Loving quests and cute things in video games, I never though there would be a game that could match those two like this. One of my friend has this game and he lent it to me telling me I’d like this kind of gameplay. Having never heard of the game, I waited a bit to start it but boy, once I started I played non-stop. Here are my thoughts and a little review from the 3DS game Fantasy Life.

 

Getting started

Knowing nothing of this game, I started it. First impression: it has a feel of a “final fantasy” kind of game, chibi version. You start the game after a cute little creation menu for your character. Once you’ve that, you learn that your character is now old enough to have his/her own Life. Yes, you read correctly. I wrote Life with a capital letter. Because in this game, a Life is one of twelve jobs chosen. The jobs are the following: Alchemist, Angler, Blacksmith, Carpenter, Cook, Hunter, Magician, Mercenary, Miner, Paladin, Tailor, and Woodcutter. Each of them have their advantages and their downsides.

Once you picked the Life you want to try out, there’s a small tutorial where the game shows you how this particular Life works and the people “resources” for this Life. For each Life, there is a tutorial, but after the first one you can choose to skip the other ones if you are on more than your first walkthrough.

After completing the tutorial – fledgling quest – the main story knocks on your door. Long story short : things are happening and you are there to help. You have an amazing ability in all the jobs and you resolve problems so fast. And don’t worry about your job too much, if you are stuck or don’t like it you can change it. It’s not permanent, you only need to be out of a main story quest and finished a fledgling quest.

 

The Gameplay

At first, I was not sure what to expect from this game and its gameplay. The jobs are really different one from another, and they can be regrouped into 3 categories. There is the combat type Life where Paladin, Mercenary and Hunter are located. Those are the Life where the quests will be related to killing enemies mostly. The way to play those are by drawing your weapon and attacking the enemy.

The second category is the gathering type where Angler, Miner and Woodcutter jobs are located. Those types of Life are not too difficult either. You go in front of a tree, rock and press “A” to start collecting the resource. Once your started a life bar will appear on the top of the objects and to collect the resource you will need to deplete it. On those there is a “soft spot” where when you hit you do a critical hit. For the fishing, it’s a little different as you need to reel in the fish without breaking the line. Not too hard.

The last type is the crafting Life including all the other jobs like Cook, Tailor, etc. Those are a little more complex and the mini-games to complete items are a little harder. I will try to explain the best I can. In the cook Life, for example, you decide you want to cook a boiled egg. Good. Once you have the ingredients, you choose it and the mini-game starts. There are three steps in these and by steps I really mean three stations, and not every Life has the same combination. First you have the step where you must press “A” quickly. The second one is a more precise step where you need to press “A” at the center of the line to hit correctly. And then you have the last one where you hold “A” until the step is finish. There is a timer and a completion bar that counts toward the quality/quantity of the item created. The steps/stations are random, even for the same item. When you level your job you get harder recipe, and so on.

Life from the last category need materials and those materials are obtained by other jobs or by gathering them in the wild – for example, flowers grow everywhere so you can pick them up whenever -. Or you can even buy some if you have the money. Some jobs are intertwined and it will be easier for a crafting job if you have materials from another in the gathering or combat. As an example: You want to be blacksmith, well it’s better to become a miner beforehand. This way you already have the materials necessary to craft and it cost less this way. Life often needs more than just one job, or materials but once you get the hang of it it’s not hard to find or chase those ingredients.

 

Final thoughts

For those who don’t like quests driven game this is not the game for you. All of the game’s mechanic is tied to quests. To level up your Life you need to do quests that are in your main tab of your chosen Life. To continue the Main story or to have nice little bonuses, you need to look in the butterfly tab – once you play you understand-. And on the last tab, there are side quests from citizen that asked if you could make that skirt or a good shield, hunt this enemy 5 times, etc. and that gives you money and nice rewards after completing.

The game is cute and really funny. The characters sometimes so don’t care. Their attitude isn’t like any other serious RPG where everything is black and white. The story, even so not extremely original for the most part, is still well narrated and written.

 

Review: Positive!  Quest and cuteness overload!