Review: Fantasy Life

Thanks to an accident involving a knife, I haven't been able to do much gaming or writing this week. However, I did have an old review sitting around so hopefully this will hold everyone over until I heal. Enjoy!

Fantasy Life has allowed me to live as a noble Paladin, a Woodcutter, an Alchemist and everything in between. In the past week I have slayed monsters, gone fishing, grilled lamb, mined gold and chopped down trees. I have been a very busy man, but as the saying goes; jack of all trades, master of none.

Starting Your Journey

Starting Your Journey The guiding principal behind Fantasy Life is to allow you to live out a career within a fantasy world setting, so it should be no surprise that you'll get to customize your avatar. Gender, hair, stature and many more can all be modified allowing for a great deal of customization. After selecting your look you'll be tasked with picking your starting Life. With 12 in total to choose from, picking the initial Life can be a bit paralysing. Don't worry, should you choose a Life that doesn't appeal to you later, you'll be able to change careers after completing the opening tutorial.

I seem to have forgot my pants...

The opening tutorial is a thorough introduction to your chosen Life and the world in general. Here you'll meet others who share in your new found Life and you'll be introduced to the immediate surroundings of Castele. You'll also been shown how your current Life operates as each Life has to fulfil various requirements before it can be ranked up. Whether it's slaying monsters or brewing potions, you'll be shown what needs to be done in your given Life.

Though the explanation of how to perform in your new Life is appreciated it has a tendency to run a bit long. Thanks to the ridiculous amount of required reading and the all of the running around it can take nearly an hour before you're finally let off the leash to explore and practice your craft without interruption.

The Sky is Falling (Literally)
The big problem facing the world of Reveria is the recent introduction of something called “doom stones” which appear to be falling from the sky. It's not long after completing the tutorial before you (the ever-silent protagonist) and the (super talkative) Butterfly are wrapped up in the kingdom's impending apocalypse thanks to one of these stones crashing into your apartment. Once the story gets moving you'll find yourself working for the King of Castele in an attempt to make peace with the neighbouring kingdoms and tracking down long lost treasures that can be hopefully used to save the world.

Butterfly does all the talking

The biggest problem with the story is there is no central bad guy. The people of Reveria are a helpful and good-natured lot who are always eager to help you. With no main bad guy the story looks for ways to build tension and mystery that don't really work or have any sort of payoff. You'll never find yourself squaring off against some giant monster responsible for things going wrong. Instead you'll run from waypoint to waypoint and be forced to sit through one lengthy text dump after the next. The reason for this does make sense because you don't have to choose a Life capable of combat. And as there's no guarantee that your character can fight, the game bends over backwards to make combat almost entirely avoidable and what little stands in your way can be done using the weakest weapon.

Though the story itself might be weak, the characters are not. Thanks to some excellent writing, each character is fleshed out with a distinct personality. From the tomboy-ish princess to the mailman acting out his sports fantasies, there is a ton of personality found in every character. The amount of colour each of these characters bring to the story can sometimes be enough to help you overlook some of the more glaring issues found in the plot.

Living Your Life
Once you've completed the opening tutorial you are free to change your Life at anytime (provided you aren't in the middle of a story mission). Life jobs can be broken down into 3 categories; combat, collection and creation. Combat consists of Paladins, Hunters, Mercenaries and Wizards. Collection is made up of Woodcutters, Miners and Anglers. And creation includes Blacksmiths, Carpenters, Cooks, Tailors and Alchemists.

Gone fishin'

As was mentioned earlier, each Life has various tasks that must be completed before they can be levelled up to the next rank. Paladins and the like achieve ranks by mostly hunting monsters, turning in rare monster bounties and using their various special attacks. Miners, Woodcutters and Anglers all gain additional ranks from collecting various materials exclusive to their profession. And finally, Tailors and such improve by creating various outfits, weapons and meals. Occasionally new tasks can be unlocked by talking to people who share the same Life, these can range from something mundane as collecting apples to hunting down an especially ferocious monsters or even rarer bounties.

