LEVEL5’s long-awaited Fantasy Life sequel is an “everything video game” that somehow doesn’t collapse under its own weight.
Sometimes you’re drawn to a video game based on vibes alone. You feel the need for a specific “something” it nails but you cannot put your finger on. This year, Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time has done that to me.
I’m gonna be upfront: I never played the 3DS original, so I treated this game (and this review) as a newcomer. After getting a good look at it during a Nintendo Direct, it was hard to predict whether it’d turn out amazing or feel overstuffed. “It’s Animal Crossing, but also imagine a massive RPG, but there’s also co-op online multiplayer and roguelite dungeons, and…” When first described, its list of features went on forever. As many big AAA behemoths from Western studios struggle to feel as relevant as before, it’s fair to say a killer pitch or compelling gimmick is needed to stand out.
In the case of Fantasy Life i, I’m leaning towards “this game has a killer pitch.” By and large, it’s familiar and instantly recognizable: an amalgamation of overused genre tropes and tried-and-tested systems and mechanics that excel at keeping casual players glued to their screens. LEVEL5 could’ve slapped a paper-thin live-service structure and as many microtransactions as desired on top of this gargantuan sequel and it’d work wonders as an extractor of engagement and hard-earned cash.
Instead, it’s safe to say the new Fantasy Life is one of the most old-fashioned non-indie releases of the year. It manages to enchant and capture one’s attention fair and square, thanks to accessible but engrossing (or at least brain-tickling) systems, a colorful (and layered) world that’s hard to write off as uninspired, and charming characters that just feel straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon. You’ve seen pretty much everything it does before, but I certainly hadn’t seen all of those elements combined into a single and cohesive package. It shouldn’t work, and yet much of my time on the Switch 2 so far has been spent making numbers go up across what feels like four games bundled into one.
Unsurprisingly, Fantasy Life i can’t escape the frontloaded-ness of Japanese RPGs and town sims even if it’s just doing chunks of both genres. It’s got plenty to cut through in order to show you the good stuff, so patience is key to surviving the early hours. On the other hand, the kid-friendly story – which doesn’t go on for longer than 12 hours if you focus on it – that would be little more than a glorified tutorial elsewhere works wonders. Twists and reveals can be seen coming from two miles away, but it’s got a nice rhythm thanks to comedy-heavy exchanges and wacky situations which, as I said before, would make for a nice anime.
Perhaps the central narrative’s biggest success is that it never feels like an aside. “Go play this and come back later to play the actual game” isn’t the vibe here. It jumps between three different maps (more on that next) and systems quickly, and before you can grow tired of a single task or type of adventure, and that’s sort of the secret sauce: Fantasy Life i embraces how overstuffed it is and uses that variety to keep the “loop” agile versus proposing arduous tasks at every turn. There’s also the option to share part of the adventure (and your welcoming village) with friends, yet an odd approach to progression while doing co-op makes the whole thing less than ideal. As for the local co-op option, it’s a limited “helping hand” kind of deal.
“Lives” are at the center: they’re essentially jobs/classes. You can choose in which order to pick them up and develop them, but you needn’t commit to a single path. That means you can experience everything Fantasy Life i has to offer in a single run. If you approach a tree or a rock formation and press the “action” button, you’ll magically switch to your Woodcutter or Miner sets, for example. You can even skip any Life tutorial, even if it’s your first rodeo, as most of them play out similarly and no mechanic can’t be learned as you play. The exception to this rule might be some of the advanced stuff linked to your fully customizable chunk of land and random dungeons that are “grown” through magical trees. Regardless, it’s just a matter of trying out new stuff; few games are as unstressful and low-stakes as this one.
Players who are natural completionists and love to hyperfixate on something can just stay in the opening areas for tens of hours chopping wood or catching fish, absorbing lots of XP and becoming masters of several trades before they even learn the basics of what’s going with all the time-traveling and mysterious magic at the center of the story. Alternatively, you can try to hit the credits as fast as you can in order to open up most content before going down all the rabbit holes… The choice is yours, and I’m happy to report level-gating is either kept to a minimum or very easy to overcome. Even combat is a simple affair of stocking up on enough potions, rolling around, and smacking as many enemies as you can with a couple of buttons, so you can definitely take on foes that are like 15 levels above you with ease.
Those who love The Grind are very likely to adore Fantasy Life i. But you needn’t grind to enjoy it, and as the type of person who’d have obsessed over something like it years ago but can’t commit as many hours as they’d like to a single game now, I appreciate I was able to experience most of what the game has to offer – while being fully aware of its depth and more brutal post-game content – in a reasonable amount of time. I can just quickly hop in to loot some materials and craft some furniture for 20 minutes during a lunch break. If I’m feeling more adventurous, I can fly to ancient Ginormosia to farm enemies and clear temples in a more straightforward RPG fashion – 2D Zelda diehards are especially catered to – while absorbing its relaxed open world.
Needless to say, Fantasy Life i makes for a damn fine portable experience. Though the original Nintendo Switch version appears to fare well enough, its Switch 2 update takes it to Steam Deck levels of fidelity and performance. Mind you, it’s not super impressive or cutting-edge on any front, but it’s a joy to blast through such a dense and busy game with minimal load times and never going below the 60 FPS line. The colors really pop on the Switch 2’s own HDR-ready screen too.
Of course, the art direction – colorful and cozy, but never dull or derivative – and music by Nobuo Uematsu and Haruno Ito add a lot to Fantasy Life i’s striking ability to charm and entertain for tens of hours despite its surface-level familiarity. Much like the entirety of its playable side, they rarely feel one-note or muddled despite how much the experience tries to do. LEVEL5’s Osaka Office team, under the direction of Yugo Nakajima after some shakeups, got Fantasy Life i to the finish line and gave us a fantastic example of how to create a great work out of used parts.
I’m a big believer in art and entertainment’s ability to soar high without reinventing the wheel all the time, and looking at the game’s success, it’s abundantly clear LEVEL5 has delivered a polished and wide experience that finds its own voice in a confident mixture of recognizable strands of DNA. By the time 2025 ends, Fantasy Life i will still be the closest thing to a comforting hot bowl of vegetable soup a veteran studio has delivered in a while.
Score: 9
A Nintendo Switch 2 code was provided by the publisher for this review.
