The main draw of an RPG is a storyline in which the main characters usually end up on some fantastic adventure, which may or may not involve saving the world. You usually pass through a whole variety of locations, from small villages nestled between a mountain range to magnificent castles. Sometimes they are only pit stops along the way, a place where you can pick up potions and weapons to equip your party with. Sometimes they play a major part in the storyline, while other times they’re just a spot to do a little character building. I’ve often wanted to stay in these places for longer than the developers allow. Sure, technically you can usually stay in a town as long as you want but you’ll run out of things to do eventually, moving on to the next place. While I do love exploring these worlds I also sometimes want to see how life goes on in these places. Enter Fantasy Life, which brings an end to a paragraph that has already gone on far too long.

Fantasy Life is being developed for the DS by the makers of Mother 3, which should already excite you enough if you know your RPG’s. The visuals don’t actually look that different to Mother 3’s, which is also a plus because I thought they were charming. Anyway, what is it you actually do in Fantasy Life? Well, apparently you just do what you normally do in your real life, and that’s living it.

You begin by creating a character, giving yourself a name, gender, appearance and job. You can pick between jobs such as a miner, dancer or a treasure hunter (there are 20 in all) and the objective is to complete daily quests based around the job you have chosen. Progress will be measured through how much money you have gained and how happy you currently are. They do eventually end, so your life won’t be going on forever. You will be doing all this while listening to the music of famed composer Nobuo Uematsu, my all-time favourite composer.

It sounds like a mix between a traditional RPG and Animal Crossing, especially as people can visit your town through both ad-hoc and online wireless functionality. I’m looking forward to hearing more about it!

Similar Games:

• Animal Crossing (DS)