Money Makes the World Go Round
As you progress through your adventure it'll become immediately obvious that dosh (Reveria's form of currency) is going to be essential to what ever Life you have decided to pick. Those looking to fight monsters are going to rely on buying the newest gear and maintaining a stock of potions to replenish their HP and SP. The Blacksmiths and other creators are going to rely on raw materials to make their various goods. The only classes that aren't seriously hampered by money are the ones out gathering. With the costs of rods, axes and pickaxes being relatively cheap, the collection classes easily turn a profit if they're just looking to sell whatever they cart back to town.

Dosh can also be used to buy things that aren't necessary at all. There is tons of clothing that offers little to no defence and is primarily used for customizing your avatar to your liking. There are also various homes around the world that can be purchased for insane amounts of money, but they do offer free fast travel to their location, so having a home in every city can be quite beneficial. Also, you can decorate your home with furniture (Animal Crossing style) as well as changing the walls and floors to better suit your tastes.

Time to decorate!

As well as dosh, you'll also be collecting bliss. Bliss is acquired as you complete milestones in your life such as mastering a particular Life or as you progress through the story. As you gain bliss, you'll have the opportunity to purchase various bonuses that will affect the game. Some bonuses let you to purchase pets while others expand vendor inventories letting them sell rare materials.

Fighting, Fishing and Fashion
If you choose the Life of a Paladin or one of the other combat-centric lifestyles, be prepared for a LOT of combat. Everywhere outside of town is filled with monsters. Levelling up or accomplishing tasks to increase your rank is pretty simple if you take the time to kill everything you come across. A problem with combat is it's absurdly easy for a majority of the game. Enemies are predictable and circle-strafing around them is guaranteed to avoid most attacks. Even in the later areas of the game enemies are still predictable, but combat does become more difficult thanks to the monsters dealing more damage, regularly inflicting status ailments (such as poison or paralysis) and having more of them on-screen. Another issue with combat is the lock-on, the automatic lock-on has a tendency to pick targets at random and tapping the Y button to cycle targets in a crowd doesn't always go where logic dictates it should, as the lock-on has a tendency to target monsters that are far away and not the ones that pose an immediate threat.

I just wanted to go fishing and he got in my way!

Miners, Woodcutters and Anglers are quite similar to their fighting brethren, but instead of hunting down monsters, they're tasked with finding ore veins, trees or fishing spots. Like the combat classes Miners, Woodcutters and Anglers all have their own “weapons”. Miners get pickaxes, Woodcutters carry axes and Anglers have fishing rods. These can be used to "attack" the points of interest and as ranks are gained, special attacks are unlocked which can deal greater damage and yield better rewards. The nice touch with these classes is there are even special “boss fights” with especially rare ores, trees and fish complete with boss fight music to make and otherwise mundane encounter seem very intense.

Alchemists, Blacksmiths, Carpenters, Cooks and Tailors are at the bottom of the Life pyramid, not because they are the least useful (in fact, quite opposite), but because they take everything collected from the other classes and create various wares. The process for making these various items is the same across all disciplines. After the required ingredients are gathered they need to be taken to the appropriate workshop. Once there, a recipe will be selected and you'll need to participate in a mini-game to create the item. Tapping A as fast as possible, tapping A with the correct timing and holding A will need to be performed in the correct order to complete the task. Sadly, these mini-games never change throughout the entire game, and only end up having to be performed for longer periods of time for more “difficult” recipes. It's a shame that with the touch screen at their disposal Level 5 couldn't think up more interesting mini-games unique to each discipline.

Returning to town with bounties in tow.

