Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time

Genre: Open-World Action-RPG / Management Simulation

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local), 2-4 Co-Op (Local Wireless, Online)

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

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Review:

Fantasy Life i is an Open-World Action-RPG with Management Simulation elements released in 2025 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2. It is the follow-up to 2014’s Fantasy Life on Nintendo 3DS, and the Japan-only mobile game Fantasy Life Online. In this game, players take on the role of a member of a crew of explorers who discovers a strange new island, only for an unexpected confrontation between dragons leaving them stranded and seemingly transported through a portal to a different time, where they must work with the islanders by taking on a Life (or more likely, multiple “Life”s), this series’ term for the game’s job classes, with Fantasy Life i upping the original game’s 12 jobs to 14, adding the new Farmer and Artists classes that must be unlocked to access.

I’ll start by saying that my initial impressions of this game were not good. While I really enjoyed the original Fantasy Life, this sequel had all sorts of issues and frustrations that really soured my opinion of it, and it seemed that despite the move to more capable platforms, this game was still pretty limited in its scope. However, before you write this game off, know that as I continued playing it, my opinion on this game started to evolve.

A part of my low opinion was likely due to the presentation, which is faithful to its Nintendo 3DS predecessor in using pretty unimpressive simple cartoony 3D visuals with characters that look like they could have been created in the Mii Maker. Some of the textures have some nice detail, but others don’t and while there’s a lot of color, that color can get to be garish and oversaturated at points. Plus, the overall low framerate and aliasing issues are honestly astounding given the low-quality visuals. Oh, also, this game makes use of a “depth of field” blur like the Nintendo Switch remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, which is definitely going to frustrate some players.

It’s not just the visuals, either. Fantasy Life i is one of those games that has characters whose text conversations are supplemented by brief vocal phrases that vaguely fit the sentiment, a noncommittal middle ground that’s irritating and distracting – I would much rather they either fully voice dialogue, even if only for some scenes, or they don’t bother with voices at all. Plus, this is backed by a soundtrack that bounces back and forth between lovely orchestral themes like the very nice title theme… and whimsical themes that are repetitive and incredibly annoying.

So let’s combine these not-so great impressions of the presentation with my impressions of the first five or so hours of gameplay. First, this game’s characters are all one-note and cartoony in a way that makes it hard to care about any of them or the story. And this game spends a lot of time putting players through pointless conversations with these characters. To its credit, you can skip these, but even doing this you’ll have numerous delays and loading times.

Oh, on this note, be prepared for an absolute ton of loading screens. Oh, and the game restricts your camera view so you can never take it lower than a 45-degree angle or so. And while all of the crafting and gathering job classes have their own minigames that you’re made to do pretty much every time you do that job’s signature task, these minigames are all copies of each other (except the fishing minigame). Oh, and the early tutorial quests (skippable, thankfully) are pretty much all filled with tedious busywork, forcing you to walk back and forth between the same two locations (naturally with a loading screen between them). And despite having multiple combat classes, I didn’t think any of the combat was especially nuanced or engaging.

Look, I don’t want to give you the wrong idea. Even at its worst, I didn’t hate this game, but I was terribly disappointed in a sequel to a game I really enjoyed. There were just so many issues and frustrations, that I was sorely tempted to give up on this game. But here’s the thing… as I tried to wrap things up and be sure that I got a full feel for what this game had to offer, it kept introducing new things, constantly evolving the experience.

Each of the job classes has a pretty extensive skill tree with skill and stat upgrades, and you earn points for these through the use of that skill. And the game does have a pretty extensive crafting system that opens a lot of possibilities. And once you progress past the first five hours or so, you get to new areas, including a massive Open World area that dwarfs the previously-accessible areas, and another area with a customizable Management Simulation element that has you building up a settlement. And the Open-World area has Breath of the Wild-style shrines that can be completed to unlock residents for your settlement, though players need to clear curses by using resources earned through your settlement that are unlocked via a real-time clock.

Through all of this, the bad stuff never stopped being bad. The camera limitation made it infuriatingly difficult to just look around the Open-World area, the loading screens persisted, and all the other problems were still present. But the massive variety of things to do, ways to upgrade your character, and places to explore all help to balance that out.

Two more things I want to note before finishing here. First, I think it’s important to point out that Fantasy Life i supports both cross-play in its multiplayer and cross-progression, two features that I don’t see often enough and want to try to point out where I notice them because I feel they deserve recognition.

And second, the initial release of this game came with some issues that are being addressed in a patch that as of this writing has not yet been released on Nintendo Switch. Having said that, none of these issues greatly affected my time playing the game, and as such this doesn’t really have an impact on my final assessment.

In the end, I think Fantasy Life i is a far more ambitious game than the Nintendo 3DS game that started this series, but it’s also a much messier one, and even the simple fact that you need to slog through hours of this game before it starts to get better make this lose points in my eyes. However, for fans of Action-RPGs and Management Simulations who have the patience to stick with it and crave a game to take their time with, explore, and build up their character and settlement, I think you’ll find this well worth trying out.

tl;dr – Fantasy Life i is an Action-RPG and follow-up to the Nintendo 3DS original game. This game is burdened with numerous issues, with the first 4-5 hours or so being pretty terrible. However, players who stick with it will find that this is a game that has massive depth, a ton of variety, and plenty of things to see and do. You have to put up with a lot of frustrations to enjoy this, but if you have the patience to do so, I think this will be worth it for you.

Grade: B

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The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time Nintendo Switch 2 Edition

Genre: Open-World Action-RPG / Management Simulation

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local), 2-4 Co-Op (Local Wireless, Online)

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Review:

A last-minute entry to the Nintendo Switch 2 launch lineup in 2025, the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of Fantasy Life i had its release date confirmed only a few weeks prior to the console’s launch. Those who bought the game when it released on Nintendo Switch only a week prior to this announcement may have found themselves frustrated by this, but publisher Level-5 seems to have made it a point to alleviate these frustrations by offering an Upgrade Pack for under $3, the most inexpensive paid upgrade we’ve seen thus far. In fact, this is currently the only way to get the Digital Deluxe Edition of the game on Nintendo Switch 2 – buy the Nintendo Switch version of the Digital Deluxe Edition, and then purchase an Upgrade Pack.

This version of the game addresses most of my main issues with the Nintendo Switch version of the game. Namely, the resolution, framerate, and loading times. All of these have been brought up to a far more agreeable standard, making the game much more enjoyable overall. That said, this doesn’t fix the other issues I had with the game, those that don’t deal with performance.

However, if you’re interested in getting this game, is the $3 to upgrade to the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition worth it? Absolutely it is, yes. Only $3 to fix the game’s performance issues is a steal in my opinion, only soured slightly by the fact that the Nintendo Switch version of the game should have never had those issues to begin with. In any case, if you want this game and can get it on a Nintendo Switch 2 instead of a Nintendo Switch, you should not hesitate to do so.

tl;dr – Fantasy Life i is an Action-RPG and follow-up to the Nintendo 3DS original game. This game is burdened with numerous issues, with the first 4-5 hours or so being pretty terrible. However, players who stick with it will find that this is a game that has massive depth, a ton of variety, and plenty of things to see and do. And thankfully, the Nintendo Switch 2 version fixes the performance issues of the Nintendo Switch version, and for only $3, making this a pretty good deal. As long as you have the patience to get through the lousy opening hours, this is worth a look.

Grade: B

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