Topic: Nintendo’s Next Big 3DS RPG Is More Fable than Final Fantasy

[NWR_Neal]

Maybe we can call it NintenFable?

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/hands-on-preview/38172/nintendos-next-big-3ds-rpg-is-more-fable-than-final-fantasy

Before seeing a demo of Fantasy Life, the Level-5-developed 3DS game (with help from 1-UP Studio and h.a.n.d.) coming to North America this October thanks to Nintendo, I was blissfully unaware of what exactly the game is. I assumed, incorrectly, it was just some sort of Animal Crossing/Harvest Moon game. Maybe there was a town or a farm that you ran? I don’t know. I do know I was wrong. From the basic overview I saw and played, Fantasy Life seems more like a Nintendo version of Microsoft's Fable series to a certain extent.

At the base is a job system of sorts. Controlling your avatar, you can focus on one of twelve different life classes that include Blacksmith, Mage, Angler, Cook, and much more. Depending on what life class you have active, you can build and use different abilities and actions. However, unlike most other job systems, you pretty much keep the majority of those abilities when you change your class. For example, when you start fishing as an Angler, you can still do that when you switch to another class. As near as I can tell, you just lose some stat bonuses and maybe an ability when you don’t have the class active.

You take those abilities and classes out on a grand adventure, where you fight a lot of gigantic enemies that all look just as gorgeous as you'd expect from classic Final Fantasy series artist Yoshitaka Amano. Combat is simplistic, and that's where, to me, the comparison to Fable was more evident. You can build up your avatar however you like, with a focus on melee or ranged combat. Most of the combat actions are simple as you move around in a real-time environment. You can even pal around with other people locally (and likely online, too, but Nintendo wasn't confirming that yet despite the option showing up in some E3 live streams).

I only got to see a sliver of Fantasy Life, but from what the Nintendo Treehouse representative hinted, it seems to be an epic, expansive adventure. That rep has currently played through it three times and had a different experience each time thanks to what classes she focused on. Fantasy Life seems like it's packed with content. Personally, I can't wait for it to get here October 24, and I’m totally jealous that Europe gets it in September.

[Stratos]

I am glad this is not a Nintendo Rune Factory clone. I will pay more attention to it in the future because I could now see it as different enough from RF/HM to warrant the purchase.

[Triforce Hermit]

So sort of like Fable and sort of like Rune Factory, but with a job system that affects how you do normal work along with combat. I love the job system in games a lot because I get a kick out of grinding and maximizing all of the job classes and if this has a sort of Rune Factory and Fable mix with it, then I will definitely buy this game.

[Vahne]

Is the version we're getting Fantasy Life Link! or is it the original?

[Mop it up]

I'll only be interested in this game if there is online, so I hope that makes it into this version.