FANTASY LIFE i: The Girl Who Steals Time

This is a wonderfully presented game about grinding. It's mysteriously addicting... even if you typically don't find yourself absorbed in grindy games, this one just has enough different activities, cuteness, silly combat, story, etc that it somehow works. But don't let all of that fool you... you will be grinding. You will be grinding xp in all of your different activities, you will be grinding materials to support crafting activities, you will be grinding reputation in the town to level your guild, you will be grinding relationship with your villagers.... and on and on it goes. I've dropped just over 8 hours into this and really only just barely touched the surface of the various things the game has to offer. To be fair, at this point the game opens up and pretty much just lets you pursue whatever it is you feel like doing. There isn't any pressure to do any specific thing. And that is nice... though you do find that to do any meaningful thing, you wind up needing to grind out xp in 2 or 3 other skills. Hence the grinding. All that said it's a lot of fun to grind, which is a surprising thing to find myself admitting. The "life selection" was probably the most confusing thing to me when I was looking at this game, so let's see if I can explain it. In most crafting/building games, you do things like fight, farm, mine, chop trees, etc. It's the same here. The major difference is that each activity in this game comes with its own xp, its own skill tree, and its own equipment progression (both tools and outfits that increasingly benefit the activity). The "switching life" idea is kind of a confusing way to say you are switching to your other gear set in order to mine a copper node, or chop down a tree, etc. That's all it really is. You are invited (and expected) to do all the activities. But having the different gear sets gives your character wildly different looks, which can be refreshing. They also did add some QoL features that make it more seamless to be out and about gathering and using all of your skills. The combat is quirky but fun. The boss fights get a little spongy but are fun overall. They will keep you moving around and working on your coordination. The story is cute and interesting enough that it has kept me involved. There's a ton of customization on your town building as well that I have barely even touched the surface on, though admittedly I tend to spend less time on that portion myself. Overall I'm enjoying it. I wouldn't have put 8 hours in otherwise. It's super cute, chill, fun... and makes a great distraction from other, more serious games. But it is definitely a grind fest at its core, no question.