BUY.
I'll go ahead and say upfront that I haven't finished this game yet; I'm going to, definitely, but I need to get a review up for this game before Christmas 2016. Not knocking the game -- it's just so addicting, even if I complete it a few times, I'll likely want to keep replaying it!
This is a "feel good" game, it's not very punishing, if at all, and the art style is disarming. The game just wants you to enjoy playing it, and enjoy videogames for the sake of being videogames, and I love it for that. I really, really do.
To start things off -- the story is very long-winded. If you're not a fan of reading, you might just want to mash A until the next scene comes along. I personally wouldn't do that because the humor in the game is FANTASTIC, but boy there sure are a lot of words. I can easily see why it took so long to localize this game -- it's almost a book. Having said that though, it's still hilarious. The king often behaves how I'd imagine the typical player would, very disinterested in the conversation and the politics of the system, being far more interested in adventures and action. The characters are memorable, and they slowly grow on you as you progress through the story. You start to actually CARE about these little people, and you actually want to help them.
Nothing super bad actually happens (up to the point I'm at in the story, I just entered Al Maajik) but the story sure does lead you to believe there's something sinister going on behind the scenes. It makes you think that a certain character is going to stab you in the back -- then goes "NAH, Just kidding!" and it turns out the whole thing was just a misunderstanding. It really looks you dead in the eyes, and says, "It's ok, just enjoy yourself, this is a happy fantasy world of love and adventure, it's not The Last Of Us." and that kinda sets the tone for the rest of the game. You just .. experience it. You stop worrying so much about having to protect your heart from the imminent DUN DUN DUN PLOT TWIST, and you just laugh and love the experience. It's so nice to play a game that just wants you to be happy.
The combat in the game actually pretty incredible considering how simplistic the system is. For melee, you time your attacks, while sometimes holding Up on the circle stick, and that lets you perform different combos and attacks. All of the 4 combat classes have normal attacks (mapped to A), charged normal attacks (hold A), special attacks (hold X), and then when you unlock it later in the game, a unique mystical attack when you've filled up a gauge (press X when your class icon is full, it'll change the special attack to an icon of a little sun) and it's unique for each class (even the crafting classes unlock this down the line, however only the gathering classes can use theirs in-field. The crafters just get to skip portions of the crafting mini-game.)
Archers have a similar timing system, though not as complex as the melee; however I did find myself pulling off a combo at expert rank that I haven't seen before, and I have no idea how to replicate it. You also have different types of "arrows", that you fire by charging your normal attack. You have a Poison arrow, a Sleep Arrow, and a Stun Arrow, all of which are self explanatory. You swap between the different arrows by having your weapon out, and pressing up, down, left or right on the D-Pad.
The magic class is in a league of it's own in depth, however; each element performs a different function, and charging it performs yet another different function from that.
- Fire is your basic damage spells, with the normal attack being a fireball, and the special attack being a "flamethrower".
- Ice changes things up, with normal ice being a single iceball, charged normal being a "ice shotgun", and the special attack being a "ice rain" on the targeted area.
- Winds normal attack is a straight line of air hurting enemies in its path, with the charged normal being a tornado. The charged attack is similar to Ice's charged attack, however its pure lightning instead of Ice, and it's my personal favorite visually.
- Earth is your healing ability, with the normal version healing you alone, and the charged version being a "area" heal for your allies/pets.
You can initially use any of the weapons (and by extension, skill sets) of any of the combat classes in a crafting class, but as you progress through the story it begins to become more specialized, with stronger version of weapons being specific to the combat class itself, while a slightly weaker version can be used on a few other crafting classes as well.
You can change between the classes at will, (called Lifes) once you unlock them at the guildhall. You can do this almost right off the bat once you start the game, if you so choose; you are given the option of completing a tutorial quest when you start a new life (after reporting to the proper master) but you're given the option to skip it completely and just unlock the life. After that, you can simply tap the map icon on the bottom screen, warp to the guild, and change your class to any of the classes you've unlocked at will. It's incredibly convenient, and while I would've liked being able to swap on the fly, they restricted the system to prevent abuse. Probably the least "casual friendly" thing about the game, IMO.
When you're in a "life", you have a set of challenges. Each challenge rewards you with Stars, and once you earn enough stars you "rank up". You also have individual skills for your crafting, which will increase the quality of items you produce. Initially, there are 4 tiers of quality - Normal, Good, Great, and Top. I've heard that at the much higher ranks of crafting (God/Creator) you can create even higher quality items, but I haven't gotten that far yet! Increase the quality of items increases their stats, or if it's a furniture item, it increases the sell value of it.
The challenges are pretty normal things, asking you to craft things you'd otherwise normally craft for yourself throughout the progression of the game, but the combat classes have an interesting caveat: certain challenges ask you to turn in a bounty, so you simply just have to slay the monster, collect the bounty, head to the guild, change to the proper class, and then turn in the bounty.
The beauty of challenges is that for the most part, you don't even have to be in that specified class to complete them. The combat classes often have very specific challenges, telling you to slay X number of enemies as that class, but the gathering classes let you complete the challenges while you're in a completely different class. You'll often lose the benefit of being able to use your charge gauge skill, and you don't get the stat benefits of being in that specific life, but if you're wandering around exploring, slaying monsters for their items to make those really cool shoes you want, and you just happen to gather and complete challenges to rank up your mining class in the process? Sounds good to me!
