Despite this game more than likely being in a niche category to most people, it ends up being one of the best selections on the 3DS, and with all the great stuff you can do in it, it deserves all its praise.
Fantasy Life is a very ambitious project, able to fulfill its ultimate goal, which is to immerse the player into a fantasy world, with a lot of things to do and a lot of places to explore. Fantasy Life is one of the best games for 3DS released in 2014.
This game is probably one of the best games I've played, and seeing how it was released on 2014, that just shows how amazing this game is. It has a silly story with silly characters, but not silly as in "it can get annoying" or anything, it actually makes the game pretty fun.
Level-5 always succeeds on doing that if you have played some of their games.
(I'm reviewing this after not playing the game in a while, so I might get some class names wrong. And also I played it on Spanish, so...)
In terms of gameplay I get that some people don't like that Chef, Tailor, Alchemist, Blacksmith and Carpenter have the same "minigame", but I love it for some reason, and I guess an argument could be made for Lumberjack and Miner being similar.
I love the battle system, you smack, you get some power juice and then send enemies into oblivion with your Fury, it's awesome to stick your sword on the ground and a light of death coming out of the floor with the Fury attack being called "Earthquake". Yes, Mercenary is my favorite class, I just like the big sword and the tornado attack thingies.
The job quests are generally pretty cool, like, beat this big boss, get reward, or for gathering jobs it's, chop/mine/fish this big thing with enough skill and a good enough tool, get reward. Doesn't sound very good on paper but I like how it's done. The one thing I don't like about these is chef's. What do you mean level 15 ALL OF THE COOKING SKILLS?! That's my one complain on this game, but it has so many good things it doesn't matter that much.
The characters are pretty well written in my opinion, and the reason King Erik looks like a kid even though he's an adult is goofy but honestly kinda ironic, and it made me laugh as a kid, so I'll allow it.
Butterfly (You who have played this game know why) is my favorite character, she's very goofy but has a very cool and sweet goal, and when she does you know what at the end of the game just warms my hug. Her sister kinda makes me laugh sometimes too, her "Tsundere" character per say kinda fits her I think, and her being the friend of the thing I forgot the name of is hilarious, at least for me.
Yeah, kind of a long review, but I just like this game so much and will always hold it dearly inside my heart. And now that we are getting FLi I'm very excited to see what comes for the future of Fantasy Life.
Providing quality gameplay in both its life sim and action RPG aspects, served up with all of the colourful wit and charm anyone could ask for, it serves as a jewel in the crown of memory of a games studio that helped create some of the most memorable role-playing video games that ever graced the medium.
Some will try to excuse this nonsense by claiming the game is for kids, but this cynical explanation implies we live in an age where we should lie to everyone, including our children, about what "adventure" entails.
One of the best 3ds games and best RPGs I've ever played. It is grindy at times, and it is quite linear, but this game is so much more then sum of it parts.
Fantasy Life is adorable and packed with things to do, but taken individually, each "thing to do" is ultimately quite shallow. All crafting classes boil down to the same dull mini-game, mining and woodcutting are also the same, and the 4 combat classes managed to be both shallow and unbalanced in their usability. Still, despite all the issues with with depth it faces, Fantasy Life manages to be an overall pleasant experience due to its charm and polish, if an unessential one.
Im sorry I know this game is well received from the numbers here but the graphics make think im playing gameboy advance game. It feels ugly. Cutesy menu and slow story. I enjoyed remake of pokemon much more that game was tuned perfect and paced so you want to play it. I never like animal crossing or farm hero on Facebook.
I have not regretted buying a game so much in a long time, if ever. This game is very boring. I really wanted to like this game, and could not.
For me, the uniqueness of the class system was a big reason why I wanted to get the game. Yet sadly, it ended up being the reason why I do not like the game. I am at fault for getting the game without looking at gameplay for *all* classes. (I did buy it just when it came out though so resources were a bit more limited ^.^') But even so, it really should not be this bad.
1. The biggest downfall by far is the crafting element. There are many classes to choose from, so you would expect different gameplay for each class. Wrong. All of the crafting games (For the jobs: Tailor, Cook, Blacksmith, Alchemist, Carpenter) are the same exact game. The game is very simple. You watch a bar go by and click A when it lines up. As you get better at the game, you can skip through it so you don't have to play it anymore. But you have to do this individually for each and every item. There are a lot of items.
Speaking truthfully, the crafting game reminds me, almost shockingly so, of the college research experiments that people get paid to participate in. If you enjoy this type of game, you can probably go make some money participating in experiments that are roughly equivalent gameplay wise. (Source: Experience)
2. My second qualm is with the battling style amongst fighting classes and those in conjunction with quests as well. Now the fighting gameplay is definitely leaps ahead of the crafting one. But all fighting styles are similar, which is fine and all, not bad, but again makes the class system useless. And actually tedious when it comes to class quests. You can only complete the class quests associated with your current class, so you may have actually fulfilled the requirements already, but it hasn't been counted because you did it as a different class! While this at first seems to make sense, in that you have to be able to complete the task while only being allowed to wear certain armor, actually it becomes very redundant due to the similar fighting gameplay and frustrating when you have already done the task a multitude of times before. I note that you can charge ahead through things a bit if you level up the dagger, since it is used in all classes, but again, then what is the point of the class system?
Of course you don't have to play as every class! But if you really stick to only one class, it feels like a waste of money. Now, the rest of the game is actually nice. I like the cute graphics, and I am a fan of the cute storyline as well. The pets and small other nuances are good too. I would give this game a 4, but for its price tag, it is a 3.
Originally, I got the 3ds for Rune Factory 4 which I still love. I thought Fantasy Life would be a similar type of game except perhaps better? I think I will be sticking with the Rune Factory series which has more flexibility with exploration, choice on what you want to do (I don't even farm -- despite its origins of harvest moon), a vast amount of monsters as possible pets/battle partners, no silly boring time-wasting games for crafting, and more. The only place where I would say fantasy life is better is in its graphics (since I personally like the style).
SummaryA world where you live the life you have always wanted to lead. FANTASY LIFE is an original RPG for the Nintendo 3DS from LEVEL-5, featuring music by Nobuo Uematsu and image illustration by Yoshitaka Amano.
Set in a beautiful and vast open world, players create their own avatars and take up a vocation of their choosing, living out thei...