Fantasy Life

The same hero can stand as a paladin and later as a cook or a miner in Fantasy Life, the Level-5 tale Nintendo released in 2014, with the butterfly Flutter pulling the story along. Ore from a mining shift can become the blade carried on the road, because crafting and combat belong to one character. Lives are jobs you switch between, not separate save files.

Each Life keeps its own ranks, trials, and master. A miner looks for nodes out in the field, a cook works ingredients at a station, and a paladin takes the monsters blocking a road. Gear earned in a crafting Life feeds the Lives that do the fighting.

Flutter's request is the excuse to visit new regions. Towns hold the shops and the masters who set the next license test. Staying off the main path for a long stretch still uses the game as it was built, because those jobs are the body of it.

Level-5 developed the job systems, and Nintendo published them. The mood stays gentle even when a larger monster guards a later region, and learning several Lives is how the hero grows capable.