Yay! It’s finally the day you choose your new Life! Which one will it be? You can be a fighter with the Lives: Paladin, Mercenary, Hunter, or Mage. Or you can be a craftsman with the Lives: Blacksmith, Tailor, Carpenter, Alchemist, or Cook. Or you can choose to gather materials with the Lives: Angler, Woodcutter, or Miner. Once you chose your Life, you work hard to master it, but strange things begin to happen in the land of Reveria. Strange stones called Doomstones start falling from the sky that fills creatures nearby them with dark, destructive energy. It falls to you, with the help of a butterfly companion named Flutter, who attached itself to you, to discover the mystery behind the strange stones and to discover more about an ancient prophecy involving Reveria’s goddess and the moon Lunares, all this while trying to master the Life you chose.

Fantasy Life is a game that combines the gently paced role-playing from games like Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon with spectacle and narrative tropes of JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Bravely Default. It was created by developer Level-5 who also created such games as the Professor Layton series and Ni No Kuni. It also features artwork and music from a couple of Final Fantasy alumni.

When you first start a game you begin with character creation which is pretty in depth. It allows you to change different facial features, body shape, and hair. You can also choose a voice. All of these options are rather nice and allow you to create a character however you like. Lastly, you get to choose what Life you want to have.

The key mechanic in the game is the Life system, which is a system that allows you to choose a Life, a profession, which you want to have throughout the game. When you start the game you choose a Life you want to play as, but you are able to switch between any of the Lives whenever you want. For example I chose my first Life as Hunter, because I wanted to have a combat class. Then I decided to try one of the crafting Lives, Carpenter, which allowed me to make a lot of items I could sell for higher prices, as well as make some cool bows for my Hunter Life. But soon I found myself spending quite a bit of money on materials to use as a Carpenter. So I decided to try out the Woodcutter Life so I can collect wood myself instead of buying it. It is a rather nice idea for a game. It makes so you can go though the game how you would like. I also enjoy the fact that no matter what Life you have activated at the moment you can still use skills from the other Lives you learned without changing Lives.

One thing I did notice though is some Lives are more interesting than others in the long run. For each of the Lives you are given challenges by your Master. By completing these challenges, you gain Stars (experience) which level you up in your Life. For example, for my Hunter Life I had challenges like: ‘hunt down a certain creature’, or ‘kill this many creature’. I was even able to gather plants too as a Hunter which gave the challenges of ‘collect this many of this item”. As I leveled up with the Hunter I gained more and more attacks I could use like ‘rain of arrow’s or ‘multi-shot’. All this made me really want to rise up in ranks as a Hunter to see what comes next.

My Carpenter Life was a bit different. As one of the crafting Lives, you get challenges to make certain items and certain numbers of them. This would be interesting except the crafting stage for all of the crafting Lives (I tried Blacksmith as well to check) are the same, all the time. When you want to craft something you play a little ‘mini-game’ where you follow the prompts on the screen which tell you to either, hold down A, or quickly mash A, or hit A when the moving marker flashes over the middle of a bar. That’s it. The better you match what it says the better chance you have at making better quality items which can be sold for more money. While this mini-game is quite amusing at first, after a while of doing it, I got kind of bored with it and just went back to continue my Hunter Life. But it is nice to go back to every once in a while. And as you create enough of certain items you will be able to make them in bulk which can cut down the tediousness of it.

My third Life, Woodcutter, was a bit less interesting. Basically the challenges for it were ‘cut down this many of this type of tree’ and that was basically it. It is nice that when you do go to cut down a tree, you have the challenge of finding the best place to chop on the tree so you can get more wood from it. Woodcutter and other gathering type Lives seem to be nice as a second or third Lives rather than a first one to choose. They seem to only be good for getting materials cheaper for your crafting Lives.

The Questing system in this game is quite interesting. There are 3 types of quests: Life Challenges, Butterfly’s Requests, and Other Requests. The Life Challenges are quest which help you rise in rank for your life. The Butterfly’s Requests are basically the quests that lead into the main story. These lead you to explore the land and talk with the main NPCs of the game, fleshing out the story as you go. The third type of quest, the Other Requests, is quests you get from the multitude of NPCs throughout the land. They will mostly involve you finding certain items, which you can sometimes make if you have the right skills, or killing certain creatures. You will usually get money and sometimes an item for completing these requests.

