The land of Miitopia was a peaceful place where everyone lived in harmony. That is, until a dark lord appeared and began to steal the inhabitants’ faces and put them onto monsters wreaking havoc across Miitopia. Now, a traveler-turned-hero has joined three others to pursue the dark lord and restore peace to the land.
Miitopia may be one of the most original stories to date. It features a standard premise for an RPG, but it becomes more like fan fiction once you insert your characters. You can play a familiar story where the four heroes are just a band of friends fighting monsters, or it could be a wild story about Spongebob, the Burger King, an emoji and Edgeworth from the Ace Attorney series fighting the dark lord Sans from Undertale. The tale can be whatever your heart desires, especially with the creativity people have displayed using the makeup and wigs creator.
http://https://youtu.be/KUEmzGwBEk0
Unlike other RPGs, Miitopia is relatively simple, so if you are a first-time RPG player or don’t want to play anything too complicated, this is the right choice. The only character you control is the mii you chose to be the main character. The rest of your party members control themselves — this could either be a good or bad thing, depending on the AI and the members’ jobs and abilities.
There are many jobs to choose from, and all of them involve different abilities. Your personality affects gameplay as well, so be wary of what your character might become. Gameplay is mainly similar to the 2017 3DS version, but the new Switch version adds a horse you get later on in the game. The horse does not drastically change anything, but it is an excellent addition. It will not only help you in fights at times, but it will even allow you to ride it if your bond with the animal is high enough.
Bonding with your party members is also similar, but the 2021 game adds a feature called outing tickets, which enable you to “grind” out your relationships faster. The “dates” you and your party members go on involve all sorts of scenarios as well. Make sure to save up on outing and game tickets for mini-games that give you items and money.
Miitopia can be a simple game or a hard one, depending on how well you manage your team. Unfortunately, there is no difficulty setting, so you’ll have to have a strategy to keep your miis alive and get through the story. Luckily even if your party ends up in trouble, you can earn sprinkles to give them health, mana or even revive knocked-out team members.
One issue that I found with Miitopia was the paths. In Miitopia, there are world maps, but they are sectioned like Mario games, where you have to move your character to the level you want to play. In each level, you go through set paths rather than freely move around. It’s not that big of an issue unless you are grinding or trying to 100% the game. However, it can get annoying having to keep going back to the same level to clear one path out, and it’s even worse when there are sometimes more than four diverging paths on a level.
Another issue is that opening the menu in fights does not entirely pause the game. At first, you do not notice it, but as the battles get more challenging and you need to use the menu to access your sprinkles, you can get screwed over if you aren’t fast enough. This did not occur in the 3DS version because it was split-screen, but since the gameplay is all on the same screen in the Switch version, Miitopia forces you to wait your turn before you can pop the menu up. This can get stressful, as one move from a monster could almost wipe your whole team out, and if you don’t pull the menu up fast enough, you’ll end up being too late to save your team. However, these problems do not hinder the game all that much. Not every game is perfect, and Miitopia is still great.
When Nintendo announced Miitopia for the Switch, many fans of the previous version were excited for its return. However, it was still not that popular compared to other titles coming out around its time. But then the demo came out, which gives you access to the Makeup and Wigs Shop. From there, Miitopia’s popularity skyrocketed, and people shared numerous creations on multiple social media platforms.
The number of things you could do was extraordinary. Some people made exact replicas of famous icons, others made video game characters and some even made characters out of pixel art. With this shop, many more people decided to get the game, because now they could have the Terminator as a teammate. The only problem with the Makeup and Wigs Shop was that when sharing your access key for the miis you created, you also see the miis that other people made, and vice versa. There is no way to put your name on your creation, so anyone can take credit for it. It’s a shame, but there is not much to do there.
While both are good, the Switch version of “Miitopia” is much better than the 3DS version. The graphics are lovely (even though the frame rate lags terribly in some cutscenes), the game now includes many more funny scenarios thanks to the outing tickets and the cute horse, and the Makeup and Wigs Shop bumps the version up from good to great. The 3DS will forever be in our hearts as a great handheld console, but the Switch will always be superior to it in many ways.
Miitopia on the Switch is as great as expected; there is so much content to this game that when you think the story will end, you discover that it is only just the beginning. The game is well worth its price as it is a memory you’ll never forget; the characters you can add and create make it a never-ending playground of possibilities. Miitopia is back, and it’s here to stay. Now it’s time to get back to fighting the dark lord Barbie with the help of Sonic the Hedgehog, Shrek and Queen Elizabeth.
