It has been a lengthy time coming, however proficient Japanese developer Stage-5 is lastly again — and it is again with a bang.
Fantasy Life i: The Lady Who Steals Time takes the blueprint of the unique Fantasy Life — a Nintendo 3DS title from 2014 — and massively expands upon it.
Significantly, we’re nonetheless in shock over simply how a lot stuff has been packed into this successor. What begins out as an easy journey quickly transforms right into a time sink of epic proportions, as the sport doubles down on nearly every thing that it brings to the desk.
Fantasy Life borrows from a variety of standard properties, however for essentially the most half, it mashes collectively motion RPG exploration with Animal Crossing-esque life sim parts. The consequence, as talked about, is an incredibly sturdy launch that’ll attraction to a variety of gamers.
The entire thing revolves round ‘Lives’ — jobs that your customized character can unlock and subsequently grasp. The pitch is that you would be able to play nonetheless you need — you’ll be able to take up a combat-focused class like a peacekeeping Paladin and hone your expertise towards wild monsters, or you’ll be able to spend your days smashing rocks as a Miner.
With a pleasant number of Lives on supply, each offers you a contemporary perspective on the sport’s construction, and the best way its (considerably open) world is designed. Nevertheless, as you progress, it turns into more and more apparent that Fantasy Life desires you to department out into a number of Lives — it turns into much less about defining your individual character and elegance of play, and extra about making use of each instrument that is obtainable to you.
Working example: your highway to being the land’s most well-known Mercenary is made a lot smoother in case you’re in a position to forge your individual weapons and armour as an skilled Blacksmith. And what’s one of the simplest ways to acquire the metals you will have to craft that gear? Yep, you higher begin grinding that Miner Life.
Luckily, The Lady Who Steals Time does its greatest to streamline your development throughout a number of Lives. Merely interacting with a tree, for instance, will allow you to immediately change to the Woodcutter Life, and drawing your weapon helps you to soar straight again to your chosen fight Life.
However make no mistake, you are going to be grinding if you wish to see every thing the sport has to supply. Alongside levelling up your Lives, you will want to finish challenges set by every Life’s grasp, improve your gear appropriately, unlock Life-specific expertise by way of particular person talent bushes, and hold monitor of all the perfect locations to assemble expertise factors, supplies, and different assets.
Throw a reasonably in-depth city constructing system on high of all this — full with unlockable allies, every of whom may be befriended via extra aspect quests — and it is easy to really feel overwhelmed.
Fantasy Life i calls for a methodical method, then. On its floor, it is a breezy, all-ages journey, however you’ll be able to find yourself spending hours upon hours upon hours simply ticking off menial duties — and that is with out even mentioning the narrative that runs via the expertise.
Story-wise, the title makes use of nearly each trope and cliche within the guide, however similarly to one thing like Dragon Questthe plot is relayed with such attraction and sincerity that it is arduous to not be swayed. We would not go so far as to say that try to be enjoying for the storytelling alone, however it’s enjoyable sufficient to string you alongside, and it will in all probability hold youthful gamers engaged.
Talking of, it is value noting that Fantasy Life i helps a restricted type of sofa co-op. A second participant can take up the function of Journey, the protagonist’s quirky fowl companion, and help their accomplice each out and in of battle. It is a considerate little function for folks who might wish to assist their children via the sport’s trickier moments.
There isn’t any doubt that the discharge thrives whenever you’re past the preliminary barrage of tutorials and newly launched programs. It takes a great few hours to get thus far, however with a handful of Lives at your disposal and far of the sport’s semi-open world ripe for traversal, exploration turns into a joyous hook.
The gameplay movement peaks as you casually hop between mashing monsters and gathering assets by way of enjoyable little minigames. As soon as the coaching wheels are off, it is a downright addictive RPG, and it all the time seems like there is a objective to chase.
For a lot of gamers, looking down the title’s most harmful foes is one such problem, and it helps that the fight system is really easy to select up and revel in. At its core, it is a very simplistic tackle action-based battling, centered round one-button combos, particular assaults, and dodges — with spacing being essential in case you’re up towards a number of foes.
It won’t have the mechanical depth to maintain motion aficionados coming again time and time once more, however as with every thing on this recreation, there is a satisfying development curve at work. Every fight Life performs in another way, and steadily besting harder opponents feels rewarding — particularly when there are more and more uncommon supplies up for grabs.
Certainly, it is the best way wherein all the title’s programs intertwine that offers Fantasy Life i its endurance. Rolling credit on the story might solely take you between 20 and 30 hours — largely relying on how a lot grinding you are doing between predominant quests — however you could possibly be spending double, triple, even quadruple that period of time simply chasing your individual aims.
Conclusion
Fantasy Life i: The Lady Who Steals Time is a surprisingly monstrous outing. It may be a critically addictive RPG journey, totally filled with issues to see, do, and finally grasp. The grind generally is a bit overwhelming at occasions, however Stage-5’s trademark attraction and well-designed gameplay loops ought to hold you coming again. That is vibrant all-ages enjoyable, just about from begin to end.