Also connected with challenges is the Bounty System the game has. As you travel though the Land you will come across some tougher creatures or rare materials which you can defeat/collect and turn in for a reward. Usually you will get a nice bit of money, but you can also get some nice items from it too. The only problem is you can’t fast travel while carrying them or run with them. You have to travel as safely as possible to get them to a bounty collector. You also need to watch out for other hostile creatures for they will try to attack your bounties.

This game also has this nice Bliss system. Bliss is collected by completing quests like the story quests and the quests you get for starting a new Life, or you get it for meeting certain milestones like ranking up in a Life. With Bliss you are able to unlock certain perks like larger inventory space, owning a pet, horse-riding, and more. It encourages you to play the story and to rank up.

Another nice thing about this game is it has a housing system in it. You start out the game living in a small attic apartment. In this apartment you are able to place furniture and customize the walls and floor with items you can buy or make. As you make more money, you can upgrade to a larger house, which gives you more floor space. There are multiple houses you can buy, but you need the money first. Your home is also the place you can keep your pet if you don’t have them in your party helping you out. You can also sleep in the bed in your house to heal and save the game.

Fantasy Life is defiantly a more casual title in the RPG genre. It has a simple story and simple mechanics which are easy to pick up and learn. While the story isn’t the best, it is a game you will find yourself loosing track of time playing as it keeps you wanting to rank up in your Life.

All in all I enjoyed Fantasy Life. While there were certain mechanics of the game that I thought got repetitive, I enjoyed leveling up my character and exploring the land of Reveria. Its lovely art style and music is also a plus as well. I spent a lot of time engrossed in getting my character to the highest rank in her Life and I most likely will continue playing until she is a Master of all the Lives. I suggest this game to anyone who has a slight interest in RPGs.

It is available on the Nintendo eShop for download on your 3DS or at your nearest game retailer.

Following on from the announcement of the Hearthstone expansion Goblins vs. Gnomes, Blizzard have revealed the first of the 120 cards that will be added into the game with it. These are the first 33 new cards and they introduce a new Minion type: Mech.

  Whirling Blades

Spell, 1 mana cost. Gives a chosen Minion +1 attack.

   Velen’s Chosen

Spell, 3 mana cost. Gives a chosen Minion +2/+4 and Spell Damage +1.

  V-07-TR-0N

Legendary Mech Minion, 8 mana cost, 4 attack and 8 health. Has Charge and Mega-Windfury (4 attacks per turn).

  Upgraded Repair Bot

Mech Minion, 5 mana cost, 5 attack and 5 health. Battlecry gives friendly Mech +4 Health.

  Unstable Portal

Spell, 2 mana cost. Adds random Minion to hand, which will cost (3) less.

  Reversing Switch

Spell, 1 mana cost. Swaps a minion’s Attack and Health.

  Shrinkmeister

Minion, 2 mana cost, 3 attack and 2 health. Battlecry gives a minion -2 Attack this turn.

  Sneed’s Old Shredder

Legendary Mech Minion, 8 mana cost, 5 attack and 7 health. Deathrattle summons a random Legendary Minion.

  Spider Tank

Mech Minion, 3 mana cost, 3 attack and 4 health.

  Tinkertown Technician

Minion, 3 mana cost, 3 attack and 3 health. Battlecry that gives this Minion +1/+1 and puts a Spare Part card in your hand if you control a Mech Minion.

  Recombobulator

Minion, 2 mana cost, 3 attack and 2 health. Battlecry transforms random friendly Minion into another Minion with the same Cost.

  Piloted Sky Golem

Mech Minion, 6 mana cost, 6 attack and 4 health. Deathrattle summons a random 4-Cost Minion.

Piloted Shredder

Mech Minion, 4 mana cost, 4 attack and 3 health. Deathrattle summons a random 2-Cost Minion.

  Mimiron’s Head

Mech Minion, 5 mana cost, 4 attack and 5 health. If at the start of your turn you control 3 Mech Minions, destroy them all and summon V-07-TR-0N.

  Micro Machine

Mech Minion, 2 mana cost, 1 attack and 2 health. At the start of the turn, gains +1 Attack.

  Gnomish Experimenter

Minion, 3 mana cost, 3 attack and 2 health. Battlecry draws a card then then transforms it into a Chicken if it’s a Minion.

