...the marketplace, crooning us over by way of its incredibly advanced sound system, is awash with gentle light. on the CRT, the tantalizing image of a red checkered bag adorned with a curious question mark - the very same lined up on the vendor's shelf, several more visible behind them further inside the marketplace crate building.
the vendor presents us with a clipboard. clearly, in yellow pricing tape, we can read a grand "$50.00." the clipboard is adorned with 4 symbols - clothing, treasure, food, interior - and 4 question marks. overflowing with anticipation, we fork over that good good cash money and receive our mystery bag! at last!!! come on my 3-pull!! i can feel it!!! this one's gonna be an SSR for sure!!!! let's go gamblingWHAT THE FUKC
yeah so this fucking lion has been haunting my nightmares for 3 weeks
remember the clipboard i mentioned earlier? the one with the symbols on it - clothes, treasure, food, interior? so, this could be nothing, and probably is nothing, but those symbols are specifically a t-shirt for clothes, a bunch of bananas for food, a cube with lines indicating walls for interior, and...a duck....for treasure....
before thinking about it for another second, i did assume the duck was treasure - i think that's still the most likely explanation... like what, they're replacing the random chance of getting a treasure (OG game's mystery bags gave you either food, interior, treasure, or clothing as implied here) with the random chance of getting a random fucking wild animal? probably not! so. what else could that mean?!??!
is the lion a treasure?! (can i sell a lion for cash money?!? or give it to someone to convince them to go out with me ???!??)
is the lion???? clothing???
IS THE LION FOOD?!??!??!?!?!
i cannot live inside the lion
do the mystery bags give you things other than the 4 things shown on the clipboard?
do the 4 question marks symbolize up to 4 items other than those previously established that we could get?
could the lion be....a pet?
is it a custom design or stamp you can put on stuff and/or use as a pet? (most sane answer award goes to @genderfluidblob)
are the nintendo direct gods just absolutely fucking with us?
WHY IS THERE A LION HERE/?!??!?!?!??!?!!!?!?!?!??!
i will talk about this more later. or join my discord server and search for lion as a keyword youwont be disappointed
i can offer exactly one trillion questions and negative as many answers! i don't know what the fuck's going on! please help! my entire soul rejects this lion! i can't tell you how many rewatches it took to make me stop screaming out loud when i saw it! i literally can't tell you that because i still sometimes scream upon witnessing it!
crazed speculation aside (but if you have any of your own pls let me know pls pls pls pls if anybody has an inkling i want a taste), that's about all we've seen of the marketplace. another thing we'll just have to wait for...
as mentioned in the direct, its wares change depending on time of day, so presumably there'll be a morning and afternoon market too! in the old game, those were the more innocent-looking ones (the evening market was always meant to be shady, after all...), so the marketplace's presentation may not always be so crazy, but doubtless it'll be as scrappy as ever!
we've seen a glimpse of mystery bags and are left with more questions than answers...so let's just call it promising and move on before i commit some kind of felonii.
i will be covering the majority of the information we learn about these next 2 shops in my post about customization (yet to be written. i am so scared)! in the meantime, let's check out the exterior and basic features.
if t&c reno and the marketplace hadn't already stolen my heart, i'd probably have married this building already (daily reminder that i am normal!)...while most of the buildings' roofs render a clear symbol representing their theme or purpose, the photo studio's building quite literally IS its symbol! that is to say, it takes the shape and form of a camera to impressive detail.
foto-tomo's architechture represents a camera in every earthly way. from its overall shape to the way its roof's fixtures resemble settings buttons on a handheld camera, there is no mistaking this building from what it is! its arched doorway resembles a camera's lense and shutter, and its door's round window offers the idea of a lense's sunny gleam. along its side is a purple strip of film (which, based on its blank iconography, looks like it could show off images that you've previously taken on your switch?). finally, and this is possibly the detail that excited me the most - the structure has a window on the top righthand side of its frontfacing wall...one which would resemble a camera's flash...cute...
