Hot off the heels of Palia, a great life sim that simply consumed dozens of hours of my life, I truly can’t imagine I’ve been sucked into yet one more one solely a few days later. With its witty writing and seemingly limitless provide of allure, Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time has already stolen loads of mine. The characters and story up to now are each splendidly goofy and far more substantial than I’m used to seeing in this style, the RPG-like Life system of leveling up numerous jobs is very easy to get misplaced in, and it appears to have nailed the stability between day-in-the-life cozy actions and more action-packed exploration to the purpose the place it’s actually laborious to foretell what would possibly occur subsequent. I’m nonetheless fairly early on in what’s beginning to appear like fairly a prolonged journey, however I’m already head over heels for this delightfully light-hearted romp crammed with speaking birds and time-traveling dragons. There go my weekend plans.
Fantasy Life i is an attention-grabbing hodgepodge of chill game mechanics lovingly organized into one killer mixtape that’s repeatedly shocked me up to now. One second I’ll be mining for ore with a pickaxe to craft an iron ingot and suppose, “ah, okay. I get what this game is” – solely to search out myself strolling by a time vortex moments later that results in a extended open-world trek crammed with fight in opposition to brightly coloured monsters. Though that may be a little jarring at first, after a few hours I began to understand the way in which it retains issues contemporary by attractive you to leap between its numerous sights.
If I’m ever feeling a bit bored by serving to villagers with their random requests, I can go run round a desert on the back of a camel in search of hidden treasure chests and fire-breathing lizards for a bit, or get myself chewed out by an entitled mimic. The factor that brings these disparate actions collectively is that all of them have a low-impact vibe to them, one the place I by no means felt the need to lean ahead in my chair or fear about min-maxing my character’s loadout. It’s half life sim, half action-adventure RPG, all unified by its universally mellow tone.
I’m particularly shocked by how rapidly I began to care about its solid of characters, too. That might be Edward, the adventure-seeking archaeologist, Trip, the speaking hen who likes to sass people, or Rem, the musically-inclined princess who appears to take pleasure in slumming it up with us widespread people. The humorous dialogue and larger-than-life personalities have made me chuckle a lot more than I often do from life sims, and I’m fairly to study more concerning the time-skipping plot I’ve discovered myself in the center of.
It’s each stunning and spectacular simply how a lot this goofy life sim does, and how a lot of that’s virtually instantly tremendous participating. Of course, it’s completely attainable that some of that allure will put on off as I turn into more conversant in its system and get additional into the grind. It might be that Fantasy Life i simply has an extremely robust opening, however even when that does grow to be the case, I’ve actually been having fun with my time up to now and am feeling fairly good at its probabilities of holding my consideration.
I’m nonetheless early on in my journey, and have but to check out the multiplayer options (which embody each online and native co-op for up to 4 people), get into the later levels with any of the job paths, or end more than a few chapters in the story. After what is going to virtually positively be a sleepless weekend dominated by shanking wolves and serving to a service provider bear heal his bee wounds, I’ll have a lot more to say – however for now I’ve gotta go help this cat along with his private issues.