[Does your life suck?]

Fantasy Life key art - Yoshitaka Amano

Grind is often attributed as one of the main reasons for the dislike of the JRPG genre, whilst also being one of the central hooks of MMORPGs, so where does one draw the line for a “fun” level of grind?

personally, I feel as though there has to be ample reward. Of course, the point is to increase some number or attain some loot, but if those numbers are single digits like in Destiny, or the loot is unexciting, then the grind is meaningless. Perhaps in MMORPGs, despite the inherit need to spend countless hours grinding to play “catch up” with the current state of the ever-evolving game, it is appealing to grind due to the element of comradery. Among those in such communities there is companionship in undertaking the grind and the ability to show off the results of all that “work”.

Then how is it all too different from earning money at a job? Work necessitates grind in order to advance ones career, so of course the average person should be turned off by continuing this endless, mundane, process in the time they use to relax.

Yet, people grind. And I think Fantasy Life (3DS) is the perfect exploration of why.

Gameplay of a Paladin in an early area

Fundamentally, it distils grind into its most literal, lifelike form. You start the game with a specific job you have chosen, and you must invest hours to advance your path through that job, taking on duties outside of the main story in order to do so. Throughout the course of your game, you’ll likely choose multiple jobs and advance them to completion, but irrespective of what you choose, its never more complicated than the fast-food job you had when you were in high school. But it never feels like clocking into a shift despite it not having any visual, stylistic, or musical appeal. It is an intensely simplistic RPG you can play with up to four friends, grinding for grindings sake and decorating your house.

Gameplay of an angler in an early area

Gameplay of a woodcutter

In some sense its exceedingly lifelike, but perhaps that’s why it and games like it are so addictive. The drawn-out pursuit of success that haunts our progression through life is so easily attainable here whilst being of so little consequence. You do your 1-button, simple tasks in a fantastical (but boringly designed) way, emulating the wage-grind of real life without the mental or physical effort required to ascend through the ranks. Sometimes I think we just want unbarred and linear development in a life where we have to accept inherent fluidity on our path upward, if such a direction exists.

We all feel a need to advance our own existence in some meaningful way and grind satiates this very human appetite by simplifying it to a number ascending.

So go play Fantasy Life with some friends on your 3DS. Running around a world hitting monsters, forging equipment, and chopping trees, even if it is not more than the bread and butter of a fantasy RPG will always be more fun than flipping burgers, anyway.

Multiplayer gameplay with an archer, paladin, and magician

It got panned at launch for its repetitive nature, but I think it charms 12 times over with its unique and diverse job system.

Fantasy Life has a sequel coming out on the Switch in 2024 called Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, and it looks super promising, check it out! The studio, Level-5, has struggled financially and has only recently risen from the ashes.

as an aside, Nobuo Uematsu did the OST and Yoshitaka Amano did the key art, and to me their work on this game is perhaps their most disappointing