Life: An Honest Review
7 May 2025
Disclaimer: Even though this was a gift, I will do my best to remain unbiased.
The tutorial(s)
Life starts out fast. Very fast. It is an extremely front-loaded experience where the first few years feel like they have more content than full decades later on. Perhaps if the developer had spaced it out a little more, this would have been a more enjoyable experience throughout.
The tutorial in this game (if you can call it that) is quite insane. It last for a full 10 years as you learn the basic game mechanics. To be fair there is a lot to learn, so perhaps such a long tutorial is merited.
What is less justifiable is the second tutorial in the game from 10 to approximately 22. Here you are tracked through school, then high school, and finally university. The insane part is that when you play this part, you think that the game has already started in full. It is a tutorial, which you only realize was a tutorial in hindsight.
I wish the developer had flagged more clearly that this part was optional, because I think many would have preferred getting to the real game sooner, and would have skipped this part.
The sucky part
Inside the "second tutorial" there is a part from around 15-19 that really sucks (trust me, you'll know it when you get there). It is a drag in all ways. Gloomy, boring, and it has this depressing slightly desaturated aesthetic. Frankly I do not blame those who wonder if there is even a point sticking through it. I wondered this myself, but having seen the later parts, I do think it was worth slugging through.
The world opens up
When you hit ~25 the game really opens up. The full scope of the world becomes clear, and you realize how much effort was really put into the game. At this point it is truly an open world game, and the map is fully explorable (as long as you have the coins to get there, more on that later). If you went through the second tutorial, this open-endedness might feel overwhelming, because the game suddenly went from having very explicit goals clearly marked on the map, to being more of a sandbox type experience.
The money system does provide a bit of a structure however. In some ways it is the most broken part of the game, while in others it is the only thing that keeps this from being a complete free-for-all. Let's talk about it.
Money system
While I think the money system affects the male build more, everyone who plays will notice how broken it really is. You constantly have to keep an eye on that money meter, because almost everything you do in the game drains it. Eating, sleeping, driving, walking. Everything consumes money, so you better never stop looking for those coins. I understand the devs wanted to create a goal once the game opens up, but I think if they had made coins a little bit less scarce this would have been a more pleasant experience.
At least the quests that bring the most coins could have been selected better. I feel this might be patched later, but for now it remains deeply flawed mechanic.
Multiplayer
There is some limited multiplayer in the game, but when you do start interacting with NPCs you really notice how the developer saved CPU cycles to achieve the insane graphics.
That is not to say that all NPCs are dumb. There are a few that you run into in the main storyline that are extremely well written, smart and interesting to interact with. It is embarrassing to say, but some of them have started to feel very real to me. I just wish that the devs had added more of them to the game, perhaps even sacrificing some graphics or map size to achieve this.
Conclusion
Now this is a part-way review (currently at 33). Even though I felt like quitting a few times, it does seem to hold just enough value to keep stringing me along. So I will stick with it for a while longer and might post another review once I get into my 40s.
Review score: 4/5 ⭐️