Going back to Fantasy Life after playing 35 hours of Rune Factory 4 makes me appreciate FL far more than I did before.
Haven’t heard much about Fantasy Life. What’s it like?
The art style isn’t anime, and it’s so adorable I love it! There’s neither farming nor relationships/marriage, but there are still named NPCs that drive the story. The story itself is very text-heavy, but there’s so much to do besides the main story. It’s been referred to “Baby Skyrim for a handheld” because you can play with friends if you want, but even if you don’t, it’s like an MMORPG without the MMO part. There’s tons of quests to complete, and there’s so much world to explore. The character creation is really robust and a total draw if you’re into that sort of thing; I know I am.
Like Rune Factory 4, there’s crafting, fishing, fighting/dungeons, pets, and harvesting. But there are 12 different jobs, or “lives” to choose from, and one goal besides the main story is to rank up in each life. You can still do things outside of the life you’re currently in, but your skills related to your life will be boosted while you’re in that life. So you can still mine while you’re an angler or paladin, but you won’t harvest as much ore as you would if you were in the miner life.
BUT, you can switch lives any time you want! So you can be an angler to get fish for your chef life, be a miner and a woodcutter to get ore and wood for your blacksmith life, and then craft awesome weapons and armor as a blacksmith for your paladin and/or mercenary lives.
And it’s just really cute and really lighthearted and I think you should try it! (And it’s made by Level 5, so if you like any of their other stuff you should love Fantasy Life, too!)
Here’s a link to a review/description that does better justice than my poor summary.
