Not meaning to get off topic again, just adding quickly, I kind of felt the same way about Magical Melody. The characters seemed a bit too 'chibi-ish' for my liking.
Yeah, it really made the post-game more enjoyable. The children events when you got enough hearts for them was also pretty...
So glad you made a thread for this.:D I loved this game. The children and rival marriages really made it more interesting to me. I usually end up getting slightly bored of HM games after getting married, but this game really kept my attention afterward.
I just started up a new file on it...
Just my opinion, but it's probably more like Animal Crossing if I had choose one of them to compare it to. It's still quite different, but to me they both have more of a relaxed game play. No fighting monsters and leveling up like in Fantasy Life. That's more like Rune Factory.