Fit check
Is The Use of Life worth it for you?
We tell you who should skip it, too.
Play it if you…
Good fit- JRPG fans who want choices to shape character development and endings
- Players who enjoy turn-based battles mixed with quick-time actions
- Role-playing game fans who prefer class customization and dice-influenced events
Skip it if you…
Saves you a refund- Players seeking a conventional JRPG structure with clearly defined good and bad endings
- Players who dislike combat that requires both turn planning and quick-time reactions
- Players looking for a single linear story rather than multiple conclusions shaped by choices
Our take on The Use of Life
Rather than treating the JRPG as a fixed sequence of battles and a predetermined moral arc, the game ties its endings to the protagonist’s changing attachments. Its turn-based combat also adds quick-time reactions, while dice rolls affect some narrative events.
What is The Use of Life?
The Use of Life is a multi-ending adventure-book-style JRPG in which player choices shape Goshe’s thoughts, attachments, personality, and ending.
Events can include dice rolls that alter outcomes, while combat combines turn-based planning with quick-time actions. Each side selects three actions per turn before they are performed in sequence. Goshe gains experience through encounters with death, invests in abilities, and develops classes that provide different skills and spells. Fighter, Samurai, Mage, and Sorcerer offer distinct approaches to battle. Stats can also affect events outside combat. The game presents endings as conclusions to different ways of living rather than labeling them as good or bad.
How The Use of Life plays
- 01Branching life paths
- Player decisions influence Goshe’s personality, attachments, thoughts, and eventual ending.
- 02Three-action turns
- Both combatants select three actions each turn, which are then carried out in sequence.
- 03Quick-time combat
- Battles combine turn-based decision-making with reflex-based action prompts.
- 04Dice-based events
- Some adventure-book events use dice results alongside player choices to determine what happens.
- 05Four character classes
- Fighter, Samurai, Mage, and Sorcerer provide different attack patterns, spells, and status-effect options.
- 06Stat-driven events
- Goshe’s abilities can influence outcomes beyond combat as well as provide battle advantages.
The Use of Life compared to similar games
Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition centers on an unconventional story and exploration of a strange, dangerous city, while The Use of Life connects choices, dice-based events, character attachments, and multiple endings. Back to the Dawn focuses on investigating crime and corruption in a maximum-security prison while planning an escape. Ghost of a Tale emphasizes exploration, immersion, stealth, disguises, and conversations in an animal-populated medieval world, whereas The Use of Life emphasizes customizable classes and hybrid turn-based and quick-time battles.
The Use of Life: platforms & release
Is The Use of Life worth it?
It is worth it if: JRPG fans who want choices to shape character development and endings. Skip it if: players seeking a conventional JRPG structure with clearly defined good and bad endings.
Where can I download The Use of Life?
Use the Download Now button on this page: it opens The Use of Life's store page, where you can choose how to get it.
What platforms is The Use of Life on?
Windows only.
