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So thanks to Fantasy Life i there's a whole lot of people who are now adventuring in the world of Reveria who might not know the whole background to their newest cozy game.

I wanted to help those new folk out with some information about the Fantasy Life 3DS game, the characters, locations, mechanics, and so on. I hope someday that you all will get to meet this awesome game.

And yes, there's a lot of changes! While I adore the first game (I think the story is more solid, the maps are better, and you get to know Life-related NPCs better), there were some really nice Quality of Life changes in Fantasy Life i that I really really liked.

There are 3 games in the Fantasy Life series:
* Fantasy Life, the 3DS game
* Fantasy Life Online, a mobile gatcha, now defunct
* Fantasy Life i, a multi-platform game

I will not be talking about Fantasy Life Online here other than to note that a bit less than half the Buddies in Fantasy Life i came from it - mostly because I played a bit at the beginning but got disgusted by its money-grubbing nature and dropped it. (Login issues with the game also did not help.)

Since I live in North America, I tend to use the North American names for some Lives/locations/characters (so Terra Nimbus instead of Levitania, Poppy instead of Cherry). Yes, localizations are weird. Also, names of places, locations, and people may be different in other languages, but I'm not fluent in any language except English.

Also, I will be calling the original 3DS game just "Fantasy Life" to save my fingers.

Let's go! We'll start with a randomly-sorted list of differences.

Fantasy Life differences

* Stats and a unified character level vs a level for each Life and a skill tree.
* Gender at character creation - mostly related to some gender-specific armors -which cannot be changed.
* Lives must be changed at a Guild Office instead of freely, but basic Life functions are available to other Lives once unlocked (so a Woodcutter can use a combat Life's weapon to defend themselves, and a Mercenary could cut down trees/mine ore/fish while out in the world).
* Some armor (and to a lesser extent weapons and tools) can be restricted based on Life - so a wizard/magician can't use metal armor.
* No vanity outfits. What you're wearing is what you're wearing. However, as long as you've got vanity clothes in your inventory, you can swap to them at any time.
* Bosses of all types turn into "bounties" that have to be redeemed by a character called a bounty clerk.
* Life-related NPCs change their dialogue according to your Level in the related life and also give you some Life-related quests.
* Fast travel is far more limited - you can fast travel to your home and your Life Master from your menu. Additional fast travel locations can be bought. There is also some fast travel that requires payment and that you be at a particular location to use.
* NPCs can be recruited to travel with you, but they only can help with fighting monsters and do not assist with gathering or crafting. You cannot equip them with anything, and a friendship system only came about with the game's one DLC.
* The crafting minigame is slightly different, in a way that requires a longer explanation than I can put here.
* Running requires stamina.
* Wizard/magician and Angler use different mechanics.
* Artist and Farmer do not exist as Lives; Brand New doesn't either (PCs without a combat Life use daggers instead).
* Sweet spots exist, but you cannot detect them and must find them manually.
* Gatherables (trees/ore nodes specifically) do not heal themselves, and you can resume gathering them after restoring your stamina instead of starting over.
* Monsters and gatherables don't have levels.
* Similarly, there is no visible score for crafts, so it's harder to tell if something might be too difficult at your current skill.
* Some monsters are not aggressive in the original game (black woolies and buffalo are notable examples). And some were left out of the new game completely (wraiths, bandits, catepillos).
* Furniture items are crafted by Carpenters only - Alchemists can make accessories. Fish prints are made by bringing the relevant fish to one of several intelligent flowers.
* Inventory is not bottomless and must be managed - but to some extent you can offload your pack at home.
* You do not automatically get a mount.
* The game has perks that your character can pick up by progressing the game/doing certain things; there's also a limited gatcha-type system (Lunares Coins) for some things that was added with the DLC.
* You have a house (and can buy other house spaces) to decorate, but no terraforming etc.
* Shops are arranged slightly differently.
* You are not required to pick up all Lives to complete the game, and can in fact complete it with 1-2 Lives.
* Gold crown trees, ores, and monsters do not operate on a five-minute timer but instead respawn based on leaving and re-entering the area. (Note that you must move at least 2 areas away for ore and trees, but only 1 area away for monsters.)

