Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time was one of last year’s most pleasant surprises, successfully managing to suck up most of my summer with its brilliant mix of Animal Crossing-style life sim and swashbuckling RPG adventure. And now it’s coming to iOS and Android with cross-save, meaning you can take your existing games with you on-the-go.
Developed by Professor Layton studio Level-5, Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time is the second outing for the Fantasy Life series, which originated on Nintendo 3DS all the way back in 2012. Despite almost a decade between instalments, the fundamentals remain the same, meaning you’re essentially playing as a classic RPG hero – facing the usual world-ending calamity – but one who needs to get a job to pave their way. Or jobs as the case may be.
In Fantasy Life i, time and space are wonky, and you’ll be bounding all over the place. Back in the past, you learn new trades, becoming a trainee mercenary, perhaps, or a paladin, a hunter, a magician, an angler, a miner, a farmer, a woodcutter, a cook, a blacksmith, a carpenter, and more. Or – more likely – a whole bunch of these things. And as you improve, you’ll learn crucial skills that’ll help during your adventure. To fight monsters! To grow food! To craft exotic new weapons! To mine for the ore to create exotic new weapons! Etc.
The list of activities is vast, but the game itself is even vaster. The past plays host to numerous islands full of friends to make and dungeons to explore – or you can pop through a portal to explore a massive open world full of enchanted objects you can turn back into humans who’ll join your party and fight by your side. And over in the present, there’s a whole Animal Crossing-style side game going on, where you’ll build a village for your new friends to live in. So you can probably start to see why its more-ish loops of crafting and scavenging and levelling and building and adventuring hoovered up so much of my time on Switch 2. And given Fantasy Life i had sold 1.5m copies by the time December came around, I doubt I was the only one.
Which brings us back to Level-5’s announcement of an Android and iOS release for Fantasy Life i. It’s arriving as a premium title rather than a micro-transaction-riddled free-to-play effort, and all the DLC and updates available on other platforms are included. Additionally, Level-5 says it features touch controls and full controller support. Even better, cross-saves and cross-play are supported, meaning you can hop between platforms, taking your current progress to the beach, office loo, or other destination of your choosing.
The only thing we don’t have right now is a launch date, but Level-5 is aiming to bring Fantasy Life i to iOS and Android this “summer”.