  Goblin Blastmage

Minion, 4 mana cost, 5 attack and 4 health. Battlecry splits 4 damage randomly among enemy Characters if you control a Mech Minion.

  Madder Bomber

Minion, 5 mana cost, 5 attack and 4 health. Battlecry splits 6 damage among all Characters.

Mechwarper

Mech Minion, 2 mana cost, 2 attack and 3 health. Mech Minions cost (1) less.

  Mekgineer Thermaplugg

Mech Minion, 9 mana cost, 9 attack and 7 health. Summons a Leper Gnome every time an enemy Minion dies.

  Flamecannon

Spell, 2 mana cost. Deals 4 damage to a random enemy Minion.

  Explosive Sheep

Mech Minion, 2 mana cost, 1 attack and 1 health. Deathrattle deals 2 damage to all minions.

  Enhance-o Mechano

Mech Minion, 4 mana cost, 3 attack and 2 health. Battlecry gives other minions either Windfury, Taunt or Divine Shield at random.

  Dr. Boom

Minion, 7 mana cost, 7 attack and 7 health. Battlecry summons two 1/1 Boom Bots.

  Cogmaster

Minion, 1 mana cost, 1 attack and 2 health. Has +2 Attack while you have a Mech Minion.

  Annoy-o-Tron

Mech Minion, 2 mana cost, 1 attack and 2 health. Taunt and Divine Shield.

  Bouncing Blade

Spell, 3 mana cost. Deals 1 damage to a random Minion and repeats until a Minion dies.

  Boom Bot

Mech Minion, 1 mana cost, 1 attack and 1 health. Deathrattle deals 1-4 damage to a random enemy.

  Bomb Lobber

Minion, 5 mana cost, 3 attack and 3 health. Battlecry deals 4 damage to a random enemy Minion.

  Clockwork Giant

Mech Minion, 12 mana cost, 8 attack and 8 health. Costs (1) less for each card in your opponent’s hand.

  Armor Plating

spell, 1 mana cost. Gives +1 Health to a chosen Minion.

  Blingtron 3000

Mech Minion, 5 mana cost, 3 attack and 4 health. Battlecry equips a random Weapon for each player.

  Clockwork Gnome

Mech Minion, 1 mana cost, 2 attack and 1 health. Battlecry puts a Spare Part card into your hand.

Spotify’s payout structure has been one of the hottest debates in the music industry since the company announced that a song’s rights holder receives “between $0.006 and $0.0084 per stream in royalties” last winter. Taylor Swift’s recent decision to not release her new album, “1989”, on the music streaming service raised a few eyebrows, but when she subsequently removed all of her back catalog, it caused massive outcry from both the public and the industry. But people seem torn on whether to praise her for taking a stand on what musicians should be paid for their work, or whether they should condemn her for not embracing the current state of the music industry and making her music available to everyone.

There are two important things to remember before passing judgment of Ms. Swift: The first being that Spotify’s estimate of their payout per stream is, by their own admission, “highly flawed”. They actually use a more complex formula that creates far greater variation in their payout than can be accurately predicted on a “per Stream” basis. This could mean more money for an artist, or less, depending on a number of other factors than simply the number of times people listened to a certain song.

The second thing to remember is that Taylor Swift is already the second richest woman in music. She made $64,000,000 last year and this new album is the only album so far this year to go platinum. In fact, it has the highest first week sales of any album in 12 years. She can afford to take chances like this. She’s already made a tremendous amount of money off of the album, and it’s only been out for 11 days.

What these things add up to is that, financially speaking, this is a little more complex than it appears at first glance. Swift is already in a position to do whatever she wants with her music because people will buy it regardless of how she sells it. The Spotify payout is a drop in the bucket for her, and she can easily do without it, without risking a great deal. And while Spotify is often demonized for it’s low pay to musicians, it is a necessity of a company that has lost $200 million dollars since it’s founding, due to incredibly high operating costs.

But I don’t think that the most important thing about this story is the money. I think that more people should be paying attention to the fact that, for better or worse, Taylor Swift is taking a risk and trying something different. The music industry is in a transitional period right now, and it’s hurting both the financial and artistic integrity of everyone involved. What is remarkable to me is how content the major players seem to be to continue on with an industry that seems held together with bubblegum and toothpicks. What makes Swift’s decision so admirable to me is that she is in a position, both socially and financially, to take shots like this, and actually does.