The Fantasy Life stat system

Fantasy Life, as mentioned above, uses several traditional RPG systems. One of them is a central leveling system - instead of a level 5 Woodcutter and a level 8 Blacksmith, you just simply have a character who has the Woodcutter and Blacksmith Lives who is level 7, for example. (The concept of ranking up by completing quests has not changed; you still start out as a Novice in each Life and can work up towards Hero and beyond.)

At each level up, you gain 2-3 points to apply to one of six stats (2 at most levels, 3 when you hit a multiple of 10 level-wise). Applying points to a stat means that you are better with Lives that rely on that stat; each Life has 1-2 stats it mostly relies on with 1-2 other stats that are slightly less helpful but better than nothing.

A post game item/location allows you to do stat changes, for a fee.

The stat are as follows:
Strength: Paladins, Mercenaries (partially), Miners, and Woodcutters rely on this stat; to a lesser extent, it also helps Hunters, Blacksmiths, and Carpenters.
Vitality: This helps physical defense in general, but Mercenaries (partially), Blacksmiths, and Carpenters rely on it heavily, while Miners and Woodcutters are helped a little less so.
Intelligence: Magicians/Wizards rely on this stat for their attacks, while all Lives use it for magic defense. Alchemists use it heavily as well. Anglers, Cooks, and Tailors rely on it to a minor extent.
Focus: Anglers and Cooks use this as their primary stat, while Paladins, Magicians/Wizards, Miners, Blacksmiths, Tailors, and Alchemists use it to a much more minor extent.
Dexterity:Hunters and Tailors use this as their main stat. To a much more minor extent, so do Paladins, Woodcutters, Anglers, Cooks, Carpenters, and Alchemists.
Luck: This isn't directly used by any Life, but affects critical hits, drop rate, and crafting quality. Miners, for example, depend a lot on luck - as do most crafting classes!

Bliss, Passwords, and Lunares Coins

Bliss is a mechanism that allows you to earn certain perks in the game. You gather bliss by one of several methods: fulfilling certain story-related quests, ranking up in Lives, or even just spending time in the game.

Once you gathered enough bliss, you automatically gained a point to unlock your choice of perks. The perks were as follows:
Bag space: Carrying inventory is quite limited; this perk has several levels that can increase the amount of stuff you could carry.
Storage space: The amount of stuff you could offload at home is also limited, though not as much as your bag space. This perk allows you more storage space in your house for stuff.
Mounts: Each level allows you to unlock different rental animals, and the last tier allows you to own a horse.
Pets: You can adopt pets for your home and to adventure with you! Each level allows you to adopt more pets (up to 3) and more exotic locations will allow you to adopt more exotic pets.
Extra shop items: This perk allows shopkeepers to offer extra items (so for example, a shop might only offer flax thread ordinarily but also linen with the perk).
Customization: You can customize your hair for a fee, dye your clothes, and an extra secret merchant might open their doors, all depending on the perk level.
Audio/Video You can play certain audio or video in the comfort of your in-game house.

Passwords are hard-coded into the game itself and are only redeemable at the post office in Castele (the starting town). They are usually phrases and those phrases vary per region/language (so for example, the Festive Costume set has the password of "Winter wonders" for Europe/Australia/New Zealand region games, "Forever festive" for North American games, and "Frohes fest!" in German).

Lunares Coins are a late-game, DLC-only item. You can get them by completing certain quests after you've finished the main story and DLC storyline (or at least have access to Origin Island). They come in gold and silver and can be spent in one of two ways: by offering a coin at one of the goddess statues, or at the exchange clerk. If you offer at one of the statues, you'll get a random item (based off a list generated at game start) depending on which statue. This can be a material, armor, even a saddle for an exotic mount. The exchange clerk takes gold coins only, but you can choose what you want to get - assuming you have enough of the coins.

