Nintendo’s Miitomo App Now Available!

March 31 marks the North American launch of Miitomo, Nintendo’s first mobile app. The app is available for both iOS and Android devices, and is free to download.

Miitomo is highly reminiscent of the 2014 3DS game Tomodachi Life, except that you are interacting with real people rather than other Miis that you have created. When you open Miitomo, you begin your journey by creating a Mii for yourself and setting their personality traits and vocal patterns. You are then taken to meet your Mii and are given a simple tutorial on how the app works and some of the functions within the app.

The premise is very simple: your Mii will ask you questions, and you provide an answer. For every question that you answer, you will earn Miitomo coins which can be used in-app to purchase new clothes and accessories for your Mii. Coins can also be earned by completing other activities such as changing clothes three times, adding friends, and playing mini-games. In order to play mini-games to earn coins and unlock special bonuses, players must connect with a Nintendo account. Unfortunately, after literally an hour of making sure all of my account information was up-to-date and correct, I was never able to successfully connect to my Nintendo account from Miitomo. I did a little bit of reading and found that there are many other users who are experiencing a variety of issues, but hopefully things will be resolved soon seeing as it is only the first day. On the bright side, you can still download the app and create your Mii without linking to a Nintendo account. In fact, you can do pretty much everything in the app without being linked to a Nintendo account except for playing mini-games.

Another fun feature in Miitomo is Miifoto. As you might expect from the name, this activity acts as a sort of photo booth where you can pose your Mii on a variety of backgrounds–including real pictures–and add clip art. These photos can be shared via linked social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter, or simply downloaded to your device’s photo gallery. The Miitomo app is listed as a social media app on the Apple store, and is of course intended to be used in such a manner. The idea of connecting with friends electronically seems like it has already been played out through social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that this is not necessarily what takes place. Rather than being bombarded with who just accepted the most amazing job offer in the world or 135 pictures from one of your friend’s exotic vacation, Miitomo focuses on the real friendship builders like what your favorite food is or what you do to relieve stress, all in a laid-back, no-pressure environment. Overall, the app is very silly, but a lot of fun, and I hope that the bugs get worked out very soon.

Have you downloaded Miitomo yet? What are your first impressions?

Author: Daftly Debonair

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