For example of what other challenges were like, Woodcutters have to cut down 5, 10, and 15 of each kind of tree throughout the world. I chose to be a Paladin, so most of my challenges were slaying about five of each monster and one of each boss.
These challenges are SOME of the sidequests I mentioned earlier. How exciting!!Įach Life comes with its own set of challenges that you can complete to work you way up the ranks from a Fledgling to a Master and beyond. After completing the prologue, you can actually take on all 16 Lives at once, so that you can take advantage of the perks that they each have to offer. What if you want to create stuff, like armor or furniture? Then you can be a Blacksmith or Carpenter! No matter what you choose, you will never be limited to just one Life. Do you want to just gather all of the resources around and make a lot of Dosh ( Fantasy Life’s currency)? Then you might want to be a woodcutter or miner instead. Do you want to be a strong warrior and slay every enemy? Then a Paladin or Mercenary might be your best option. This system was designed to give players many options on how they want to play the game. The biggest appeal to Fantasy Life is the Life system that I previously mentioned. What was even cooler about it for me was that a few of the songs sounded like they were alternate versions from Level-5’s most recent game, Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, a game that I adore. From a cool and relaxing tune in the plains to the more frantic tune in the desert, they all sounded like the fit perfect. Each location had its own tune that felt like it belonged in each specific environment. The soundtrack is where I was most pleased though. Level-5 used a distinct art style for it that only adds to the charm of the game.
=Pįantasy Life looks about as good as an open world RPG can be on a Nintendo 3DS, and quite frankly, I was extremely impressed. However, when a game gives me the locations of each cutscene I need to watch to advance the story, I typically want to do them all at once and not waste time in between. This doesn’t take away from the writing whatsoever, and was probably more my fault for watching all of the cutscenes back-to-back. The pacing felt a little off, and I often felt I was tired of the cutscenes about halfway through. What I mean is that I would spend two or three hours going through dungeons, and then would have to spend what felt like 45 minutes to an hour reading dialogue from cutscenes. My only issue with the storytelling is that it was typically done all at once in between long sections of gameplay. The humor is perfect, and there were several moments that I couldn’t help but laugh out loud while playing. Fantasy Life’s dialogue in every single conversation was handled with absolute care, which made it incredibly charming. It’s not the overarching story that makes Fantasy Life special, it’s the writing. After choosing what you want to be at the beginning of the game (don’t worry, you can change it later if you don’t like it), you get mixed up in an epic quest to save the world! Joining you on this adventure is your trusty sidekick, Butterfly, who is, well, a talking butterfly. A Life is one of 12 different play styles or jobs you can choose to use throughout the game, ranging from a Paladin to a Woodcutter to a Blacksmith. You take the role of a quiet young man or woman who has yet to choose their “Life”. However, a large amount of content is not good enough to make a game great, and luckily Level-5 knows that. Level-5 did a fantastic job filling the world of Reveria with hundreds of side quests that will keep you busy, and in my case, sidetracked me from continuing the main quest for many hours at a time. If I can only take away one thing from Fantasy Life, it is that I was reminded just how bad my ADHD is while playing.