Progressing the main story

The main story likes to stay quietly out of the way until you're ready to progress it (apart from of course the introductory section that you have to get through).

To get to the next bit of story (and get access to more areas), you need to finish Butterfly's/Flutter's quests. These usually follow up on the main story, though some introduce game mechanics instead. For example, one of the early quests is to visit the Guild Office and learn about all the services there, while the next might have you speaking to a particularly arrogant but dedicated researcher.

Bounties and bounty clerks

Bounties are created when you defeat a boss-level monster or resource. They appear as either a crate (monsters) or a bag with a fish/ore/log sticking out (resources). Three of these can exist at a time on the map, and if you defeat a fourth boss of some type, the earliest bounty disappears. You can "carry" three bounties at one time with you. When you're taking a bounty back to a bounty clerk, the bounty trails after you and can get batted away by a monster. Monsters will also attempt to destroy nearby stationary bounties - even if they're not normally aggressive towards yours.

Bounty clerks are stationed throughout the map in various areas - usually one per area, though you might find two spaced on the opposite ends of a particular area if it's large. If you talk to them while you have a bounty, they will redeem it for cash and something related to the bounty (so for example, if you turn in a boss tree, you will often get an elder log of the same type).

You can still see some of the fancier bounty boxes in Fantasy Life i - they're the boxes you have to run to in order to get certain drops.

On shops

You'll notice that Fantasy Life i has a tool shop, a material shop, maybe an armor shop, a restaurant, or other specialized shop (such as the shop for Frajeel merch at Swolean Island). Fantasy Life arranges shops a bit differently.

Most of the time (there are exceptions), there is a shop for each general type of good. So there's a general store for consumables, an armor/weapon shop, a furniture shop, a shop for tailor items, a shop for wood items, a shop for ores, shops for meat, fish, and veggies, a restaurant for prepared food, and a shop for alchemical items. Sometimes there will be more than one of each type of store, and various locations have some specialized stores for one Life or another.

Bliss (mentioned above) will allow a player to purchase more expensive, harder-to-find/make items. In addition, reaching Master will allow you to buy special items in your Life's shop.

You cannot buy recipes. Recipes are either given to your by your Life Master or by NPCs in the course of the game.

Note that Fantasy Life does not assume that you are your own supply chain like Fantasy Life i does and therefore you can purchase a lot more materials/armor/weapons/tools instead of crafting things yourself. You'll still need to craft very high-level/advanced items though.

Lives

Fantasy Life, as noted early on, has 12 Lives - Farmer and Artist do not exist (Farmer was planned but cut). Brand New also doesn't exist; characters without a combat Life simply use a dagger to attack/defend.

These things apply to all Lives, regardless of Type:
* All skills related to the Life's rank are learned at Rank Up.
* You do not get new weapons/tools/clothes at Rank Up (with an exception or two at Master).
* Some recipes and Life quests are learned from NPCs related to your Life instead of from your Life Master. (So be sure to talk to any NPCs with "?" bubbles above their heads throughout the areas you have access to.)
* You can 'cheat' a bit by doing quests for higher ranks to earn rank-up stars. (So for example, if you get an Elder Fir log as an Apprentice Woodcutter, you get the stars for that quest even though you wouldn't normally have access to said quest.)
* Some Life quests (particularly for gathering and combat Lives) require you to not only defeat a monster/fell a tree/mine a boss ore, but also turn the item in to a bounty clerk for quest completion.

Combat Lives
Combat Lives (Paladin, Mercenary, Hunter, Magician/Wizard) are mostly unchanged between games, with some exceptions.

Each Life has a different list of monsters to defeat. So for example, one Life might be directed to fight carrotys, while another fights wolves and a third fights woolies. You will not be fighting the same monster in different Lives.

