Fantasy Life. I've been playing this game since launch. It came out maybe 4 days ago and I already have 25+ hours in it. It was developed by Level 5, with music by Nobuo Uetmatsu, and concept art by Yoshitaka Amano (both of Final Fantasy fame).
It's the closest thing to Jrpg sandbox you can get without feeling like an endless grind. You live in a sandbox world, fight monsters, can buy houses in different cities, get pets and followers, do randomly generated NPC quests, and generally just do whatever the hell you want. There's a main storyline quest, but it can be completed at the player's convenience.
The game actually reminds me of a somewhat simpler Elder Scrolls title, but with admittedly overly cute art style and simpler (but still better) combat.
The basic essence of the game is picking a Life (which is just a Job class, similar to early Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest) and leveling to make more stuff, get stronger, etc. You can increase your basic stats however you want after each level up. There are 12 different Life classes: Paladin, Mercenary, Hunter, Mage, Woodcutter, Carpenter, Miner, Blacksmith, Tailor, Alchemist, Fisherman, and Cook. You can take on any Life and switch between them at will. Each Life compliments another Life somehow, so its good to mix and match but the game is so open ended that it can be completed by just playing a single Life the whole time. The world is pretty large and very colorful, and the fast travel system makes exploring it a breeze.
I'd say it's worth the $40 but there is also an $8 expansion pack. The use of already on cartridge DLC is a bit off putting, but it does add a considerably amount of content to the base game as a whole (new items, followers, pets, areas, monsters, quests, skills, etc).
From an already biased standpoint: 9/10.