Every time I tried to finish Fantasy Life, I ended up getting sidetracked. There was always just one more thing to do - a monster to slay, a dish to cook, or a wish to fulfill. If I could just get rid of that last item on my to do list, I’d be satisfied. Of course, as soon as I did so, another quest would pop up, and I’d just have to do that, too.

Therein lies the secret of Fantasy Life’s success: there’s always tons of stuff to do and multiple ways to do it, and it’s all because of the Life Class feature. This clever gameplay mechanic combines Rune Factory’s life simulation/dungeon crawling with Final Fantasy V’s multi-tiered job system to create a quest structure so addictive that I found myself fishing and fighting well into the wee hours of the night, even when a mission was hard, or the story tedious.

That’s not to say I disliked Fantasy Life’s story, it just has pacing issues. I enjoyed gathering people’s wishes so I could heal the world, and the tongue-in-cheek humor had me laughing throughout my 30-plus hours of playtime, about half of which was spent doing side missions (did I mention there’s lots of stuff to do?). The adventure gets off to a sluggish start though, and only slightly picks up the pace before it reaches its somewhat abrupt ending. It’s a shame since the story’s message is heartwarming. But even when my journey to save the world felt slow, the Life Class system was there to make the journey well worth it.

At first I dismissed Life Classes as fancy rolodexes that simply organize activities like fishing and fighting into little cubbyholes. I couldn’t see how this feature made Fantasy Life any different from comparable life simulators like Rune Factory or Animal Crossing. But once I dug into each Life, I found a unique set of enjoyable challenges and skill sets designed to help me become the ultimate Paladin, Chef, or Wizard.

For example, I could learn a new sword skill by slaying enemies on the battlefield as a Paladin, or raise my success as a Chef by playing a minigame where I rhythmically tapped the A button in order to whip up a meal before time ran out. I could even combine my Life skills to complete special tasks for people, like using my hunting skills to forage for honey, then using my prowess as a gourmet chef to make them a honey pudding. Being able to do so many different things in so many different ways kept things fresh and interesting, and I loved that I could swap between vocations at any time (there are 12 in all), since it meant I rarely had to do the same thing for too long.

Mastering a Life proved to be quite the challenge. Every time I achieved a higher Life rank, the next set of career-oriented tasks got tougher - a lot tougher. Monsters began to hit like a ton of bricks, ingredients for recipes were harder to find, and I had to frantically race the clock to craft an item before time ran out. his uptick in difficulty kept me alert and engaged, though toward the end some of these challenges began to feel redundant. There was only so many times I could enjoy cobbling shoes or fighting the same enemies.