Link to the Wikia – First Impression article
And the award for the most generic title goes to… Fantasy Life… Wait, what? I’m copying my buddy’s latest article title and making my own joke out of it? Oh, sorry, I’m sure he won’t mind. I have been delaying this review again and again. But after nearly putting 75 hours into this game, I think it’s fair for me to review it. While I haven’t completed it 100%, I am already far beyond the point of beating the full game and the DLC story. So, without me reading the first impression article, this is the taste this game left in my month. As usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion of the content of this article and/or this game.
Story time
So, one of the weakest points of this game is the story, apart from the DLC story. But don’t read me wrong: the story is solid, and the characters are memorable. The huge issue is that thanks to the 12 different paths you can take, there are so many. Too much even for my young brain to remember. On the other hand, this makes each life unique with different characters and personalities.
The main story is a bit generic. It stands out in its writing, though. That’s extremely well done. People would easily skip over the story since it’s one you have experienced before: save the world. Yet, when you actually take the time to enjoy the story, you will be pleasantly surprised with its well done execution.
This is one of the first Level5 games I played where there is no voice acting. Well, apart from the few grunts from enemies, but I can’t comment on that.
So, let’s move on to the DLC. It truly expands on the main game nicely. It even adds more story and expands the game in nearly every area. The DLC is truly worth it, because the story alone has such a perfect ending, it actually touched me and made me laugh. Just the way how it’s written… Amazing.
All right, enough said about the story of this game. Let’s dive right into the other parts of this game. First, the sound design and music.
Just that
The music and sound design is good. Just that. Good. It isn’t bad, nor is it great. It helps to immerse yourself into the game, but I don’t see myself listening to the soundtrack on my mobile any time soon.
While I think Level5 generally makes great scores for their games, some tracks got annoying to me. “The theme of intrigue” is an example of a track I don’t like. While the “Theme of Courage” is such an amazing track and really hyped me up.
Also, the enemies don’t have a distinct cry. Well, not all. And in my mind, this is a huge issue. Some enemies start to feel bland, generic and cut-outs. Some enemies have some nice sound effects, but not enough.
For the sound design or music, it isn’t worth it to get yourself a headset to enjoy it. As I said earlier, it’s good, but it won’t be memorable. Some tracks are catchy, and I remember some battles, but that mostly wasn’t because of the sound and music design. It helped, but it wasn’t the most important factor.
The design of this game is something that is actually really well done. Apart from one major issue, I will talk about later.
The game world looked bright and colorful or dark and gloomy when it needs to be. They give off the right atmosphere and the areas are pretty well crafted. The animation looks crisp and neatly done. Some could argue that due to the overload of dialogue, some voice acting would benefit the game, but the animation does such a nice job that the voice acting isn’t really needed.
So, about that major issue I had with the design. Well, it is something I feel really mixed about. Visually, it looks lazy… but game design wise, it is a great move. Some enemies, like the spirits, return in various area’s, but they have just a different color. Looks lazy right? But on the other hand, in some lives, you get the quest to kill a certain amount of some enemy. This makes finding that enemy in later area’s much easier.
Oh, and one minor design flaw is that it’s sometimes really tricky to read an enemy’s name. Because if you come too close, the target marker pops up above their head.
The other parts
So, in my first impression, I think I touch upon the controls. They are quite well done. Apart from the mercenaries’ life. They are quite flawed. It’s really unclear how you pull off certain moves in that life. Sadly enough, you need to do them in order to finish that life. “Press 4 times A”. Ehrm, I tried it, and I wasn’t always able to pull off that move.
I still find it very remarkable that they made such a neat looking and easy to understand interface to display while you have some much content to offer. A nitpick I have is that the bounty clerks are sometimes too far apart.
The main story and the DLC story will take you around 15–20 hours to complete. Nice length. But the game can be a lot longer than that! You won’t be able to complete each and every life in even double the time. I have played this game for over 60 hours and I only fully completed one life.
The difficulty of this game is decent. While some area’s present some challenge, I barely died in this game. The game is also very forgiving in that regard. When you die, you can either revive (if you have a Life Cure) or go back to the nearest check point, or go home. You lose nothing. Also, when you are trying to mine a major gem later in the miner’s life… When you run out of SP, you can stop mining and drink some potions. When you then continue to mine the gem, the gem didn’t heal enough to lose that much of your progress. You aren’t able to do that in the fishing life, and that’s one of my other nitpicks.
Before I wrap up this review, let’s talk about some of my other nitpicks. One is that some lives play similar to each other. While they are different and require a different play style, they can give off the same vibe. Mainly the crafting lives, they are all quick time event based. The animation is different, but the core mechanic isn’t.
Talking about crafting lives, the menu system is a bit flawed here. You aren’t able to see your quests when you start working.
The next nitpick is one that annoys the heck out of me. Certain lives have a dedicated shop. Like the carpenter and the woodcutter have a dedicated shop. But when you want to craft all the carpenter items, they won’t sell all those items in that shop. This means that you run around sometimes to get each and every item.
The next nitpick I have is that Flutter and your pets can only be accessed in one house: your starter house. Maybe I haven’t unlocked it through the bliss system, but I don’t think you will be able too.
So, the game is a nice experience but flawed. It’s really addictive and hard to put down for the people who enjoy these kinds of games. But it lacks some polish. That also shows in the map. You can’t control the map at all. You can have an overview of the map, but you can’t see where all the shops are located.
Well, I think I talked about everything I wanted to talk about in this review. Time to wrap this one up.
Conclusion
The bad:
– While the writing is excellent, the story is one we have seen in different games a million times over. (Apart from the DLC one)
– The music and sound could have been done better.
– The game is overall too easy.
– The lack of bounty clerks in some areas.
– Some small issues can hinder the experience and make it irritating.
The good:
+ Amazing visual world.
+ 12 different play styles to enjoy.
+ You can switch class when you want.
+ Very neat UI.
+ The character creation has a lot of features.
+ The animation is extremely well done.
+ Addictive.
+ …
Conclusion
So, is this game worth playing? If you enjoy games like Harvest Moon, Tomodachi Life or anything similar, odds are you feel right at home here.
The characters are memorable, but they suffer from a weak(ish) story. The writing is funny and won’t get boring, but they also suffer from the weak story.
This game lacks some polish. While the game has a lot of polish in certain area’s, not every part of this game has been polished enough. This is one game that could have benefited from a bit more development time.
Be warned when you play or start playing this game, it’s difficult to put down. I haven’t played many other games for over a month because I wasn’t able to stop playing this game. It truly took me be surprise how fun it can be.
I love this game, I think it’s near perfection. But the reviewer side of my character disagrees and sees the flaws in this game. It isn’t perfect, but it’s near its finest form.
So, that wraps up my review of this game. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. (and playing the game in order to write this review.) And I hope to meet you another time here on my blog, but until then: take care and game on~
Score: 85/100
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