Anyone else ever worry when a game gets delayed, then delayed again, then delayed even further? I do. It completely shakes my confidence. Especially when the developer behind it hasn’t launched a lot of titles recently and talks about using AI when making things. Simply put, Fantasy Life ended up being one of my absolute favorite 3DS games, and I was terrified about Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time after the delays and the disaster that was Fantasy Life Online.
I didn’t need to be. Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time is amazing. My only concern is perhaps maybe that Level-5 tries to do too much with it, but even then it is easy to just… ignore the elements you don’t care for as much and focus on the ones you do. There are like three games worth of games in Fantasy Life i, and all of them are good.
When I say there’s so much to Fantasy Life i, that applies to the story too. Our avatar is an archeologist working alongside Edward to investigate a mysterious dragon skeleton that led their crew to an island spot. Except upon reaching an unusual place, it means the fossil awakens to become Skelegon. So in the past, we’re investigating Mysteria in the past, our home base hub on the outskirts of depths with a mysterious gear somewhere inside in the present, and an additional major landmass known as Ginormosia. Each place has its own mysteries, not to mention gameplay elements, and they all feed into each other.
The Mysteria past location in Fantasy Life i feels most like a traditional action-RPG and Fantasy Life game. Here’s where you’ll pick up the 14 lives. Four of them are classic RPG class roles, which are Hunter (archer), Magician, Mercenary, and Paladin. These are used for the action-RPG combat segments. The gathering jobs are Angler, Farmer, Miner, and Woodcutter, which are tied to fishing, getting crops, mining rocks and ore, and getting wood. Those directly feed into the crafting lives, which are the Alchemist, Artist, Blacksmith, Carpenter, and Tailor. The alchemist can make potions, some accessories, and mounts, the artist works on home decorations, the blacksmith makes weapons and equipment, the carpenter makes furniture, and the tailor makes some decorations and clothing. And since the best way to get equipment for your combat classes is via the Alchemist, Blacksmith, and Tailor roles, all that feeds into each other again. Artist and Farmer are the new roles this time around and, as such, need to be unlocked by actually going through the campaign quests.
When going through the campaign, tied mostly to the Mysteria part in the past and our hub in the present, it means following storylines that send you to different locations. In the past, you’ll work alongside Rem to go to different islands in Mysteria from the main hub of Eternia, which is your base in the present. There aren’t really traditional dungeons here, as instead you’ll go through woods, caves, fields, and other locations. These will be filled with gathering points for those types of jobs, enemies to fight, and even “bosses” for the combat and gathering roles. For example, a “boss” for a miner might be a major elemental crystal or for a woodcutter would be a tree with angel wings. Aside from having more health than usual, these “foes” will change their weak point, forcing you to search for the “sweet spot” to deal damage when “attacking” to gather. Naturally, there will be enemy bosses as well, which could be a real boss or a bigger and more adept version of lesser foes around you.
However, interestingly enough, our base in the present time in Fantasy Life i involves Animal Crossing types of elements. There’s terraforming, to determine how it all looks. We have villagers of sorts, in the restored Strangelings from Ginormosia and the main campaign. We get a home that we can customize. It is based on 24-hour, real world time for flower, crop, and resource gathering. There’s even relationship-building with these allies, which unlocks additional traits and bonuses for when they join you while adventuring in the world or crafting. Yes, if you’re not playing with folks online, you can have up to three in your party for adventures at any time. They’ll help when you fight enemies! When you’re gathering, they’ll offer buffs for you, debuffs on the target, or even join in if they share that job. Whenever you craft, you can add folks who share that role to the task to boost your skill level and get a possible bonus.
There’s also open-world style exploring. Like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, heading to Ginormosia means finding towers that unlock new views of the map, conquering shrines with different sorts of challenges to get Strangelings that can be restored into villagers for your hub, more gathering opportunities, enemies to challenge, and even villages to save, as well as additional insights into the overarching story and major characters you’ll encounter in them. And you can jump into this area at any time! It’s even encouraged, since fast traveling back and forth can reset resources in certain areas or make it easier to find certain foes for tasks. However, I noticed that facing enemies in these spots seemed to trigger bugs where suddenly foes will be temporarily invincible, due to being outside their range or getting stuck on different “levels” or “elements” of the environment. That usually rectifies itself after a few seconds.
The funny thing about Fantasy Life i is, while this is a game that absolutely involves grinding, it never feels like a grind. It respects your time in so many ways. Do you need resources? Once you can bring in NPC allies or work together with other players, it takes far less time to get the materials you need and ends up being more fun. Worried about that crafting minigame? Get enough experience and you can automatically skip it by unlocking certain abilities in the skill tree and adding allies. Need money? There are folks in the past who will offer sidequests with helpful rewards. Getting a lot of Celestia flowers? You can put those toward items in a shop in the present. Ginormosia is getting too easy? Rank things up at a tower. Don’t like how you look? You can change it at any time in the present and “buy” new catalogs to add additional cosmetic options. Just want access to the new jobs without the tutorial quests? You can skip them. Happen upon a gathering spot, group of enemies, or crafting table that needs a job you don’t have equipped? It automatically swaps to the one you need at a push of a button. Want to forge some equipment when you’re in a restaurant with cooking equipment? Any workbench offers access to all crafting Lives’ actions. By finding other people to play with, unlocking Strangeling allies from Ginormosia, and unlocking certain nodes in the skill trees for each job, you can basically customize elements of the experience to your liking.
There’s also a sense of freedom that comes from reaching certain points in the Fantasy Life i story. Once I got access to Ginormosia, I immediately unlocked all the towers, found all the shrines, and made sure I restored a Strangeling from each crafting and gathering class. After I got the Farmer role unlocked, I spent a lot of time leveling Lives, finishing sidequests, and starting to work on my own little town. It’s like open-world games in that way, as you get this sense of freedom to do what you want and prioritize the elements you enjoy. Yes, you unlock more recipes, Lives, and locations if you follow the campaign. But if you take your time, you’ll find just as much to do without advancing things.
The only real issue I noticed is that Fantasy Life i has a real issue on handheld gaming PCs. This is a problem not only I noticed, but someone else I consulted with as well. It plays amazingly well on high settings! …Until you enter a cutscene. Then everything slows to a crawl. The only way I managed to solve it was to drop down to medium settings, then play around with all of the other features like shadows, anti-aliasing, and such until I found a combination that worked. Once you do go through that, I found it works perfectly and still looks fantastic, so it’s more of a potentially temporary annoyance than anything.
Again, minor hiccups aside, Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time is amazing. There’s so much to it, and it is easy to prioritize the elements you like best. There’s an endless wealth of content and options, and you could probably spend months enjoying every element. The original Fantasy Life is one of the best 3DS games, and now Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time is one of the best titles we’ll see on the Switch and PC. Since Level-5 also confirmed there will be DLC, I also wonder if we’ll see it get even better.
Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time is available for the Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC, and it will also come to the Switch 2.
10
Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
Step into this Slow-Life RPG where you can freely switch between 14 unique jobs, so called “Lives,” and enjoy a carefree life in a fantasy world. Fish, cook, shape the island to your liking, or team up with friends to battle monsters across the vast world. PC version reviewed. Review copy provided by company for testing purposes.
Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time is amazing. Yes, so much to it, and it is easy to prioritize the elements you like best.