Granted, her particular strategy might not be the most effective. She seems to be trying a philosophy from a different time, when consumers actually purchased whole albums, and they didn’t expect to get their media for free online. Album sales fell nearly 15% in the first half of this year, while on demand streams were up 42%. Streaming is how people get their music now. It is a fact of the industry. I applaud Taylor Swift for actually trying something. I just wish it was something new.

Regardless, it is very nice to see one of the most recognizable people in music actually taking action on the current state of affairs. She has the money and influence to exact real change in a failing business, and I really hope she keeps up the pressure and brings others along. As people are so fond of saying, “The first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one”. Ms. Swift just told everyone we have a problem. Now we need to figure out how to solve it.

Have an opinion on it? Leave a comment below to join the discussion.

Today at BlizzCon, Blizzard announced that StarCraft2: Legacy of the Void will be a standalone game and will not require a copy of StarCraft 2 to play. Game director Dustin Browder says this will allow first-time players and established fansx alike the chance to dive into Starcraft 2.

The new game will focus on the Protoss as the player attempts to reunite the scattered Protoss Tribe. Players will be able to use the Spar of Adun, and ancient Arcship to destroy an entire enemy army at the touch of a button. LotV will also introduces Archon mode, a new co-op and PVP mode in one. Teammates will have to work together to control a single army and base.

Another new mode is Allied Commanders, that allows players to join forces and fight through scenarios together, levelling up their commander’s as they go. LotV will also introduce new automated tournaments over  Battle.net. And, as Browder teased “The Lurker is back.”

No release date has been announced yet.

For the first time in many years, Blizzard announced a new franchise today: Overwatch, a team-based multiplayer shooter with Pixar-like graphics.

The game looks great. It’s a PvP shooter with classes, very reminiscent of Team Fortress 2. Here’s the cinematic trailer:

And, more importantly, here’s gameplay footage from the newly-christened Overwatch, which really does look fantastic:

Here’s Blizzard describing the game in a press release:

The action of Overwatch takes place in a technologically advanced, highly stylized future earth. In a time of global crisis, an international task force of soldiers, scientists, adventurers, and oddities known as Overwatch had come together to restore peace to a war-torn world. After many years, the group’s influence waned, and it was eventually disbanded. Overwatch might be gone now . . . but the world still needs heroes.

 

With an emphasis on accessibility and pure fun, Overwatch brings Blizzard’s signature easy-to-learn, hard-to-master gameplay to the FPS genre. Harnessing the power of their hero of choice, players will join forces in teams of six and battle each other across a range of futuristic global locations, from the hologram-lit streets of London to a bazaar in the shadows of a high-tech Egyptian pyramid. Every battlefield is iconic and built to highlight each character’s unique abilities, and fights can shift from streets to rooftops to open skies within the span of a breath.

 

“Overwatch is our take on a vibrant, near-future universe with amped-up characters and action-packed team-based gameplay,” saidMike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “With every new Blizzard game, we look at our favorite aspects of a genre and put our own spin on things. Our goal with Overwatch is to create an awesome FPS experience that’s more accessible to a much wider audience while delivering the action and depth that shooter fans love.”

 

The heroes of Overwatch each bring their own distinct weapons and superabilities to bear. Here’s just a glimpse of the numerous heroes that will ultimately fill Overwatch’s rosters:

 

– Tracer, a former British test pilot who shrugs at danger, can execute impossible acrobatic assaults thanks to her ability to teleport, drop energy bombs, and even reverse time.
– Reinhardt, a hulking German soldier in battle armor, can charge great distances and pin his enemies to a wall or slam the ground with his rocket hammer to knock them off their feet.
– Hanzo, a bow-wielding Japanese mercenary, has the ability to scale walls with his bare hands, fire off a tracking device that illuminates nearby enemies for his team, and unleash a huge spirit dragon that does grievous damage to all enemies in its path.
– Symmetra, an Indian architech, manipulates light and energy to shield her allies and damage her enemies—and she can turn the tide of any battle by building a device that instantly transports her teammates to the front lines.

The beta will be out in 2015 and you can sign up HERE!

Overwatch is a reworked version of the PVP portions of Blizzard’s Titan, the long-in-development MMO that was overhauled in mid-2013. Despite reports earlier this year that Titan had been cancelled, the game was actually turned into Overwatch last year, according to a person familiar with the project.