Life quests that require you use a specific technique require you to finish combat with that technique, not just use it like Fantasy Life i requires.

Wizard/magician is the Life that's been changed up the most. Doing magic - whether it's a simple blast or a complex spell - requires stamina. On the other hand, you can quickly change the type of magic you're casting - so if you find fire magic isn't working on a particular monster, you can make a quick switch to air or water magic without having to go into the equipment screen to switch wands. There is no defense spell, but earth magic is healing. Several of your Life quests involve not just using a specific type of magic (and as mentioned above, you must use the technique to finish off the monster, not just wound it.

Crafting Lives

Crafting Lives are very similar in both games with some exceptions.

First of all, there is no universal bench and you can't craft in you own home. You must go to a crafting station set in a certain location for each Life. Not all locations have crafting areas, though if a location offers crafting, it will have crafting stations for all Lives. Fortunately, most of the time the crafting areas are located close to each other - but remember, you craft best when you're in the actual Life you need to make stuff in. (So yes, a Carpenter or Blacksmith that needs fabric can pop over to the Tailor crafting area for it, assuming they otherwise have the Tailor life.)

Crafting is done without assistance from others (so for example, a Tailor will have no assistance from Taylor, Shea, or Klaus - heck, Klaus and Shea are not even in this game!).

The actual crafting minigame has the same general idea (stand in front of the correct station for each bit and interact with it) but there are some noticeable differences that take a bit to explain.

In the Fantasy Life minigame, you are required to interact more with each station. So you may be required to hold down the "A" button, mash it repeatedly, or only tap it at the center of a bar. (Fantasy Life does not have the "stirring" mechanic seen in the Fantasy Life i Cook and Alchemist minigames.) There is no "tap A once and then go to the next station unless instructed otherwise". While the game displays the sequence in 3-5 item segments, these segments are more informational rather than "complete these 3-5 items within this time frame to get excellent/great/good". You still have to complete the entire craft in a certain time frame. Unlike Fantasy Life i, if you fail to complete the item you still retain all your ingredients.

The cooking, smithing, alchemy, and carpenter stations all use one each of the minigame actions (tap repeatedly, hold until bar full, and tap at center of bar); the tailoring minigame for some reason has 2 of the "tap when at the center of the bar" stations.

You can get good/great/top/+ on your crafts (depending on the type of craft) for doing well/being fast.

Crafting better items just means you get an item bonus on the related stat - so a weapon does more damage, armor and shields protect you better, tools craft more easily, potions and foods provide better/longer buffs. It's not like Fantasy Life i where a tool might give you better skills at crafting weapons or more damage to certain opponents.

As mentioned earlier, all recipes are either learned from your Life Master or by one of the Life-related NPCs. (It was very common, pre-Fantasy Life i, for someone to ask "hey, I seem to be missing a recipe, what am I missing?" and for someone else to respond "did you talk to all the NPCs?")

Gathering Lives

Woodcutting and mining are almost identical to their Fantasy Life i versions. There are a few exceptions: no sweet spot detection, trees/ore spots do not regenerate health, and you can stop mining/woodcutting to replenish your SP (which is good as your companions do not give you SP boosts like in Fantasy Life i). You cannot use a woodcutting or mining buddy to mine for or with you - so a miner will not help you mine, a woodcutter will not help you cut trees, and so on.

Fishing has a very different mechanic in Fantasy Life than in Fantasy Life i. Really, the only thing that the two games in common are that you use a fishing rod and that you don't know what you've caught until you've landed it. (Though you can often guess an easier fish from a harder fish based on area and how hard it is to get.) Like ore and trees, fish do not regain health, though unlike ore and trees, you can't come back to the same fish and try to catch it. Fish also do not have "sweet spots".

