Parents' Guide to

Fantasy Life

By Chad Sapieha, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 10+

Fun life simulator lets kids experiment with careers.

Game Nintendo 3DS 2014
Fantasy Life Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this game.

Community Reviews

age 10+

Based on 1 parent review

age 10+

This title has:

Great messages
Great role models
Easy to play/use
Too much violence
Too much drinking/drugs/smoking

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (1):
Kids say (5):

Fantasy Life mixes elements of multiple games -- life simulation, RPGs, and cooking, crafting, and action games -- in a grand adventure that encourages kids to forge their own paths. At the start, each new person met and location explored provides players with ideas for what they might want to do next. For example, you might find gem veins that require mining skills while hunting or realize that the ingredients you need for your next dish as a cook can only be obtained by making your way through a hostile cave that requires the skills of a hunter or paladin. This encourages kids to try new lives and earn additional skills, perfecting new mini-games and earning more "bliss" (the game's term for happiness). Along they way you'll pick up a pet or two, move to a bigger and better place that can be furnished however you like, and come to the aid of a lot of people who need help to one degree or another.

It can get a bit repetitive at times -- the vast majority of tasks falls into the category of "fetch quests" that require you to find a certain number of pine logs or hunt down a specific quantity of monster -- but the game's smart writing, interesting characters, and colorful world should go a long way toward keeping kids interested in their chosen lives. And it might just teach them something about what it's like to have a career in the process.

Game Details

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