I absolutely adored the original Fantasy Life on the 3DS, and thankfully, Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time has proven to be a worthy successor, sinking its claws into me all over again.
Kate Gray reviewed the Switch 1 version and said, “It's beautiful, it's robust, it's got multiplayer, it's got three fully-fleshed-out areas to explore, it's got crafting and foraging and cooking and fishing and minigames and beautiful music and sidequests and more. And it's all really, really good.”
Well said, Kate, and I wholeheartedly agree. It's one of those wonderfully addictive games where there's so much to do, so much to see, and all the numbers go up and up making you feel really good about your progress. You could argue that it does little to meaningfully evolve the gameplay from the 3DS original, but when it's this good, I'm really not that fussed.
So it’s great news, then, that the Switch 2 version makes the overall experience even more enjoyable thanks to a small batch of noteworthy improvements to the presentation. We’re mainly talking about resolution and frame rate here, so don’t expect any fancy mouse controls or HD Rumble 2 or tie-ins to a mobile app.
Fantasy Life i admittedly looked pretty nice and performed reasonably well on Switch 1 at around 30fps. That said, the significant bump up to 60fps on Switch 2 is very welcome and I can’t imagine going back now. It doesn’t always hit its target, particularly in the larger open-world environments, but I didn't get anything more serious than a few minor dips here and there.
Similarly, the visuals are much crisper than before, especially noticeable when playing in handheld mode. The blur effect is still in place around the edges of the screen, but it feels slightly toned down to allow the game’s world to shine brighter than ever. You can turn this off completely, if you wish, but I find the focus blur adds to the charm; kinda like Link’s Awakening and, to a lesser extent, Echoes of Wisdom.
A small patch applied shortly after release also boosts shadow quality and the object render distance; a minor improvement, but one that further widens the gap between the versions. Load times were acceptable on Switch 1, averaging between 5 and 10 seconds, but this has been cut down significantly to 3 or 4 seconds for most scenarios.
Given how cheap the upgrade is for Switch 1 owners — you’re looking at £2.04 / $2.59 / €2.27 or your regional equivalent — the performance improvements for Fantasy Life i on Switch 2 are more than worth the price of admission. Other publishers have the gall to charge full price again (looking at you, Sega), but this is an acceptable middle ground. If you’re keen on trying out Level-5’s long-awaited sequel, this is absolutely the best way to play on Nintendo systems.
Comments 28
Despite the fact that I wish they included an option to turn off camera shake (kinda gives me headaches), I gotta say:
I’m so happy I bought it and even more so to have waited for the Switch 2 version. I went back and forth between wanting to buy it earlier on PC (and Legion Go) and wrestling with my patience/waiting for the S2 version.
All in all, I made a good choice. The new console, especially handheld, is awesome and the game is great as well.
It’s a little weird sometimes and it still makes me laugh after 30h: wrestling and pulling on those poor fish like that. *pshew *pshew critical hit. Lol. But it’s still truly addictive and the story’s nice.
After Stardew Valley, this is the Life sim I’ve been waiting for.
I'd say it's an 8/10. It's a whole bunch of mini-game busywork that is largely meaningless in the endgame. Fun, yes. But meaningless.
Thanks for the review, even happier that funnily enough my Switch 1 physical copy of this arrived today together with Switch 2 so I'll immediately get the upgrade (so glad that's available first and foremost and even more so considering how cheap it is) - can't wait to finally start playing Fantasy Life i myself tonight!
It's a 10 out of 10 for me. Loving it so far!
@JohnnyMind Yah mon, JohnnyMind got the Switch 2! Congrats, my brother! Now all you need is 15 Switch 2 games to play simultaneously! =>)
Absolutely amazing game.
It's a fantastic game with so much content, great visuals and fun gameplay. I've been getting a little burnt out after like 10 hours, but I'll surely go back to it at a slower pace.
@Burning_Spear Oh I would already have that many Switch 2 games to play potentially (also counting Switch 2 editions), won't do so just because of the Switch 1 games I'm already playing - don't mind it though, so looking forward to playing both kinds of games on Switch 2 now that it's finally here for me, too!
@JohnnyMind enjoy that Switch 2!
