FANTASY LIFE i: The Girl Who Steals Time (PC)

Geoffrey Wright | July 11, 2025 | Review | No Comments

The original Fantasy Life released back in 2014 on our shores for the Nintendo 3DS, and offered players a cozy RPG to relax on the go with. This sequel looks to expand on that foundation while retaining the charm of its predecessor. Does it succeed? Lets take a look.

You play as an adventurer who sets sail with the archaeologist Edward and his team, who discovers an uncharted, deserted island. Like clockwork a dragon apppears and attacks the ship, before another arrives to lend a hand and whisk your party away to safety. Unfortunately, after passing through the portal, that desolate island before you has transformed into a lush tropical land teeming with life. After crash landing on the island its time to roll your sleeves up and start getting your bearings on just where, and when, this land is that you’ve managed to happen upon.

Honestly the story wasn’t quite as good as the original, funnily enough the story ends up feeling more like a long quest to introduce you to the island and the possibilities to come, as its the end game where you’ll find the real meat of the game for me. There’s also a multiplayer mode that allows a friend to join in the fun that you’ll surely make use of at this juncture too. It can all make the game last tens of hours if it really sinks its claws into you.

With much more power afforded to it, it’s no surprise to find this sequel looking much better than the original (played on 3DS) but that doesn’t mean it has lost any of the charm. Even with much more detail, and more modern additions like global illumination & screen space effects, the game still carries the colourful style of the previous game.

As you would expect given the like of GI being used, performance is a little more taxing than you would usually expect of a game like this. You can still push for 4K/120, but on my system at least (R7 5800X3D/32GB/RTX 3090) the busier scenes could see things drop into the 90’s at max settings. Still, there’s plenty of settings to tweak and frame caps to choose to hit your target, the games colourful style doesn’t suffer too much from reducing quality settings.

Feeling like an amalgamation of all those cozy life sim style games, especially things similar to Stardew Valley and the like, you’ll find plenty to tuck in to when starting out on your adventure if returning from the original Fantasy Life. Upon crashing onto the island the game opens with a little exploring to get your bearings, as well as some small skirmishes and plenty of opportunities to gather resources you’ll need for crafting. Things can become a bit of grind as you make your way through the story, but its worth keeping at it for what’s to come.

As noted earlier, the endgame is where you’ll end up spending the most time, as those job roles can be switched through freely enough and it opens up a lot of options when it comes to how you can shape the island. With additional actions like swimming etc over the previous game, you can now explore a lot more to find hidden dungeons, or find that perfect spot to set up your town and build some roads. Not only that, but all those jobs will come in handy for crafting the land as you see fit, the landscape can be changed too with even rivers to break things up. All this can be done alone, or with others through coop (on or offline) and makes for a pretty fun distraction.

Fantasy Life I takes most of the what the original offers, along with sprinkles of a few other similar games in the genre, to create one of those cozy RPG experiences not seen too often. There’s been quite a jump with regards to the original in most aspects like the graphics and gameplay, tho it doesn’t quite draw you in as much with the story and there’s a grind to contend with, but its an altogether great package you can get a lot of out if you’re prepared to put the time in.