The fishing minigame in Fantasy Life works as follows: you cast your fishing rod in and wait for the fish to bite. You'll then try to reel it in. Occasionally, the fish will try to pull away/snap your line and you have to move your line a certain way to release the tension on the line and prevent it from snapping. Boss fish (lordfish) are just stronger fish with a lot more health (as mentioned above, sweet spots do not exist for fish).

Lordfish also don't always appear at their designated spots in Fantasy Life and are instead replaced by regular fish. The one exception is the swordfish in Port Puerto, which is occasionally replaced by its golden variant.

To respawn resources, you need to move two areas away from the area you want to respawn (so for example, if you are in dire need of magma ore, you need to exit the cave and then traverse Mt. Snowpeak to another area. This will respawn both boss-level and regular resources.

Getting to know Castele

The city-state of Castele, ruled by King Erik, is the game's starting area. Your player character is a native of the area and starting their new life as (whatever Life you choose to start with in character creation). You have a room in the center of town, run by your landlady Pam, and your room is where your butterfly companion + any pets hang out (unless you take your pet with you on adventures or your companion comes along with you for plot purposes).

During the initial plot you meet Pierre and Butch, two scoundrels and minor antagonists, as well as King Erik and his wife Ophelia. (Laura is their daughter and you'll meet her as well, but not immediately.)

All the game's Life Masters are in this city. Four of them (Mustang, Fern, Duglas, and Flamel) reappear in Fantasy Life i as Buddies.

Other buddies that come from Castele are Hazel, Monika, Isaac, Magmia, Allan, Cherry (most versions)/Poppy (North America), and Taylor. They all show up in the introductory stories for their respective Lives and mostly live/hang out nearby. (There are exceptions; Tailor prefers to sew by the choir hall/chapel during the day, for example.)

Castele is made of the following areas:
* Castele Square, where you live at the start of the game. It's also home to the Paladin and Alchemist Life Masters (as well as the alchemist crafting station), the post office (for passwords), the armory, furniture, clothing, and general stores. There is also an inn that you can sleep at for a small amount of money (and Bliss).
* The Castle, which you return to several times during the plot.
* The Artisans' District, to the east of the main square. The shops for tailoring, ore, wood, and alchemical supplies are here, as well as a small cafe. The Masters for the Tailoring, Blacksmith, and Carpenter Lives are here, and the stations for those lives are too. You can move to this district by paying a fee to Pam's real estate company. The pet vendor hangs out in the area here, and you can get a cat, bird, or dog from them.
* The Shopping District to the west of the main square, where you can get ingredients for your Cook Life (produce, meat, and fish), visit the tavern or the bistro for food, and find two of the Life Masters - the Cook and Mercenary Life Masters. There is a house for sale, but you can't purchase it until quite late in the game.
* West Castele is to the west of the shopping district. One of Castele's two farms is here, along with a blimp service that will allow fast travel to other cities for a fee (though you don't gain access until later in the game), fishing docks, and the town's church/choir hall. Life Master Fisherman Sage (the Angler Master) hangs around the fishing docks.
* East Castele is to the east of the Artisans' District. Inside is a small woods and a mining area, along with four Life Masters - Magician/Wizard, Hunter, Woodcutter, and Miner. There are no shops here but there are things that you can forage.
* South Castele is the last part of Castele before you hit the road to other areas. A farm and the stables (where you can rent a horse) flank the road south, along with a pilot who will deliver you to the Elderwood, the West Grassy Plains, or the start of Mt. Snowpeak, all for a fee. You can also find a hunter and his grandmother tending sheep. One of the housing options is found in South Castele.

