Developed and Published By: Level-5
Categories: RPG, Adventure
Release Date: 05.21.25 (Switch) 06.05.25 (Switch 2)
Price: $59.99-62.58
*Game Download Code graciously provided for the purpose of review

I’ve always had a soft spot for farming and life sim games. Stardew Valley quickly became one of my all-time favorite games and I especially love franchises like Rune Factory, Animal Crossing, and the Sims. They’re usually pretty simple with one or two unique game mechanics but Fantasy Life reworks the genre from the ground up.

FANTASY LIFE i: The Girl Who Steals Time is basically Animal Crossing meets Breath of the Wild and it’s a combo that I never knew I needed. I never played the original because I didn’t get a 3DS until a few years after it came out, so the Switch 2 version was my entry into the series. Nothing could prepare me for how crazy the game was. 

The game begins with a group of archeologists traveling to a mysterious island with the help of a dragon fossil. Your group is attacked by a large dragon, but the fossilized dragon is revived and saves you and a bird named Trip. Unfortunately, the three of you are teleported to a different world in the process. 

This world is bustling with life. You find dozens of NPC’s, houses, and shops. Eventually you learn that this isn’t a new world, it’s actually the past. The island you were traveling to in the present is the same island, but it’s been abandoned for many centuries. 

A large portion of the game revolves around unraveling the mysteries of the island while leaping back and forth between the two timelines. The rest of the game revolves around how you live your life. There’s more than a dozen lives to choose from, each one basically representing a different career. 

Each life isn’t a simple copy paste of the others either. Each one includes their own storylines and quests, NPC’s, buildings, skill trees, objects, and outfits. 

Become a woodcutter to chop down trees. Become a miner to break down rocks. The resources you collect can be sold for money or they can be crafted into new items by their respective lives. It’s a giant ecosystem that effects everything about the game, and it’s so cool. 

That should be enough to wow you already. It’s a large life sim with a detailed story, but that’s really just scratching the surface because there’s so much more.

There’s a huge open world to explore, with enemies to face and mysteries to uncover. There are more than a dozen shrines to complete, which serve as fun dungeons. One thing that I especially loved was the island builder mechanic.

Once you’ve completed chapter 3, you basically get to play God. You get your own little island that you can completely alter with terraforming. Not only do you have full control over how the island looks, but you can also build and furnish your own house and bring people to your island to live there. This mode is very similar to what you’d expect from Animal Crossing and it’s just a little side game.

The game as a whole is super addicting with great music and fluid gameplay. I had so much fun with this game that for a little while, I was wishing that I played the original. But another part of me is glad that I didn’t and that this huge experience was my introduction because of how grand it is. That’s also what I hope other people experience with Fantasy Life.

Sure, people who have played the original are going to love this game. But I hope this game finds its way to people who haven’t played the original. Maybe someone didn’t have a 3DS back then, or they didn’t like the artstyle, or they didn’t get into life sims until recently. Whatever the reason, people need to play this.

One thing that I should reiterate is that I’ve been playing on the Switch 2. If you’re playing on the original Switch, it’s going to be the same game and will be great. It’s just that the Switch 2 version looks and runs better and has been constantly getting updates since launch. 

10/10