this isn’t a review, I’m just having fun talking about my experience playing the game :7) mostly spoiler free

really cute game, spent a lot of it thinking I was nearly finished the main story, so I was procrastinating in game by just messing around making and selling things in the different lives I had for my character- I had been hoarding everything I wasn’t using for crafting so that once the main quest was completed I could spend the rest of the game /retired/ and use the rest of the gameplay just being lazy, because I wanted to get as much done inside the story as I could- but admittedly did abandon completing quite a few side quests
Something thag did surprise me was how much running around there was to do after the credits, which made me cry. The credits made me cry- it’s a very worthwhile game to finish , it’s actually got a very dope concept , and since I took my time playing through it the first time, I feel confident in running through on a new account and speed running the main story, just to see how quickly it can be completed ( by myself, I’m sure anyone else could do this too )

It was a lot of fun looking at the map at the end and realising how many areas I’d disregarded as just being like,
Map fodder- was actually an unlockable area

CUTE GAME
LIKED IT A LOT
WOULD BE INTERESTED IN PLAYING OTHER FANTASY KIND OF RPGS SIMILAR BC I HAD A NICE TIME

i've played through this game, start-to-finish (dlc included), twice. 100% the second time. i'm pretty sure i could do it again and want to do it again and the only thing stopping me is a quiet voice of reason saying "those 200 hours would be better spent on something else".

fantasy life is... a lot of things, all of them good. its story is aimed at kids and is so warm and hopeful in a way that's kind of contagiously wholesome. the graphics are cute and bubbly in the same manner. uematsu brings his a-game and gets really creative with the music in a way that i found surprisingly memorable and unique. the game mechanics are all relatively simple but give you enough to do that you never feel bored.

in a way, the game feels a little bit like an mmo (more specifically, a lot of its gameplay elements remind me of final fantasy xiv), but without the sense of crowded loneliness that often entails. you just have a lot of options on what you can choose to do or not do, and it really helps feel like you get to pick the experience you want to get out of the game. the option for multiplayer makes it really easy to not feel too hung-up over having to cover all the classes on your own, too.

i love games with crafting, and i loved how gathering and crafting in this game feel like mechanics and not just thoughtlessly added menus. the minigames are hectic, gathering essentially has non-battle bosses, and any of those classes could just go ahead and run through the whole plot if they wanted.

i'm not even sure where i'm going with things anymore, but i love this game and everything about it cheers me up and feels fun and comfy and i only wish there was even more of it.

There's really just something special about this game. It's hard to put my finger on it exactly, but I just love this game, and its arguably my favorite 3ds game. The way the different "lifes" interact with each other is so fun and entertaining, and the dlc dungeon gives the added difficulty the game was lacking in the main story. Mastering each of the lifes in the game came to be somewhat tedious towards the end, but being able to always do something productive towards progressing life quests just feels so rewarding. The combat is also surprisingly fun, even if it is a bit simplistic overall. The music and graphics are also a nice touch, as are some of the customizable aspects throughout the game (your character, main combat style, gear setup, the allies you bring along, buying and furnishing houses in different towns). There's just a lot you can do, and it was really fun trying to do all of it.