Fantasy Life

Fantasy Life[lower-alpha 2] is a role-playing life simulation game developed and published by Level-5 for the Nintendo 3DS. The game was released in Japan in 2012, and was released worldwide by Nintendo in 2014.

Fantasy Life
North American cover art
Developer(s)Level-5[lower-alpha 1]
Publisher(s)Nintendo
  • JP: Level-5
Director(s)Atsushi Kanno
Producer(s)Akihiro Hino
Artist(s)Takuzou Nagano
Writer(s)Akihiro Hino
Composer(s)Nobuo Uematsu
Platform(s)Nintendo 3DS
Release
  • JP: 27 December 2012
  • EU: 26 September 2014
  • AU: 27 September 2014
  • NA: 24 October 2014
Genre(s)Role-playing, life simulation

Plot

The game is set in the fantasy world of Reveria, which is made up of several cities, plains, and mountains. Its rulers spend their days ruling over their citizens and guiding them in their Life paths. One day this peaceful state is shattered when a strange, purple meteorite, falls into the house of the player, setting off a chain of events foretold in an ancient prophecy involving Reveria's goddess and the moon Lunares.

The player is asked by King Erik of the land of Castele to investigate these strange occurrences, as the meteorites, later dubbed Doomstones by the world's inhabitants, have the ability to fill creatures with dark, destructive energy. They are joined in this quest by a glowing butterfly that has the ability to speak. As the game progresses, the butterfly reveals that her real name and form is Yuelia, the daughter of Celestia, whom the people of Reveria worship as the Life Goddess.

They soon discover that the Doomstones are chunks of a dome that surrounds Reveria that has been slowly falling apart. This had happened in the past once before, but was stopped by Celestia, at the cost of her never being able to return to Lunares. Yuelia and her sister Noelia, discover that the only way to save the world is to gather the wishes of as many people as possible and take them up to Lunares, where those wishes will restore the dome completely. The player and the two sisters manage to successfully travel to Lunares, but soon find out that they do not have enough wishes to restore the dome. Yuelia, becoming content with her Life on Reveria, wishes that she never has to leave. With that final wish, the end of the world is averted and Reveria is saved once again, ending the main story.

Gameplay

Fantasy Life is a role-playing life simulation game, in which players can choose from any of the twelve jobs known as "life classes".[1][2] Gameplay centers upon the player taking on various tasks given to them and choosing one of twelve Life classes.[3][2] Upon achieving various goals such as completing tasks in the game, buying a new house, or decorating said house, players will gain "Bliss points" that will unlock additional features like larger storage, or the ability to expand your home.[4] Players are able to customize several aspects of their character.[5]

As the game progresses players have the ability to unlock several new areas,[6] as well as playable characters that can join them on their journey and help them fight monsters. Playable characters include King Erik's daughter Laura and Port Puerto governess Olivia, as well as several Life class specific characters that will unlock after the player has reached a certain class level.

Players choose from one of twelve classes,[7] each of which has its own "Life Master" that will assign tasks and award points to the player, allowing them to rank up within their Life. Each rank gives the player the ability to perform additional tasks and will give Life bonuses (additional vital stat points and abilities) to the player. As the player masters each Life class they gain the ability to more easily produce and access materials on their own, as opposed to purchasing them via a storefront. Players can level up through the ranks of each life class; starting out as a Fledgling and ending with the Legend rank. If the player has the Origin Island DLC, a new rank called the Creator (or God in Europe) rank is added.

Reception

Critical reception for Fantasy Life was mostly positive. The game holds a rating of 73 on Metacritic based on 51 reviews, signifying average reviews. Megan Sullivan of IGN awarded the game with 8/10, stating that it "is a fun blend of life simulation and RPG" and that it "offers a cornucopia of activities to do".[8] Conversely, Polygon's Griffin McElroy said that it is "more mundane than fantastic."[10] In April 2013, Level-5 revealed that the game had sold over 300,000 copies in Japan.[12]

McElroy criticized the games battling mechanics, saying that they "require almost no strategy" and that "even the game’s toughest foes can be easily outwitted; every enemy has an invisible boundary they’ll never move past, so defeating any enemy is as easy as hitting them, running to the boundary and repeating".[10]

Jeuxvideo's Kaaraj praised the games cutscenes, but criticized the game for only having a few of them.[9]

The game's story was criticized by several reviewers, with McElroy saying that it might be its "most repetitive element", IGN's Sullivan claiming that it "has pacing issues", and Destructoid's Brittany Vincent noting that "the beginning of the game is riddled with JRPG narrative tropes"; however, Eurogamer's Simon Parkin praised the games story, calling it "witty".[10][1][4][3] USgamer's Jeremy Parish noted several similarities between Fantasy Life's story and the story of Dragon Quest IX.[11]

Sequel

The game was re-released, titled Fantasy Life Link!, in Japan on 25 July 2013.[13] New features include online play with friends, a rise in level cap, additional quests, and the ability to take screenshots, among others. The international version of Fantasy Life included all the additional content of Link!, with the exception of the Origin Island DLC.

In April 2015, Level-5 revealed a sequel titled Fantasy Life 2: Two Moons and the Village of God, which was originally set for release on Android and iOS devices in 2016.[14][15] The game was later renamed Fantasy Life Online, and suffered numerous delays over a period of three years, which pushed its release back to July 23, 2018, where it garnered over two million downloads in Japan within two weeks.[16]

References
  1. Sullivan, Meghan (23 October 2014). "Fantasy Life Review". IGN. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
  2. "Fantasy Life - Life Classes". fantasylife.nintendo.com. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  3. Parkin, Simon. "Fantasy Life review". Eurogamer. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
  4. Vincent, Brittany. "Review: Fantasy Life". Destructoid. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
  5. Jenni (17 October 2014). "My Fantasy Life: I Spent A Half Hour Making "Me"". Siliconera. Archived from the original on 26 May 2019. Retrieved 26 May 2019.
  6. Wilson, Aoife (6 November 2014). "Fantasy Life Review". GameSpot. Archived from the original on 30 May 2019. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  7. "Official Site - Fantasy Life for Nintendo 3DS". fantasylife.nintendo.com. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  8. "Fantasy Life 3DS". Metacritic. Retrieved 2 December 2014.
  9. Kaaraj (19 September 2014). "Test : Fantasy Life". Jeuxvideo.com. Archived from the original on 26 May 2019. Retrieved 26 May 2019.
  10. McElroy, Griffin (28 November 2014). "Fantasy Life review: Dead end job". Polygon. Archived from the original on 26 May 2019. Retrieved 26 May 2019.
  11. Parish, Jeremy (23 October 2014). "Fantasy Life 3DS Review: An MMO RPG That's Not Particularly Massive, Multiplayer, or Online". USgamer. Archived from the original on 28 June 2019. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  12. "Level-5 Confirm 300,000 Copies Of Fantasy Life Sold To Date". GamesLatestNews. Retrieved 10 April 2013.
  13. "FANTASY LIFE LINK!". level5ia.com. Retrieved 26 March 2014.
  14. "Fantasy Life 2 landing on smartphones in 2015". Made For Gaming. April 7, 2015.
  15. "Fantasy Life 2 Delayed Until 2016, Will Get A Beta Phase This Winter". Siliconera. Retrieved 1 September 2015.
  16. Sato. "Fantasy Life Online Reaches 2 Million Downloads". Siliconera. Retrieved 20 September 2018.
  1. Assistance by Brownie Brown and h.a.n.d.
  2. ファンタジーライフ (Fantajī Raifu)
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