It's quite like a bog-standard RPG in most places (hack and slash, not turn-based). At the moment though, all I can do to attack in a battle is hit 'A' which does one combo of three attacks. There is an 'X' attack as well, but I can't use that yet (I would assume it is most likely magical attacks or perhaps weapons other than daggers/swords, but not sure yet). 'Y' lets you change target as you often find yourself in situations where you're fighting three or more enemies at once.
The game focuses more on you ranking up your 'Life' though, as I've only found one area in the game thus far where you can fight things (but it does seem like quite a large area, I've only explored bits of it). You can only take your weapon out when you're in an area like this, by pressing 'A'.
The 'Life' options are what makes it different from other games. I've gone for a Miner first and haven't done anything else, so I can only speak for this Life so far. You basically do what it says on the tin, mine for ore and gems, make money (which is why I went for Miner first, as more money and materials should help all other Lifes). The best part is that you can go and change your Life whenever you want to, while still keeping all of the skills, stat points, and materials etc from your previous Life. You'll have to do a Tutorial for each of them though as there will be different game-play and techniques for every one.
I've only played a couple of hours, but they have been very brief with what the story is. They probably just want you to focus on levelling up and doing all the early Quests first. Obviously, my Quests have been very easy thus far (basically things such as mine ore so many times, collect so many of a certain item etc). You also meet a butterfly character who stays with you throughout the game and helps out. You rank up in different ways, with EXP boosting your Level, Stars boosting the Rank of your Life, and Bliss allowing you to purchase what I'd describe as 'Key Items' or household things like Animal Crossing, or even a Pet which I will definitely get at some point
You get EXP from defeating enemies and doing your job (for me, mining). You get Stars from completing Quests, and you can get Bliss in a whole host of ways. Flutter (your talking butterfly thing) has its own requests and you get Bliss for those, but you also get it for playing the game for so long (I got some for reaching an hour gameplay) and visiting more areas of the game etc.
The similarity to Animal Crossing lies in that you have your own house which you can decorate, or get a new one/expand, you get letters in your mail box from various characters, you can collect fruit from shaking trees... And some of the Lifes such as Fishing and Carpenter will have similar gameplay.
It has Multiplayer, both local and online, but I haven't tried those yet.
