Miitopia (3DS Edition) Reviews
"Easy-going RPG."
Review in Finnish | Read full review
I went into Miitopia expecting an absurdist adventure filled with whacky humour and zany writing, and while it didn’t quite deliver on that, I found something else to enjoy in the experience.
I like Miitopia, but I can't really recommend it to anyone. Maybe people who still regularly play Miitomo (do people still do that?) but other than that… Just, don't bother. It's a game that plays itself, and you're supposed to derive your entertainment from simply watching things happen. It's a struggle to suggest this even to younger gamers - I can see what Nintendo wanted to do here, but Miitopia is honestly a flop.
While a party can contain up to four members, players only directly control themselves. One can even set autobattle to have battles play out without having to interfere. The whole battling process is pretty hands-off, and can be sped up with the press of a button, which can make Miitopia a nice game to have on in the background or play in very short bursts. In longer gaming sessions however, the experience can really drag.
Once the silliness of Miitopia wears off, you're left with a cute and repetitive RPG.
Miitopia feels like a missed opportunity. It's a game that starts and ends strong, but falters in the many, many hours in-between. Its jokes and gags quickly grew stale, and its charm wore off quickly. And then it kept going, for dozens of hours on end. I imagine if players are on the hunt for a game that's slightly more complex than what they'd find in Street Pass plaza, Miitopia might be that game for them. For players hunting for more hilarious and unpredictable antics from Miis like they once saw from Tomodachi Life, it seems like that dream remains just that. A dream.
In an industry where it seems like just about everything has been tried before, Miitopia's willingness to try something new is commendable, albeit uninteresting in execution. It's a simple game with a couple great ideas that are often let down by a story that is too timid to step outside its comfort zone.
What Miitopia lacks in actual game it makes up for in how weird and wonderful it is. If you're easily charmed by Nintendo, this will eat you up and spit you out.
At the end of the day, Miitopia really is a letdown. It tries to bridge Tomodachi Life and the JRPG genre, but without adding anything that would make the gameplay endearing. I could only recommend this game to someone who is looking for a quick pick up and play game for short play sessions but doesn’t want to get invested in a extremely in-depth JRPG.
Not much more than an expanded StreetPass game, and while the Mii integration is cute the shallow gameplay is just frustrating and dull.