(*i dont know cameras!!! i could be so wrong about all of this!! never trust anything i say!!!)
inside, the studio's very simple...but, as is typical, i don't think we get to see all of it. in the previous game, upon opening the studio, a player could select between an option to take new photos and an option to view old photos (THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE!!!!!!! THE LOADING SCREEN TAKES SO LONG!!!! MINUTES IF NOT TENS OF MINUTES!!!!! BECAUSE MY ENTIRE 3DS CAMERA ROLL IS OVERRUN WITH PHOTOS FROM THIS GAME!!!!! BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN PLAYING FOR 9 YEARS AND THE SCREENSHOT BUTTONS ARE REALLY EASY TO ACCIDENTALLY PRESS!!!! THIS STILL HAPPENS!!!!! DARK LORD HELP ME!!!!!!). upon selecting the take photos option, they had 3 to 4 more options: pair photos, group photos, whole island photos, and child photos (only available if they had at least one baby actively growing up on their island).
then, of course, they could choose from a variety of templates of scenes for each category and put whichever miis in whatever situations as they desired! as i recall, you could reach certain requirements to unlock more of these scenes.
what we see scrolled through in the direct, i think, is just the "pair photos" category being scrolled through initially, where we can see the menu - standardly a bunch of pre-made photo scenes that you can place your characters in. we also see a collection of group photos! in fact, the direct's thumbnail just so happens to be one of these! cute, huh!
when a scene is chosen in the direct, we aren't directly shown a screen where the player chooses individual miis (presumably where their costumes could be changed, as was a feature previously) - instead, we jump straight to your standard nintendo switch game camera menu taken straight from animal crossing new horizons as per usual...where you can adjust zoom, filter, and mii expressions.
so, to recap, we HAVE seen photo selection, specifically for a pair of miis, but we haven't seen mii selection, and we also haven't seen which specific categories of mii pictures we can take.
now for the, ah, elephant in the room of sorts...the lion in the bag, as it OH SHIT IT'S A CAT'S OUT OF THE BAG JOKE I'M REALLY UPSET NOW
ahem! so let's take the lion out of the bag and talk about what you probably already know or have heard about by now! i've even mentioned it on my blog before!
so, i haven't been able to cover it in detail yet - i'm still leaving it until later, but you've probably heard that tomodachi life: living the dream will be limiting online play - most explicitly mentioned was image sharing, although that might have been to downplay the more serious announcement that mii-sharing also seemed to be a no-go. i'm still planning to look closer into this and i would encourage those worried to do the same, since i'm only claiming what i've heard here, not what i'm sure of.
i'll be covering this more in-depth in a later post and i'll leave it here for now...just figured it shouldn't be left unsaid.
i lied i said i wouldn't talk much about foto-tomo because i decided it was mostly a customization feature but i think i take that back (but i still have time to change my mind bc canonically at this point in the essay writing i have not yet touched customization bc as established i am SCARED)...so let's go in and get ourselves some traffic cones!!!
i have plenty to talk about regarding quikbuild - both in terms of what i want to cover here and in terms of customization...so let's start from the exterior and go from there.
quikbuild seems to be a pretty standard hardware emporium! as i know them, anyway.
from the outside it makes itself clear enough - it's a practical enough establishment, all glass doors and iron framework. it has a delightful signifying roof, bright green and shaped like a construction worker's hard hat. flowers, fences, and wooden planks lean against the side of the store. like the food mart, it's reminiscent of a larger chain store of its type with these signifiers out front, while remaining charming and small in its own right! adorned on the front of its "hat" is its logo: a cartoony gloved hand holding a building block. cute!
at this point, we all know what's up...screw the exterior, we gotta see the new decorations! we've never seen anything like this before!!! show us what you've got, tomodevs!!! amping up for some super exciting treats!!!!
after we politely let ourselves in like the courteous, gracious customers that we are, we have a chaste look around our love of loves, the shop menu. by this point, it looks quite familiar! it's like a combination of fresh kingdom and t&c reno - down to earth, showing off a shopping basket and your price at the register (with our now-familiar mii cashier delivering witty one-liners! my favorite is the US's description of the oak tree...), but less flashy, and organized more like a furniture catalogue (hardly for the first time, animal crossing comes to mind...i should probably write about that at some point).
as we can see in the short building segment, each item of a certain type that you place is an item that you have to purchase individually, which seems to be supported by an numbered icon on each item in the furniture catalogue that could denote...one of several things (how many you have in your inventory, how many you have in your cart, how many you have on your island, or how many are available for purchase? i'm not sure...). this number is shown as a "1" next to every item in the US and JP directs, but not the UK one for some reason...shrugs flamboyantly
everything we see beyond this point is island shaping moreso than actual shopping, so i will save my thoughts for when i feel brave enough to tackle customization....scary......but i should sum it up, shouldn't i...
using quikbuild's wares, we can expand our island in size, shape, complexity, and character! decorations include everyday items that are interactive for miis of all backgrounds (so street lamps, tables and chairs, sprinklers, bonfires...), fences of all shape and color, plants that please miis young and old, and...some unknowns! likely, this is where we'd go to purchase(?) more locations for the island, such as some of the ones we've seen but not experienced...
