FANTASY LIFE i: The Girl Who Steals Time

I played the 3DS version and put in 100+ hours in that one, even got the DLC. So when this game was announced, it was a for sure buy... although I did wait for winter sale. The game kept the familiarity of its predecessor, but made things so much more convenient with the teleportation system. Although it is quite a shame that they don't let us teleport to the different basement levels, since they've already allowed us to teleport in front of the dungeons. Tbh, I'm not as interested at the story compared to the 3ds version. It felt like there's a lot of unneccessary padding. The backstory between the bird and the professor was a bit much, but I do appreciate that we can skip the cutscenes, which is something I ended up doing midway. The story style, similar to the 3ds, felt like it's written / performed for children, with an obvious bad guy and silly jokes here and there. You'd connect the dots way faster than the characters and now you just wait for them to figure things out. While the deeper mystery is kept quite well, the earlier reveal wasn't as surprising when you know it's coming. I suppose, in that way, this game is definitely for all ages. Kids can enjoy the story and cutscenes, I can skip them and still get caught up by reading the quest summary. The map itself felt small and big at the same time. With the previous game, there's no multiplayer area, so the world needed to be big when you start to travel from one place to another. They're all connected on foot. However, this game introduces a new map that is sort of unrelated to the main story but is big and can match your level as you 'upgrade' them. This does seem like it's intended for end-game content, same goes with the sappling dungeon mechanic and the recent free dlc. I personally don't participate in the multiplayer, but it's an option for those who like to play with other people. The game already allows you to get party members within the game and, since I played the previous installment, I recognized them! It was fun to see familiar faces be called into this world and have them roam around the HQ. The HQ itself is a new addition. Ever since Harvest Moon and the likes allows one to decorate the whole town, every game starts to follow. Including Fantasy Life. It's a neat idea, but holy moly it's freakin' expensive! You want to build a bridge? That'll be 2000g. You want to move it, or change the design? Pay up. You want to relocate your villager's house? Relocate a farm? Your house? The guild? Pay, pay, pay. Building and relocating costs money. Redesigning costs money. The only thing that's free is changing the shape of your land and placing decorations that technically costs money since you need materials to make them. You can sell tools and weapons you get as you explore so at some point, money won't be a problem, but when I started out, decorating becomes the least of my concerns because I'm poor. There's also a limit to how many villager's house you can build in the place, so you can't house everyone. Some of them will have to be homeless. Each villagers have their own personal decor, so it's nice to see their interior sense when you house them. They also have a special dialog during the first time you gave them a house. Farmer and Artist are newly introduced here. They're locked behind the story progression, which is fine but because of that, they do feel a bit detached from the rest of the Life. Even if you need them for cooking, some of the ingredients aren't available unless you rank up your Farmer Life and you're better off buying them from the shop. It's not that expensive. Artist is also only for side quest and house decor. It overlaps at times with carpentry or even cooking, strangely enough, because now you can build 'decoration' via cooking. You do have a Gallery in HQ where you can display and sell them, but it simply feels like busywork. I love the new skill points that they introduced compared to the old 'skill' or level mechanics in the previous game. Being able to set your own list in the menu is a convenience I never knew I needed. There are a few new things that the game introduces that I find odd and underwhelming but it does not outweigh the improvement this game introduced. I tried going back to my 3ds and it didn't feel as fun anymore now that I know I can switch Life at any moment's notice.