Fantasy Life and No Pink Dye

I would say that I've only been a proper 'gamer' since about the age of 15/16, when after so many years of being refused a Playstation 2 by my parents, I was lucky to be sold one by a friend for about a third of it's original price. Then things opened up.

For my following birthday I got Final Fantasy X, my favourite FF game to date (Only marginally more than FF9), and that summer, I bought both Final Fantasy 7 and 8. Those were good, good times.

Before all that polygonal bliss however, I had had to make do with Pokemon, Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, and this weird Bugs Bunny game that required you collect carrots and run away from steam rollers.

As I get older though, I seem to be lagging behind on the gaming front, only knowing older games that have long passed their sell-by-date. Either nobody played them, or nobody plays them anymore. It's mainly because I'm not willing to spend hundreds on consoles anymore, because it would never end. As soon as I'd buy one thing, a newer version would come out and let's be honest, ain't nobody got time money fo' dat.

So I'm stuck in a never-ending rut of not being up-to-date.

But whatever.

Recently I found a game that combined my love of fantasy with the not-so-fantastical daily grind, i.e. completing chores and ticking off things on a looooong to-do list. I don't love that bit.

Fantasy Life was introduced to me indirectly when I was doing some research on Tomodachi Life, since stingy-me didn't think that I should spend as much on the game as it was asking for. Then on various forums I found people vouching for Fantasy Life as being a much more immersive game that actually involved the player.

They were right.

The End.

...

No not really.

It's apparently been out for a little while, in Japan at least. And it was one of those pleasant gems that didn't cost too much but still made me feel like I wasn't completely left in the gaming dust. There. I came full circle. Except I'm not done.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with them game, it's like an old Final Fantasy game, but with the chores of Animal Crossing - you get to choose a 'Life' (job) from a selecton of 12, which you can freely switch between at any point you like during the story intervals.

Then you get long lists of jobs to do, you do them, you get better at your Life, you do more jobs... etc. But most, if not all 'Lifes' (I know, it pains me too) depend at some point on the abilities of another Life. The point is, you're meant to play and master all of them. Then you won't get caught out.

But MY infallible logic went 'Oh hey! There are 3 save files! I can make 3 characters, each with different Lifes, so I won't get bored of redoing the same things over and over!"

How naive of me.

I actually managed this successfully on my main character. I assigned 4 Lifes to her, and she is now at maximum rank on all of them.

My second character however, is beginning to require the abilities that my first character has mastered. But this is what I wanted to avoid. YOU SEE MY PROBLEM??

The solution to this would have been to allow your characters to commission materials etc. that they were missing from the various NPCs that specialised in the skills you lacked. But noooooo. That would be too easy.

And now I've stopped playing. Because I know that if I go back, I'll have to go through hours of sewing and fishing again... And I just can't face that.

I know you can trade with other people online, but ehhhhh. I like to be self-sufficient?

These are my three characters. Aren't they cute?

The next main problem:

THERE'S NO PINK DYE.

...

Now it's The End.