"What's a bounty?" you ask, the flow of information spewing from my mouth increasing by the second. Certain enemies, will have a little silver or gold crown in front of their name. When you slay these enemies, they drop their normal loot, but they also become a wooden, iron, or golden "crate", that you interact with to get it to follow you around. You can't fast travel when you have a bounty following you, or you'll lose it, and if you fight or try to dash while you have a bounty, you'll "drop" it. If you manage to drag the bounty all the way to a bounty clerk though (they're scattered very commonly throughout the maps, thankfully) he'll "buy" it from you, and you'll get an additional item (with a chance for the item to be very rare. I ended up with a very very strong pickaxe very early in the game because of this!)
Of course enemies aren't the only source of bounties, and special crafting nodes themselves will drop bounties. They won't have a crown infront of their name, but it'll be very obvious (when you see a floating tree in the forest, it's pretty clear that it's not your average tree) and they will often reward you with a rare material, but very rarely they can also grant very rare items as well.
I didn't really touch on the house customization aspect of the game, because it's pretty simplistic. You choose a wallpaper, a floor tiling, and then decorate with some furniture and decorations. The number of house decorations is pretty limited, but it's still a nice touch to an already incredibly deep and fun game. I'd like to point out that some of the "floors" you can select are actually interactive, too. I have a "water" floor for my house on the coast, and when I walk on it, it behaves like water.. It's truly as if my floor is water, instead of just being a bland wallpaper, which I thought was a very nice touch.
I almost forgot to talk about the Bliss system in the game, as well! Man, this game just has mountains of things going on at all times. The Bliss system is used primarily for the story, as a method of issuing you "challenges" to guide you where you should be; however when you achieve specific goals, you also earn "bliss", which is essentially a second currency to the "stars". Once you earn enough "bliss", you talk to the butterfly, and you get to choose from a long list of perks, including increasing your bag space, increasing your storage space (VERY handy, because you can just stash all your materials in storage, and then craft without having to cart them around!) giving new inventory to shopkeepers (VERY very useful), being able to rent horses, and other mounts (and eventually own your own), unlocking new options like a hairdresser, a flower that lets you dye your clothes, a fairy that sells items you can only find at her store, and other benefits like that.
Bliss is pretty easy to earn; you can obviously obtain it by completing story missions, but also doing things like ranking up your lifes, making allies, sleeping in a inn, talking to people, just about anything you do earns you bliss, and it's fantastic. You never feel like you aren't progressing SOMETHING in fantasy life, which is just FANTASTIC.
To finally wrap up this very, very long review, I'll go over the crafting system in detail. When you approach a specific workbench, you'll be given the option to craft, or check your challenges (which is very handy). You're then taken to a menu where you have a few tabs of items (armors, weapons, misc., potions, etc.) and a list of items you can craft under each tab. It's incredibly convenient, and it shows you exactly what you need, and how much you need of each item, with it's full name. You can browse the item and see what stat benefits it may have, it's defense, what classes can use it, all of it, as if you actually had the item. It's fantastic.
Crafting itself is a minigame. Each crafting lifes's game is pretty similar, however there are a few oddballs, (tailoring specifically has two "Press A as the circle moves over the center" and one "Mash A" game, but I'll go over that in detail soon.) When you begin crafting, you have a limited amount of time, and 3 "stations" you move between by pressing left or right on the d-pad. There's a little window in the bottom left of the screen that tells you what you should be using, and what you'll be using next. (If you're unfamiliar with what each station is though -- don't worry! A big "A" button appears over the appropriate station) and you have to perform 1 of 3 actions. One of them is a timing challenge - You have to press "A" just as this circle moves over the big "A" button on a bar. It sounds challenging, but it's actually one of the best I feel, because your success with that minigame is determined solely by how well you do, and not your character stats. The second minigame is "mash A", which is pretty straightforward. The third is "hold A until the bar fills up" which is also pretty straightforward.
My only gripe about the latter 2 minigames is that the progress bar is determined on your characters stats, and filling up the bar as fast as possible will lead to a "Great!", which is what you want to see pop up because you're aiming to do as good as possible, in order to assure a top, or great quality item. The strength of your crafting tool, and your characters stats determine how "easy" the item is crafted, with high enough stats you'd spend maybe 5 seconds creating an item, with low stats and a high enough level item, it could take you up to 1 minute.
This can be alleviated, however! Fortunately Level-5 thought ahead, and they added "shortcuts" to their crafting system. After you craft an item a few times, you unlock being able to craft multiple of that item (for consumables, and materials and the like.) Once you unlock that, you start progression towards being able to automatically craft an item (once you craft it enough, you'll fill up it's individual exp bars) and that will more times that not produce a normal quality item. Once you've completed that, however, you'll unlock Auto+, which allows you to easily craft a good, great, or even top quality item automatically. If the minigames bother you, you can just craft an item a few times, and then never have to worry (about that specific item) again! It comes in handy if you're just crafting tools or weapons for Dosh (the name for the in-game currency).
And that about sums up this incredible game. If I missed something, or didn't touch on something properly, don't yell at me, this game just has so much depth and content to it, I just can't wrap my mind around it all. It's one of the most addicting games I've played this year, and easily a contender for GOTY for anyone who's played it. Ignore the artstyle, and ignore the comparisons to Animal Crossing, and just give this game a shot, you won't disappointed.
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