by Adol The Red » Fri Oct 31, 2014 7:09 pm
It has elements similar to animal crossing, but so far as I've seen that's only in as much as arranging stuff in your house. As far as crafting goes, you have set recipes for which you have to gather ingredients, and then you perform minigames to actually craft. So far I've only done three lives - jobs, essentially - and only one is a crafting based life. I still found it intriguing, though. As a smith you have a few different types of recipes, like armor, weapons, or tools. You use raw ingredients to form ingots, then combine those with other ingredients to make items. It also includes leather crafting, so you'll need animal components and the like. I think most any ingredient can be bought, and you can make a profit at it even if you never gather a single thing yourself. Also, there are skills you get that can be applied to the minigames to turn them in your favor, and you can learn to mass produce or auto produce items. However, if you do it in auto you miss the chance to make better quality items. And I'm still not even a third of the way through smithing so I haven't even seen all there is. One thing that stood out to me though was how they managed to make higher level items more challenging without simply making it harder. It always bugged me in fable two that when you became a better smith, smithing simply grew more difficult. With Fantasy life you get harder recipes that get easier and faster as you level up the skill and get better tools, so it better simulates learning a skill, a good balance of simple and engaging. I don't know it'll last over time, but I'm not too worried about it.
Otherwise, I've done mining and woodcutting. So far these jobs are simpler, the first gathering ores and stones, while the second gets wood and items like berries. The minigames have you interacting directly with ore deposits or trees, and they both function the same way. The setup is different than smithing, but you still get extra abilities that can help you out. So these two jobs perform similar functions and are set up similarly. I'm certain that smithing and carpentry are set up the same way as well. I still haven't even tried fishing, cooking, alchemy, magic, hunting, or being a paladin or mercenary (and whatever else I'm forgetting), so there is a load of variety.
Also, you gain character levels from crafting. I was level nine before I ever fought a monster. Naturally they suggest you try out every life, and for the purposes of the story and fun that's probably best, but I also think it would be fun to try sticking to one life and see if I could beat the game that way. Another neat thing is that each life comes with a master trainer and a few involved characters. As you raise your skill level, you'll get unique conversations with them. It sort of makes you feel like you're getting to know the people better because you work with them.
This post is getting long, and I could keep going. I like the dungeon designs. They're fairly small, but big enough to set up a nice world, and full of variety. They're crawling with animals and monsters, and not everything is hostile. You can kill strong enemies (or mine strong deposits?) for bounties you can cash in at the guild office. You can have pets, though I haven't tried that yet. And I know you can ride horses and giant tortoises, but I haven't done either of those. The story pretty much lets you go at your own pace, and there are sidequests a plenty. These, though, will require some knowledge of each life to complete.
I have to say, its surprisingly in depth for its simple appearance, and has been a lot of fun. It sucks me in when I do have time to play it. And I still think "Like Skyrim but adorable" is about as apt a description as you can to get. Dungeons and fighting are simpler, but crafting is more in depth. Now Ima go chop down some trees.
Epic , brah!
