Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, an Epic Slice-of-Life RPG+, Hits Mobile
Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, an Epic Slice-of-Life RPG+, Hits Mobile
Fantasy Life i's fight-craft-equip loop scratches an itch you never knew you had.
Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time is a role-playing / life simulation game from Level-5. When it came out last year, it marked a triumphant return for the studio that gifted us the gentlemanly Professor Layton once upon a time in more fruitful days. Fantasy Life i isn't just a decent follow-up to 2012's beloved 3DS game. It's an improvement over its predecessor in every way, making it the best example of a game in its genre.
"What genre might that be?" you ask. Therein lies the rub. There aren't a whole lot of games exactly like Fantasy Life i, which is one of the reasons it's such an easy recommendation for fans of games like Rune Factory and Harvest Moon. But Fantasy Life i has a much more robust work-reward cycle than either of those games. It might be more accurate to describe it as a single player MMORPG. Your little avatar can take on a variety of jobs across crafting, farming, and fighting. You can theoretically start a game as a Hunter and get through the story campaign without much hassle, but that's not the point of Fantasy Life i: The "grind" is the point, because nothing's more satisfying than going on a quest with a hero you've outfitted yourself.
Let's say you choose a "Life" as a Paladin. Cool! But what if you want a real classy sword, something way better than the trash you can buy off a shelf? Time to learn how to become a blacksmith. But hey, wait, what if we get real deep into the weeds and become a miner to collect our own ore? These crafting-gathering-fighting loops might feel familiar to fans of Final Fantasy XIV, where it's very common for players to take up secondary crafting and gathering jobs so they can outfit their Warriors of Light with the best equipment possible. Plus, there's just something intimate about forging your own sword to stab a rabid bat with. Fantasy Life i knows we crave this pleasure, and it flaunts its ability to desire. There's so much to do in this game, from completing story missions and sidequests galore to making long treks through Fantasy Life i's mysterious (and huge) overworld.
You can play and fight alongside three other friends if you're just not into the grind, but Fantasy Life i shines best when you let it be a virtual friend simulator on top of a monster-stabbing bonanza. You're allowed to nurture a town that grows along the rim of a deep, seemingly endless pit. (Where RPG towns are wont to grow.) As you play you find villagers who populate your town, gradually putting all sorts of handy-dandy NPCs into your reach. Some NPCs will cook and build for you, taking some of the tedium out of other NPCs' requests. Others will show off their talents on the battlefield and in dungeon mazes by wielding weapons against foes or by collecting rare resources deep in hostile territories.
There's a good reason why Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time wound up on a lot of "Best Games of 2025" lists. Several updates later, it still delivers a memorably elevated "slice of life" gaming experience in a crowded genre. It's on Switch / 2, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and now iOS and Android.
Whew, that's a lot of consoles. Good thing there's crossplay. You can load your save file on any device that has the game on it. And that's no Fantasy.