That Familiar Level 5 Look
The fact Level 5 can make a good-looking game should come as a surprise to no one and here they have managed to push the 3DS quite well with its vision of Reveria. With environments like beaches, forests, mountains, workshops, castles and plenty more there is a ton of variety. With bushes and bricks, sand and shore and all other manner of detail found throughout the world, places feel full and lively without ever becoming cluttered. The characters receive the same amount of love the world does too. From the miniature King, to the towering Odin, a lot of attention went into making the characters standout from one another. Even telling unimportant characters from one another is quite easy thanks to the amount of variety. The one issue with all this work being done is that you never really get a chance to appreciate it – the camera is locked at a nearly perpetual 3/4 angle and can only be rotated slightly. With the camera only changing position in very few instances it seriously limits how much you can see of the world and its citizens.

Occasionally while running around the world and completing quests in the main story line you'll be treated to movies showing off various characters and environments of the world. These look fantastic (in 3D or 2D) and really makes me wish there were more of them placed throughout the game. However, thanks to the story telling, they're rarely used to accent important moments, but instead used to show off the world and characters you'll eventually meet in your travels.

Avast!

A Pleasant Tune
Other than the occasional yell or grunt, characters in Fantasy Life are silent and that's just fine. Thanks to the silent characters the music is pushed to the front where it belongs. This is some of the best work from Nobuo Uematsu in recent years, he is on fire. There are haunting tunes in the forests, relaxing music in the cities and so much more. With some 50+ songs there is a great deal of variety that helps make every location come alive. It's been a while since I've come across such a wonderful soundtrack, the music has a deceptive simplicity that reminds me of older music found on the Nintendo and Super Nintendo, but produced with greater quality.The music here is absolutely fantastic and you owe it to yourself to listen to the soundtrack even if you don't end up picking up the game.

Dastardly DLC
Along with the main quest there is also the Origin Island expansion pack DLC. For $8.99 you will expand the amount of stuff you can do. However, Origin Island can only be accessed at the end of the main game and only after your character reaches level 50.

8.99 is a bit steep

Though the barrier of entry seems a bit high, you'll probably be very close to level 50 if you've taken any time to improve multiple Life ranks along with progressing through the main story. And once you've made your way to Origin Island you'll encounter monsters that make the original batch of enemies seem downright pathetic. Combat on Origin Island is brutal and unlike the main game, the monsters aren't removed from your path when following the story. You'll be grateful you're level 50 when fighting some of the new additions. Later Life tasks that pit you against the monsters of Origin Island are also some of the most intense combat experiences in the game as well.

The Origin Island expansion features another story for you to experience, but much like the main game it is a simple affair. You and Butterfly are once again mixed up in the middle of an impending catastrophe, this time featuring a family's spat that could have dire consequences for all of the inhabitants of Origin Island. Though there is a bit of a mystery involved, nothing of any consequence is uncovered and all of the island's problems are solved via last minute deus ex machina. It's a shame the story telling fails to change things up, especially when the combat is no longer pulling its punches.

The story is short and the island itself is a little small, but the DLC offers a few improvements for the rest of the game. Firstly, it raises the level and stats cap for your character. Secondly, it opens up additional property to be purchased in different location throughout the world. And thirdly, it allows for additional ranks to be achieved in any given Life. These might not be much, but they do offer a lot more playtime for those who are interested in spending more time in the world of Reveria. I just don't think the DLC is worth the price of admission, but I might change my mind if it were to ever go on sale.

Jack of All Trades, Master of None
Fantasy Life is an ambitious game, but it fails to deliver completely in any one aspect. The story is weak, the combat becomes boring and the crafting mini-games quickly become repetitive. This is all very shocking, because in the past Level-5 have delivered some truly interesting stories and have also offered some great takes on both turn-based and real-time combat. I was instantly hooked by the music and visuals, but when it came to actually getting into the game I found there was a lack of substance. Game play feels like it's waiting for that last coat of polish to finally shine.

Verdict: I recommend this only for the true die-hard Level-5 fans or those looking to unwind in a stress-free environment.