RITE PRICE, MY TREASURES, MII WHEEL, & TOMORIA:
they're not complete mysteries - we can figure out what they are well enough thanks to past experience and context clues.
probably the pawn shop! no other direct alternative is presented (except possibly for my treasures? but...), it has the look and feel of such an establishment, and...if the name fits, then should not the shoe as well?
it's easy enough to draw the connections! "rite price" sounds like "right price" which is something an appraiser at a pawn shop should, with any hope, offer to a selling patron. money for goods and services, goods and services for money! simple at that.
our old pawn shop looked more like an antique or thrift shop than, like, some kind of courthouse - this new version's visual symbol happens to me, of all things, the motherflipping scales of justice - but both still share key features such as looking like a pawn shop??? sorry i mandela effected the heck out of myself with this one, they don't actually look similar at all, i just got that vibe for some reason? in any case, rite price has a green roof, white siding, and brown wood paneling...and the OG pawn shop has a red thatched roof, off-white siding, and dark brown woof paneling. resemblance? maybe???
treasures display so much continuity, in fact, that many of the images used for treasures in the 2014 edition carry over completely unedited (save for a quality boost) in the new version, as seen in the very first trailer! can you believe it's been nearly a year already?
previously, visiting the pawn shop was our main method of keep track of our treasure inventory, as far as i know?? there was of course the town hall wherein it was possible to check, like, progress when 100%ing a collection - but it didn't tell you how many items you actively possessed of a certain type???
-- and that's what i assume this? store? thing? would be used for? less of a store, and more of a storeage unit, based on its name and its shape closely resembling a treasure chest. speculation rises as to whether or not this may be the pawn shop instead (in which case, rite price would be. what. a divorce court???? decide here if your roommate gets more custody over your tiny baby with bodacious broccoli hair here???)- and it's not impossible! i could go either way...but i think it puts me at risk of slightly fewer heart attacks later in life if i accept this as Probably Not the Pawn Shop.
urgh so...in summary, i have a few ideas of what this could be, and i'm sure others have ideas too (if you have any!!!!! share!!!! pls!!!!!)...i could see it as a storage unit, possibly a pawn shop, some kind of 100% tracker (note - we haven't seen a replacement for town hall, although that could legitimately just be some kind of menu, you'd hardly need a building for it...)...this is super unlikely, but it could even be the concert hall's replacement...it is vague and frustrating...please help...feed me your theories...
you will never guess what this is!!!!
it's a ferris wheel!!!! for miis!!!! bet you weren't gonna guess that!!!! hahaaaaa!!!!
yeah no that's pretty much it looks like this is the stand-in we get for the amusement park which is cool, we don't get to see inside (maybe there isn't an inside and we just have to be ok with that!) which means all we know about it is the big wheel, and maybe that's all it is (no indoor carousel, no indoor roller coaster...)...and that's about it!
it's a low-ceilinged glass-and-steel blue building that opens for this big ferris wheel! angie confesses to hugh morris here...marie to bubbles, and marie (furugana) to carlo. as the last game's whole amusement park only unlocks after a confession (whether or not it's successful!), this seems to track.
our restaurant, taking the shape and color scheme of what was formerly redfurt, the well-loved café. i used to be totally zonked out by how much bigger tomoria was than EVERY OTHER BUILDING but i think i've come to terms with it! ....maybe!
briefly, a glimpse inside shows us that it. well. it's like, basically ihop, or some kind of diner. cozy! "restaurant" was a confession location option, as i recall, which would undoubtedly be this building. so, uh, cool!
i dunno, the café was a fun concept but it was just about the least interactive part of the island (although the chats, pity party, and romantic interactions were fun!) in the previous game, so really i'm just hoping there'll be a little more to do or see here. if not, it's a cute enough feature that i'll be happy either way.
