When I was younger and more prone to spending time online playing free MMOs, the ones that fascinated me the most were the ones that allowed me to do something other than fighting monsters. It's not that I didn't like the fighting, nor that I didn’t know any games without combat, it’s just that being in a fantasy world as something other than a warrior felt so special. It wasn't until 2013's Fantasy Life, however, that someone made a game to cater specifically to that taste.
Fantasy Life is an action RPG, and its premise is simple: You're a citizen of Castele, a kingdom in the magical land of Reveria, and time has come for you to choose your Life -- that is, your job. There are twelve Lifes to choose from, four of which are fighters (Paladin, Mercenary, Hunter and Magician) and eight of which are not (Miner, Angler, Woodcutter, Carpenter, Blacksmith, Alchemist, Cook and Tailor).
While Lives might sound like a fixed character class, it is but a transitory state: once you've gotten your license for your first Life -- essentially a tutorial -- and progressed a bit through the game, you're free to go back and get a license for another Life and swap between them whenever. And that's the beauty of the world of Fantasy Life: it's filled with quests and opportunities for every Life, and your approach to locations changes depending on which class you are currently.
More than that, while you can, theoretically, pick a Life and play through the entire game on it, the game actively discourages that sort of approach, instead making it so the work of a class is crucial for the success of another. A Blacksmith needs raw ore and wooden beams, the latter of which a Carpenter has to create from logs, but they, in turn, need fabric to fashion some of their furniture, which a Tailor can provide. Fighter classes can provide rare materials they collect from monsters, and benefit from improved gear that crafters can create.
Each Life has a rank, starting from Novice and moving all the way up to Legend. To increase one's rank, class-specific quests must be completed: Craft said item, kill said monsters, recover the wood from a special tree, find a specific mineral, and so on. These lists of quests are refreshed every time you move up a rank, and have you adventuring all over Reveria to get them done.
Reveria is an excellently realized game world. Some players call Fantasy Life "a single player MMO", which in some ways, it is, but crucially, it avoids the common trap amongst games with that tagline where the world is made large, sparse, and boring. Reveria is instead densely packed, filled with interesting places to visit, loot to collect and boons to find. The game rewards exploring on your own, as there's many locations the story alone will not show you through but that will benefit specific Lives.
Speaking of which, I love the story in Fantasy Life. It starts off a bit clichéd, as an unassuming adventurer fresh from obtaining their first Life license -- that's you -- gets dragged into an adventure which will have them meeting god and preventing the destruction of the world. However, it's that stellar kind of E-rated writing that makes you feel like the main character in a saturday morning cartoon, going on a grand adventure where you make friends and help people in need.
The game features a wide cast of lovable characters, each of which has a distinct personality and their own twists. This then feeds into the stakes of the narrative: it's easy, in games with grimdark and moody settings, to lose sight of your goals, of what your character is meant to be fighting for. Fantasy Life makes sure to show you how much good there is in Reveria before it shows the threat looming above it: it looks childish and is often very playful, but it's also really good at creating drama and tension when needed.
The quality of the main story was a nice surprise: I wasn't expecting that when I first started playing, but once it got going, it was one of the rare instances where I temporarily put aside all the side content in a game until I finished the main story, just to see how it would end. Another surprise was the excellent soundtrack, which was composed by Nobuo Uematsu, and it shows. The background music is phenomenal, and there are some vocal songs that play on special occasions that are a treat.
Fantasy Life is a truly remarkable experience: it stands as my favorite 3DS game, and it's criminal that, nearly ten years later, the closest thing we got for a sequel was a lousy mobile game. Should you choose to visit Reveria, be it brandishing a sword versus a giant dragon, swinging your hammer against the anvil, reeling in a fish or making a delicious omelet, your time is sure to be exciting.
Fantasy Life is an action RPG, and its premise is simple: You're a citizen of Castele, a kingdom in the magical land of Reveria, and time has come for you to choose your Life -- that is, your job. There are twelve Lifes to choose from, four of which are fighters (Paladin, Mercenary, Hunter and Magician) and eight of which are not (Miner, Angler, Woodcutter, Carpenter, Blacksmith, Alchemist, Cook and Tailor).
While Lives might sound like a fixed character class, it is but a transitory state: once you've gotten your license for your first Life -- essentially a tutorial -- and progressed a bit through the game, you're free to go back and get a license for another Life and swap between them whenever. And that's the beauty of the world of Fantasy Life: it's filled with quests and opportunities for every Life, and your approach to locations changes depending on which class you are currently.
More than that, while you can, theoretically, pick a Life and play through the entire game on it, the game actively discourages that sort of approach, instead making it so the work of a class is crucial for the success of another. A Blacksmith needs raw ore and wooden beams, the latter of which a Carpenter has to create from logs, but they, in turn, need fabric to fashion some of their furniture, which a Tailor can provide. Fighter classes can provide rare materials they collect from monsters, and benefit from improved gear that crafters can create.
Each Life has a rank, starting from Novice and moving all the way up to Legend. To increase one's rank, class-specific quests must be completed: Craft said item, kill said monsters, recover the wood from a special tree, find a specific mineral, and so on. These lists of quests are refreshed every time you move up a rank, and have you adventuring all over Reveria to get them done.
Reveria is an excellently realized game world. Some players call Fantasy Life "a single player MMO", which in some ways, it is, but crucially, it avoids the common trap amongst games with that tagline where the world is made large, sparse, and boring. Reveria is instead densely packed, filled with interesting places to visit, loot to collect and boons to find. The game rewards exploring on your own, as there's many locations the story alone will not show you through but that will benefit specific Lives.
Speaking of which, I love the story in Fantasy Life. It starts off a bit clichéd, as an unassuming adventurer fresh from obtaining their first Life license -- that's you -- gets dragged into an adventure which will have them meeting god and preventing the destruction of the world. However, it's that stellar kind of E-rated writing that makes you feel like the main character in a saturday morning cartoon, going on a grand adventure where you make friends and help people in need.
The game features a wide cast of lovable characters, each of which has a distinct personality and their own twists. This then feeds into the stakes of the narrative: it's easy, in games with grimdark and moody settings, to lose sight of your goals, of what your character is meant to be fighting for. Fantasy Life makes sure to show you how much good there is in Reveria before it shows the threat looming above it: it looks childish and is often very playful, but it's also really good at creating drama and tension when needed.
The quality of the main story was a nice surprise: I wasn't expecting that when I first started playing, but once it got going, it was one of the rare instances where I temporarily put aside all the side content in a game until I finished the main story, just to see how it would end. Another surprise was the excellent soundtrack, which was composed by Nobuo Uematsu, and it shows. The background music is phenomenal, and there are some vocal songs that play on special occasions that are a treat.
Fantasy Life is a truly remarkable experience: it stands as my favorite 3DS game, and it's criminal that, nearly ten years later, the closest thing we got for a sequel was a lousy mobile game. Should you choose to visit Reveria, be it brandishing a sword versus a giant dragon, swinging your hammer against the anvil, reeling in a fish or making a delicious omelet, your time is sure to be exciting.
LeonardoMF93
1 year ago