The Grassy Plains, the Elderwood, and Mt Snowpeak

Once you are allowed to leave Castele, you can make your way to the East Grassy Plains area. This includes the plains themselves, the Elderwood, and Mt. Snowpeak. This area allows you to complete Fledgling-level Life quests for all gathering and combat Lives (as well as provides some free materials for some of the crafting Lives). The plains area is the safest for new characters, while those with a bit of experience can tackle the woods and start on Mt. Snowpeak (though as the Paladin suggests, do not attack the Napdragon. It's way outleveled compared to the rest of the area). The main Mt. Snowpeak area has a general/traveling vendor with some consumables and other stuff, as well as the Paladin Life shop. There are two caves - one has iron ore, and the other is the lava caves, which is meant for higher level adventurers - not as bad as the Napdragon, but not beginner level either. It has a slightly hidden Blacksmith Life shop.

The top of Mt. Snowpeak is initially closed off, but is the second area you get access to after advancing the plot. It contains some higher-level trees and ore, the Miner Life shop, as well as a general vendor gated behind a silver-rank boss monster. There's an even higher-level boss monster gating a slightly more advanced area.

You get access to the West Grassy Plains earlier than you get access to Mt. Snowpeak. These contain a variety of monsters that are slightly higher level than the starting area, as well as the entrances to Port Puerto and Al Maajik. Note that you can't enter those areas until you progress the main story. There's another farm nearby to grab some resources from, a hairdresser and her talking plant companion (hairdressing and dyeing respectively - though you'll need to grab the perks to use them), and Glenn/Dragonslayer hangs around in the area out of the way. There's also the Life Shop for the Hunter Life near the entrance to Al Maajik, and there is a secret shop you can get if you buy up a certain perk level high enough.

Port Puerto

Port Puerto is the second city area you'll come across. It's governed by Olivia, who struggles with her identity as both Port Puerto nobility and being the daughter of a pirate captain. Her brother Andy helps, and her father Ahab can be found in town staying out of his daughter's life for the most part.

Like Castele, Port Puerto has the usual array of shops and crafting stations. The Tailor and Cook Life Shops are here.

Once you've progressed enough in the story (and have enough Dosh), you can buy a holiday home in Port Puerto. This allows you to fast travel to the city for free, and gives you a 2nd space to decorate.

Fantasy Life i buddies that live in Port Puerto: Olivia, Ahab, and Orlando.

The Port Puerto areas are as follows:
* The Beach District, which is your entry point. It features one shop (a beachfront drink place that sells some foods and accessories) and you can get access to a bit of fast travel to various places on Tortuga Archipelago.
There's also a lighthouse where Ahab sometimes hangs out, a tortoise rental place, and Orlando eternally tries to chop down a tree.
* Tortuga Archipelago, which is not part of the city proper, but still in the area. There are two cave areas, and like Mt. Snowpeak, one is definitely meant for higher-level players. (The safer one is the one shaped like a shell.) Most of the water is shallow water and you can walk around to various islands. There's a small shop selling various things with a bounty clerk nearby. Hostile fish monsters dot this area.
* Port Puerto Marina is where most of the shops are. In the central area, you'll find the town inn, as well as the tailor, ore, wood, produce, meat, and fish shops. On the west area you'll find some pirates - also, a cafe, the alchemist and armory shops, and the crafing areas for blacksmith and carpenter. On the east side you'll find an alchemist crafting area and a blimp/airship that will allow you to fast travel to Castele/Al Maajik for a fee.
* Port Puerto Palace Way, which bridges the marina with the palace. The guild office is here so you can change your life and redeem bounties. There's also a furniture shop, a clothing shop, the Angler Life shop, and the Tailor Life Shop. Near the Tailor Life Shop is a Tailor crafting area. You can also buy a house in this area, which will allow you to fast travel to and from Port Puerto for free.
* The Palace is where Olivia (and Andy) hang out.

Al Maajik

The third main city in the game, Al Maajik is very much themed as you would expect. This is where a young emperor named Damien (or Daemon) is aided by his very loyal bodyguard Odin and grapples with the fact that the King of Castele might be responsible for his father's demise. (Spoiler: his father is stuck as a statue and is very much not dead.) His mother would very much like Damien/Damon to destroy Castele, at least until she learns the truth.

