Well folks, the Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream Nintendo Direct has won over many hearts, with its bizarre humour, huge amount of freedom and flexibility with customisation, and even a a dramatic romantic storyline.
We fell in love with Hugh Morris, the clown-like character from the Nintendo of America presentation (who doesn't want to talk about monster trucks, sadly). But when we announced our love for him, a lot of people were quick to ask, "wait, who? What about Bubbles?"
Many readers were then quick to point out that the Nintendo UK version of the Direct had an entirely different set of characters and Miis, with slightly different storylines playing out between the cast.
Watch on YouTubeSubscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube842k
Regional variants for Nintendo Directs are pretty common, but that's usually for general Directs. Japan often gets trailers for games we don't, and vice versa. And while the content in both the UK and US Directs is largely the same, the stars are sometimes very different.
Bubbles the Clown is one such example, but he's not the only UK-exclusive character: Rosa is your best friend instead of Jess in the UK stream, and Forian is a gym rat in Blighty while Patrick loves the guitar in the USA.
Hey, Carlo's in both of them! But he's presented a bit differently depending on what Direct you're watching: in the UK, he's very nosy and active, while the US version is a barista. And at least Mocha the Bear remains in tacts on both sides of the Atlantic.
Other changes are a bit more subtle — the Hot Dog costume is featured in the American Direct, but a Wizard and Bee costume take centre stage in the UK. More grocery items are shown off in the US Direct, and different rooms and decors are highlighted in both versions. And instead of your best friend trying to get in on the romance in the ferris wheel, the UK version makes sure the alien is a part of the action.
Reader Suketoudara also pointed us towards a video by rockheadHD, comparing the localisation of both the US and UK versions of the game. And they're pretty different!
The most-obvious place is during the News Report segment where the newsreader talks about the stories on-air in slightly different ways, depending on which version you're watching. Whether this is the case in the full release, we'll have to wait and see.
Otherwise, of the European streams appear to use the UK version (with subtitles, of course), but as you're probably expecting at this point, Japan's version was also slightly different to ours.
Once again, the cast of characters are very different to the English-language streams — we picked up on Rika, Daisuke (who plays guitar like Patrick), and another variation of Carlo, this time a painter.
The grocery store was where many of the biggest differences were, with food items like pizza, coffee, and escargot replaced by octopus, juice, and rice bowls.
The content of all three Directs we've highlighted is otherwise the same, bar these examples we've pointed out. And they're all delightful and tonally weird in their own ways. We've only spotted a handful of small differences in all of them, and there's bound to be tons we've missed, so let us know if you've spotted anything that stands out to you!
You won't have to wait long to live the dream on Switch, as Tomodachi Life: living the Dream comes out on 16th April 2026.
Share your favourite Direct moments in the comments below.