Nintendo has been making a splash online as of late; after the release of a new trailer for "Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream", it was revealed that we'd be graced with a pretty complete demo of the game twenty-three days before the full launch of the title. Many are citing this as an incredible marketing strategy from Nintendo, and I am inclined to agree. There was already a very large market for this game, one which most thought Nintendo seemed to have no intention of making, leading some to say that this would be an impossible sequel, but after two trailers that captured both the original audience for this game and then some, nobody was expecting something free and playable so soon!
The demo is pretty complete, though you are notably locked out of some starter items that (seemingly) would otherwise be avalible to the player at the beginning of the game, along with not having a true daily shop, users only having one rotation that no-longer changes on the second day of the demo. You can create up to three Mii characters based on whoever or whatever you wish, with the Mii characters being the true star here- they're only limited by what you can give them and how deep their relationships can go in the demo, but the new mii-creation features are on full display, and are wowing people with how intuitive and fun they are to use.
Once you create a third character however, you unlock the clothing shop and the demo ends. This is signified by all of your Mii characters enter their homes and now cannot leave until you purchase the retail version, along with their personalities seemingly turining off where they then tell the user generic lines about things that should be in the retail release, which isn't out yet mind you (though you can pre-order it).
All in all, as heartbreaking as it may be for some to see their little creations become so lifeless by design, I find that this marketing strategy is going to be overwhelmingly effective. There is both a perfect taste of what the retail release can do, with promises of more, and also an emotional attatchment to your little characters that was almost "held hostage" in a sense by the completion of the demo, which I feel appeals to both parts of your brain. Of course, Nintendo also got some free bug-testing even inside of this pretty basic demo, and plenty were found, some game-breaking and others strange like an oddly low framerate across both the Switch 1 and Switch 2 versions within the same places, which makes me hopeful that the game will have a polished release.
Check out the game's page!