Al Maajik borders the Aridian/Drysand Desert, which hosts three ruins/dungeons. Like the other areas, one (the Cave of Bones) is perhaps the easiest, followed by the Subterranean Lake and finally the Ancient Ruins. The Ancient Ruins are the closest thing that the original game gets to the dungeon design of Fantasy Life i. The magician Colin watches over these ruins.

Another area reachable from Al Maajik is Cacto Cove, which hosts some unusual starry trees and is the only source for free starry thread. In addition, there is a cave there where you can fight some very dark monsters, though this is meant for late-game players.

Fantasy Life i buddies that originate in Al Maajik: Damien/Damon and Odin.

The rest of the area is a fairly typical town:
* The Al-Maajik Outskirts provide travel options to local areas and also to Port Puerto/Castele, once the player has advanced the story enough. It also has camel rental next to the desert. The boat to Cacto Cove is also in this area. There's a small farm, though it's mostly there for decoration, and a warp will send you to the Spelltown area.
* Al-Maajik Sandtown is essentially the shopping and crafting area. The alchemy, furniture, armory, tailoring, ore, and wood stores are all there. The Alchemist Life shop is also in this area. You can craft on the alchemy, tailor, carpenter, and blacksmith stations. There is also an inn for tired travelers.
* Al-Maajik Spelltown essentially exists around the massive library building. On one side, you find the Academy of Magic (and the Magician/Wizard Life Shop) along with a house that you can buy for fast travel. Behind the library is the warp portal back to the Outskirts. And on the other side is a cafe, along with a cook crafting station and various food-related vendors (basically the produce, meat, and fish vendors). The Mercenary Life Shop is also in this area.
* Dark Sultan's Palace: Damien/Damon, his loyal servant Odin, and the rest of his family live here. There's also a character not related to the family that likes to hang about at the entrance.

Deep Elderwood

An adventurer who has wandered into the Elderwood will find a paladin keeping them from going further until now. But with the story requiring you to go into the Deep Elderwood to continue saving the world. There, you'll meet a young girl named Leilah and her brother Pino, and discover a hidden spirit village.

The Deep Elderwood potentially contains some rare ingredients for various Lives - assuming you do not get eaten by monsters. The hidden Elderwood Village contains a home you can buy (for fast travel to Elderwood Village) assuming you have the DLC, as well as the Carpenter Life Shop and two smaller shops containing a variety of mid-late game goods and supplies. There is also an inn.

Fantasy Life i buddies that are from the Deep Elderwood: Leilah and Pino.

Levitania/Terra Nimbus

It turns out there is a land that very few people know about, and that is Levitania (or as the North American release calls it, Terra Nimbus). It's full of fairly strong monsters, but there is a small camp of Plushlings that live in a tiny village. You can buy a variety of items from the village's sole vendor, stay at the inn, buy a home for fast travel (again requires the DLC), and even bring bounties to the bounty clerk that is for some reason stationed up in this mythic place.

No buddies originate from this area.

Starlight Garden

You get here via the story - revealing more would be very spoilery. It does have a shop with some high-end materials, armor, and unique decorations. There is one buddy that originates from this area, but you actually meet them much earlier in the game - they're your mysterious 50th buddy in Fantasy Life i.

Origin Island (DLC)

Origin Island is both the name of the game's one DLC as well as the new location from said DLC. It is meant for level 50 and above characters and is an extra story after the events of the main one.

Thanks to an unusual intruder, the player discovers a gate to a whole new place. With it, you learn more about the relationship between Celestia and her husband, and even have a chance to recruit the Goddess to your party - though that is not easy. There are dungeons, there are very high level monsters along with equally high-level crafting materials, and you even have a chance to become a God/Creator ranked character! Also your level cap goes to 200, so there's plenty of adventure for a player who has beaten the main story.

No characters from Origin Island show up in Fantasy Life i.