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 Woman 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 the whole lot that it brings to the desk.
Fantasy Life borrows from loads of well-liked properties, however for essentially the most half, it mashes collectively motion RPG exploration with Animal Crossing-esque life sim parts. The outcome, as talked about, is a surprisingly strong 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 you can play nonetheless you need — you’ll be able to take up a combat-focused class like a peacekeeping Paladin and hone your abilities in opposition to wild monsters, or you’ll be able to spend your days smashing rocks as a Miner.
With a pleasant number of Lives on provide, each provides 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 needs you to department out into a number of Lives — it turns into much less about defining your personal character and magnificence of play, and extra about making use of each device that is obtainable to you.
Living proof: your highway to being the land’s most well-known Mercenary is made a lot smoother should you’re in a position to forge your personal weapons and armour as an skilled Blacksmith. And what’s one of the best ways to acquire the metals you may have to craft that gear? Yep, you higher begin grinding that Miner Life.
Fortuitously, The Woman Who Steals Time does its finest 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 bounce straight again to your chosen fight Life.
However make no mistake, you are going to be grinding if you wish to see the whole lot the sport has to supply. Alongside levelling up your Lives, you may want to finish challenges set by every Life’s grasp, improve your gear appropriately, unlock Life-specific abilities through particular person talent bushes, and maintain monitor of all the very best locations to collect expertise factors, supplies, and different assets.
Throw a reasonably in-depth city constructing system on prime of all this — full with unlockable allies, every of whom will be befriended by means of further facet quests — and it is simple to really feel overwhelmed.
Fantasy Life i calls for a methodical strategy, 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 by means of the expertise.
Story-wise, the title makes use of nearly each trope and cliche within the guide, however similarly to one thing like Dragon Quest, the plot is relayed with such attraction and sincerity that it is laborious to not be swayed. We would not go so far as to say that try to be enjoying for the storytelling alone, nevertheless it’s enjoyable sufficient to string you alongside, and it will most likely maintain 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 hen companion, and help their accomplice each out and in of battle. It is a considerate little characteristic for fogeys who could need to assist their children by means of the sport’s trickier moments.
There is no doubt that the discharge thrives if you’re past the preliminary barrage of tutorials and newly launched techniques. It takes an excellent 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 circulate peaks as you casually hop between mashing monsters and gathering assets through enjoyable little minigames. As soon as the coaching wheels are off, it is a downright addictive RPG, and it all the time looks like there is a aim to chase.
For a lot of gamers, searching down the title’s most harmful foes is one such problem, and it helps that the fight system is really easy to choose up and luxuriate 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 necessary should you’re up in opposition to 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 the whole lot on this sport, there is a satisfying development curve at work. Every fight Life performs in a different 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 during which all the title’s techniques intertwine that provides Fantasy Life i its endurance. Rolling credit on the story could solely take you between 20 and 30 hours — largely relying on how a lot grinding you are doing between fundamental quests — however you might be spending double, triple, even quadruple that period of time simply chasing your personal targets.
Conclusion
Fantasy Life i: The Woman Who Steals Time is a surprisingly monstrous outing. It may be a significantly addictive RPG journey, totally filled with issues to see, do, and finally grasp. The grind is usually a bit overwhelming at occasions, however Stage-5’s trademark attraction and well-designed gameplay loops ought to maintain you coming again. That is vibrant all-ages enjoyable, just about from begin to end.
