Aug 182014
In the final part of my overview of E3 2014, I mentioned a game I was very happy to see receive a localization announcement, one of the games I already pre-ordered, Fantasy Life.
Fantasy Life is a role-playing game for the 3DS. It was developed by Level-5, the creators of the Professor Layton series (among others, like Dark Cloud and Ni No Kuni). Development was aided by 1-UP Studio (previously Brownie Brown, which worked on Mother 3, Sword of Mana, Magical Starsign, Layton’s London Life, Super Mario 3D Land, among others) and h.a.n.d. (Final Fantasy Fables, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, and The World Ends With You Solo Remix, among others). Nintendo is the publisher. Nobuo Uematsu is handling the music, which is awesome.
We’ve got an interesting crew behind this, then. Fantasy Life’s graphics just scream “Level-5” at me, and the trailers suggest it will have the same sort of charm common to their games. 1-UP seems to have a knack for cooperating with other developers on small RPGs. While it’s by no means the biggest name in their history, they also worked on London Life, the small RPG included with Professor Layton and the Last Specter in the Japanese and North American versions.
London Life was described from the start as a test for the framework of Level-5’s upcoming Fantasy Life. Even though life sims aren’t really my thing, London Life’s RPG nature and use of Layton characters won me over, so I was interested in Fantasy Life from the start. (Another one? Do I need to reconsider an entire genre?)
h.a.n.d., meanwhile, seems to work with small/spin-off RPGs and co-develop more major RPGs.
Fantasy Life isn’t a major RPG on the scale of Final Fantasy, but it isn’t a mild adventure in a city like Layton’s London Life. What exactly is it?
Maybe the announcement trailer will help. At the very least, it will remind you who the composer is and show you those adorably Layton-esque graphics.
In Fantasy Life, you choose a class, or “life,” which gives you certain skills and bonuses. You’ll be able to switch to a new one if you want to, while keeping skills from the previous ones. This is reminiscent of Job systems from Final Fantasy, expanded to involve the life sim elements as well as combat.
You also fight monsters and engage in traditional RPG activities.
A new trailer was released today, so let’s take a look. Note, Fantasy Life releases on October 24 in North America. The September 26 date given in this trailer is for Europe.
This trailer shows more of the lives and gameplay, and highlights how switching between different lives works.
It also emphasizes that you will “explore Reveria far and wide,” making it clear this isn’t life London Life where you have a single city to deal with. Exploration is fantastic. I hope it isn’t open world, but I’m afraid it will be. (Update: it isn’t.)
This trailer reminds us of the more epic RPG aspect by suggesting you’ll save the world. It also shows a decidedly Layton-esque creepy tower. Then it focuses on multiplayer, which is great, but doesn’t really matter a lot to me.
If this were Professor Layton, I’d bet it moves, too.
Now, Fantasy Life has been out in Japan since December 2012, so there are more details out there if you dig around. It has a plot with party members and new areas, although there are so many things to do on the side, it’s easy to be distracted from it. You don’t have to play as the combat classes if you prefer not to fight, so it’s actually possible to complete the story without battling.
I really couldn’t find solid details on what the story is, other than “charming.” However, there are a ton of quests and sidequests, and enough stuff to drive completionists to madne–uh, keep completionists busy for a while.
So, what do you think? Do you plan to play Fantasy Life this October?