I don't suppose anyone's checked if the upgrade pack on a non-japanese account will work with an imported physical copy, have they? I know DLC doesn't usually work that way, but considering the game should benefit from improved stability and load times either way, I honestly might prefer having this game physical over having the Switch 2 upgrades.
If only other 3rd parties could follow suit when it comes to Switch 2 upgrades. Free or make it cheap. Rather, some have chosen to give nothing at all.
I haven't played the game yet, but if it was just as good as the first one, it would be an instant 9/10 for me. Knowing that it's better in every way, though, makes it a solid 10/10!
I'm looking forward to playing it! As soon as I get a Switch 2, though, I'm not in a hurry.
PS: I really hope there's a physical edition in the West by then...
My family is really enjoying this game. There's quite a lot to do and explore, and it sounds like the creators are going to keep supporting it with updates.
And it has cross-save between switch 1 & 2, steam, and ps5, so I can buy it on steam and play on my pc monitor first, and then buy it again physically on switch 2 for portable and tv play when I have the console, I just know it today. Yay for cross-save
All game should have cross-save, it's super annoying when I have games that I really like so I have it on multiple device and my playtime is divided between them with no real progress, like blasphemous and huntdown (has it on my ps4/ps5, pc, and switch). It's a win-win for gamers like me (can play it with my save on whatever device I have), and for game devs too (can have their games purchased on more than one device).
@Magician Video games are supposed to be fun but ultimately meaningless.
@Rob3008 True, but I was referring to the usefulness of leveling lives within the game itself. You can complete the game with life skills below level twenty. You could level those skills to max, but why bother?
@JohnnyMind I hear you. I've played a little Mario Kart World but otherwise am still heavy in Switch 1, mostly with Civilization VI. It will probably be a while before Switch 2 is my main console.
I haven't done the Virtual Card thing to swap my games over, but I'm thinking about it for a few. For some reason, Civ has been crashing a lot lately in late-game scenarios unless I save frequently. Switch 2 may help with that.
@Burning_Spear If it ends up crashing due to hardware limitations (could certainly be considering that it's in late-game scenarios and so I presume there's more going on than during early-game ones) then Switch 2 should help, indeed - definitely hope that's the case so that you can solve that issue whenever you end up playing Civ VI on Switch 2!
40 hours in second re-start again doing it correctly getting all the Lifes and last one is Artists. Should've did this the first time but enjoying every part of the game. I am leveling up all the other characters to level 40 so I can craft without much issues. But this game is a "Collecting" game and and fun at doing it.
@Anachronism Can confirm that both the Switch 2 and Digital Deluxe upgrades I bought on the Italian eShop work with my imported physical copy (and have also found this reddit post confirming the former for other regions, too) - keep in mind that on the other hand I had to redeem the code for the preorder bonus that was included in my physical copy on the Japanese eShop!
@JohnnyMind keep in mind that on the other hand I had to redeem the code for the preorder bonus that was included in my physical copy on the Japanese eShop!
One has to change their NSO to JPN to work but if you have NSO Cloud you have to unsubscribe to get this to work if your not a JPN NSO account to start. Once you do that you can get the Physical DLC and then start your NSO subscription again and change to your Region and if you restart your DLC will download without yourself having to change Region again.
@sethfranum Yeah, to avoid all that I have a second account always set to Japanese - anyway, thanks for mentioning how it works for those who don't have that!
@JohnnyMind I have second NSO account setup for that but I wanted to use my main for the JPN DLC so I had to do this run around to work this. They don't make it easy to get DLC other then your Switch 2 region languages.
“It doesn’t always hit its target” Looks like I will get it on Series X or not at all. (VRR makes such a difference in not seriously annoying me). I hate this way of going about things. (If Nintendo is where they are likely to sell the most copies it should be made specifically for switch 2 and then ported afterwards).
Wait, so ALL of the prices for this upgrade were unround numbers? I assumed one of the prices was round and that the others were direct equivalents.
@Olliemar28 Sounds amazing but the price???? Wow. That’s silly. Such a shame. Prices me out.
Can I get the digital deluxe version switch 1 version on switch 2 with the switch 2 upgrade since the switch 2 version does not have the option for deluxe?
Heard about this gem from a fellow Palia player..... Might have to snag it!
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