Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time review for PS5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch 2, PC

The original Fantasy Life, which was released back in 2012 for the Nintendo 3DS, was a charming RPG by developer Level-5, a studio known for making solid RPG’s since the PlayStation 2 era. One part life-sim, one part traditional JRPG, it looked like the start of a promising new franchise for the developer, further cemented by Nintendo picking up the publishing duty for the game at the time.

While a sequel did enter development, it ultimately transformed into the mobile game Fantasy Life Online. This follow-up had a short lived existence, shutting down service altogether in 2023. One might have thought that’d be the end of the series as a whole, but thankfully Level-5 had the fuel to try one more time, with the recent release of Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time.

Much like the original Fantasy Life, The Girl Who Steals Time balances between an action-RPG and life sim of sorts. If you’re familiar with titles like Rune Factory, you’ll have a rough idea of what to expect, right down to the cutesy designs of both your lead character and the other characters you’ll encounter throughout. However, it’s not a direct comparison to those types of games either, managing to carve out an identity that helps it stand apart from other RPG’s that occupy a similar space.

At the onset of the game you’ll create a character from a number of different customization options. From there you’ll be introduced to the main plot of Fantasy Life i, wherein you and your crew of explorers are sent backwards in time by a skeletal dragon friend capable of opening time portals. You land on an idyllic island, and you’re quickly introduced to a unique cast of supporting characters that’ll provide you with a variety of quests to complete as you journey through the various mysteries the island provides. In addition, you can travel forward in time to the same island, now in ruins, with a whole system devoted towards rebuilding and repopulating the island in order to restore it to its former glory.

One of the key components in Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, is the Life system. Replace the word Life with Job, and you’ll likely be familiar with the mechanic from other JRPG’s. Your character can choose from a number of Life jobs, some of which are focused on combat classes like Mercenary or Paladin, while others revolve around crafting or gathering resources. There’s a large number of jobs available from the start, with even more waiting to be unlocked as you advance through the story. Each job has unique armor and weapons attached to it, and it’s worth exploring multiple jobs at once since switching between jobs is essentially context sensitive. If you choose Mercenary as a job, but you’ve also unlocked Farmer, you can simply walk up to a patch of vegetables as a Mercenary, press a button, and instantly change to your Farmer class to harvest the food. From there if you opt to get into a battle with nearby enemies, you’ll again transform back to the Mercenary class, re-equipping your ideal armor and weapon loadouts without needing to do any sort of menu management. It’s a really smart system that works exceptionally well, and makes exploring the island even more enjoyable.

Combat in Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time doesn’t feel exceptionally deep, you have a standard attack, a heavy attack, and a dodge roll, but in conjunction with all the other classes, exploration elements, and so on it still manages to feel satisfactory and fun throughout. Pretty much everything you do in Fantasy Life i progresses your character in some way, so no action feels wasted. There’s a ton of things to uncover throughout the main adventure, and the addition of a third explorable location that’s essentially a free-roam area separate from the story gives added incentive to level up and explore for unique treasures.

I absolutely recommend checking out Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time. It’s a great RPG with a lot of elements that come together really well, allowing you to focus on various professions that are sure to cater towards a variety of gaming tastes. The storyline is light and whimsical, not particularly deep, but fits the world and aesthetic of the game really well. The ability to play online with others is also great, allowing you and your friends to form up a party and take on a lot of the optional content as well. It’s a fantastic follow-up from developer Level 5, and shows that Fantasy Life deserves to be held up amongst some of the greats in its genre.

Note: Level-5 provided us with a Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time code for review purposes.