I Finished Fantasy Life

This week on my 3DS, I've been playing a lot of Fantasy Life.

It's an odd game, an intriguing and unique combination of light RPG and life sim. I distinctly remember starting the game for the first time and feeling somewhat lost, undirected in this world full of potential. Soon I came to fully understand and get on board with the 'life' system - the jobs you'll spend the game swapping between - and I knew that my duty was, broadly, to go crafting crazy, but initially I was thrown by the extremely soft approach to the RPG of it all.

Ultimately, this was bolstered by the game's ending, which is by far its most clear deviation from broad RPG structure. There is no final boss. There is no biblical adversary. You waft along into the space-y, small world to say hi to your butterfly friend's dad, and the credits lovingly roll. I wasn't expecting such a lack of fanfare, but it makes sense of the game in front of me. It's more of a Stardew Valley with a bit of a story about evil crystals than it is an RPG with a Cooking Mama element.

Anyway, I've played about fifty hours of it in total, and as much as I do want to continue with some of the post-game minutiae, it all feels kind of aimless. I do want to collect different woods from chopping down different trees so I can make it past the 'adept' woodcutter rank, but what for? To get to the next rank? To do more quests? There's not really much of a sense of reward or progression at this stage, despite there being a million more ranks to climb for each respective 'life'.

So, I don't know. It's an interesting game. It's addictive, it's cute, and it has a fun little sense of humour. Finishing its story may have been one of the most anti-climactic game ending moments of all time. And yet, I can't deny, I do love it.