Life Sims play a big role in my life. Designing virtual homes and cultivating virtual gardens has occupied my attention more than I’d like to admit. Even if a life simulation isn’t very good, I can still lose myself in it and ignore my real-world obligations. The news that my much anticipated life simulator would be postponed from this year till 2024, however, has made me quite happy.
We hear that Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time will now be available in the winter of 2024. The report was originally noticed by Gematsu and originates from the Ryokutya2089 blog. This particular blog has a track record of leaking credible material, typically taken from Japanese magazines such as Famitsu before it is locally translated. According to Ryokutya2089, who stated that the magazine ad mentioned the new release date, that seems to be the case here. Upon receiving Inverse’s request for comment, publisher Level-5 did not promptly react.
Just like the original, Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time sticks faithful to the formula.
Therefore, let’s pretend the rumour is true. Even though we are far into the year, we still do not have a firm release date for Fantasy Life i. This revelation only solidified my suspicions that next year will be a setback. The anticipation of jumping in is killing me, but I’m relieved it won’t be happening anytime soon.
To begin, you may want to read up on Fantasy Life. The first Fantasy Life spent two years in Japan before becoming global in 2014. Fantasy Life follows in the footsteps of other life simulation games by letting players immerse themselves in the tedium of domestic duties like painting, furnishing, and cooking. Its status as a role-playing game is what distinguishes it from similar titles like Animal Crossing.
In Fantasy Life, each occupation is its own class; for example, to be a tailor, you need the tailor class, and to be an angler, you need the angler class. As you progress through the game, you’ll encounter unique minigames, narratives, and objectives related to each of these classes. Just as in Final Fantasy XIV, you have the option to change your class whenever you choose in Fantasy Life.
Due to its role-playing game origins, Fantasy Life offers a wide variety of combat roles that you may switch to whenever you feel like taking on some monster slaughtering. You’ll have lots of opportunities to do just that as you embark on its hilarious yet familiar plot.
still image from Fantasy Life I: The Time-Held Beauty
Cleaning up my Fantasy Life home will take precedence over my own flat.Level 5.
The combination of life simulation and role-playing game elements isn’t unique to Fantasy Life. Even though it was more focused on role-playing, Harvestella from last year accomplished the same objective admirably. Fantasy Life is more concerned with the job of exploring than with household or action-oriented tasks; it’s like weaving, really.
The Girl Who Stole Time is the first chapter in Fantasy Life. Juxtaposed with less perilous occupations, such as the newly included farmer and artist classes, and more daring adventures, it appears to be very similar to the first game. Instead of merely being able to decorate your town, it also gives you the option to terraform it. Just like the first, this one has internet multiplayer, so you and your pals can kill time as you ignore reality.
For the life of me, I can’t believe there’s been a delay because it’s literally my dream life simulator. The year 2023 has already produced more hit games than any other in recent memory (though, of course, creators have had a rough go of it, too). When the nerve finally gets the best of me, I’ll finish Alan Wake 2. Between Misericorde and The Banished Vault, there are so many fantastic indie games that I need to get to Pikmin 4 and Armoured Core 6.
still image from Fantasy Life I: The Time-Held Beauty
Prior to the release of Fantasy Life i, there are a plethora of additional enemies to defeat.Level 5.
With everything else going on, who has time to maintain a completely separate online identity?
We are all too busy playing the games that came out in the past twelve months to give a life sim a second thought now that it’s almost the end of the year. No, the life simulators are the ideal new year’s game to tide us over till the floods of the following year.
True, 2024 will see a slew of big releases—Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth in the autumn and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth in January—but nothing is taking forever. Assuming, for the time being at least, that the frenzy around the Game Awards dies down, I’d prefer to see Fantasy Life i emerge so that I can devote some serious time to it without always putting it on the back burner.
Nintendo Switch owners may look forward to the release of Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time.
The original publication date of this article is November 10, 2023.