Nintendo

Yeah, I never played it. As far as I know, it was only officially released in Japan, and AFAIK the hacked versions you could play outside of Japan were pretty broken by the lack of proper online functionality. I sit in this weird grey area of being disappointed that we didn't get it released in the US, but also being aware that we probably dodged a bullet with that, and we might not be getting Fantasy Life i at all if the mobile game damaged the franchise here.

It's a light ARPG where you can freely swap from a variety of jobs that determine what skills and abilities you have. Unlike most other games in the genre, Fantasy Life has a substantial focus on skills beyond combat. There are basically three different classifications for jobs: gatherers, who have abilities suited to gathering specific types of materials, producers, who use those materials for crafting goods, tools, and weapons, and combat classes. All classes can fight, but combat classes specialize in fighting at the cost of being largely useless for everything else. It's a very fun and rewarding loop to develop all of the jobs so you can maximize what things you can do, but it's also completely valid to beat the entire game playing as any job. I beat the game as an angler/fisherman just to see that it could be done.

Not at all. The original is a 3DS exclusive, so it may be somewhat hard to get anyhow.

I would imagine there's little direct narrative connection between the two.

It's like Animal Crossing, there isn't any story or narrative that you will miss. You can start from whichever you like.

The original Fantasy Life had no farming. It was an action RPG with a large emphasis on goods gathering and equipment crafting… which is an even more crowded genre, now days. What sets it apart is that it is less about combat but crafting and gathering are core classes that you will want to level.