WHERE?!??!?!?!??!?!?!?! WHERE ARE MY LOVELIES!!?!??!?!?!?!??!?! MY DARLINGS MY SWEET SWEET DATA AND INTERACTIVE GOODNESS?!??!?!! HOW COULD THEY CURTAIL OUR SELF EXPRESSION IN THIS WAY?!??!?!?!???!?!
ok i'm exaggerating i don't think it's too late for us yet guys!!!!
here's my list of places that i'm fairly to quite confident we HAVEN'T seen...
debunked! nothing to worry about here!
streetpass and spotpass aren't really a thing anymore, and we have that whole debacle about online sharing, so...
basically has to be same deal as import wear above, but it stings...i want to talk more about this later...
could be the my treasures building, could be a menu, could be eradicated, could be...something else we haven't seen? maybe its features are now split between other powers-that-be?
anachronistic, it was fun but not too surprisingly probably left behind
maybe there will be an item for it? or maybe miis can hang out on their rooves when they have roommates - because, when it's not a full house, they do have roof porches...entirely possible this just didn't make it over either. shame, because it was a really fun place...
this is something that my treasures could potentially be utilized for! maybe it could be something purchasable from quikbuild as well, as an item or treated as a structure perhaps? islander stats are very fun to look at...many would miss these (i am many!!!)!
WHERE IS IT?!??!?!! WHERE DID IT GO?!??!?!?!?! THEY RESTRICTED ONLINE SHARING,,, WHICH ADMITTEDLY USED TO BE A PART OF THE OLD GAME - YOU COULD SHARE LYRICS WITH YOUR FRIENDS - BUT WOULD THEY REALLY GO SO FAR AS TO REMOVE MII SINGING FROM THE GAME ALTOGETHER/?!?! THERE'S NO WAY!!!!
ahem sorry i have thoughts about this
it's clear as day that we didn't see close to everything there was to see in that direct! ...although we were pretty clearly shown by the ending which buildings were and weren't there...
i believe in my heart of hearts that mii singing will return in some shape or form. if it has to come in an update or a DLC later down the line, so be it, because this feature is TOO POPULAR and TOO BELOVED!!!! not to carry over.
or maybe it is because people will get around filters and guidelines forever and they know this...even by just making this game and releasing it in 2026, they are inviting trouble...like i've said, if it comes to it, we'll write our own songs and see how they restrict that!!! hahah!!!!
--i'm playing the outraged part up for the bit but i'm not actually the biggest concert hall aficionado, so i'd like to hear others' opinions on this as well...will they bring it back, how, what do you want to see, etc?
i've spent the grand majority of the last day writing this! i started at 21:00 last night! it is now nearly 22:00, 25 hours later!!! i know i should read through everything i've written so far before i write a conclusion or summary, but i don't think i want to!
if you couldn't tell, i'm absolutely in love with shops in tomodachi life... i could go on for as long if not longer about those in the original game (and really, i only brushed on stuff here, so i could have doubled the word count here as well if i really wanted to...i have my limits too lol...kind of on an informal deadline of Before We All Perish...). the building designs alone can get me going for hours! they have gotten me going for hours! this is literally all i've done all fcukcing day! god help me!
-not to mention the menus though! i can't believe i of all people am writing this but i think i want to marry this game's ui! i'm not even sure it's that good i'm just having such a fun time analyzing it!!! i am aromantic and do not know how to design games!!!! help!!! i'm losing it!!!!
augh okay but yes! i can't wait to have miis and put them on an island and make money and SPEND IT!!!!!!! on fun things with flashy colors and music and funny little blurbs and a billion possibility of ways to play! i might also be developing a free-to-play gambling addiction! don't worry about it!
all this said, forever and ever, i am so excited to play this game and experience all of this for real instead of just through videos, notebook pages, keyboards, and tumblr blogs which is truly so much worse, never do what i do please! (or do because i wanna talk about this with someone) (but don't actually it's very bad for your health i think idk the grind keeps me going)
i'm about to see how many words this is! wish me luck! i will not tell you how many! up next should be some topics others might be more interested in: mii interactions and customization! my favorite part of this game is the shops and the miis...so i'm nearly set...and if you can't tell by now, i'm absolutely dreading talking about customization (THERE'S SO MUCH?!?!?)...and i will, of course, and i will sound like a lunatic as i do!
shout at me in tags! in comments! in asks! in my discord server! probably not in my tumblr messages because i never look at those and am now far too scared to check them! have an awesome day! follow your heart! live your dreams! iam going to bed!!!!!
