FANTASY LIFE i: The Lady Who Steals Time was supplied by LEVEL5 for overview. Thanks!
The Life/Farming Sim style has been fairly lively over the previous 10 years, doubtless because of Stardew Valley revitalizing the style, particularly for indie builders. However LEVEL5 has introduced one thing a bit totally different to the desk with FANTASY LIFE i: The Lady Who Steals Time, and it is a welcome change from the standard state of affairs.
Do not get me incorrect, I like life sims like Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and Rune Manufacturing unit. However FANTASY LIFE i takes a special strategy to those video games. In a reversal of the established order, FANTASY LIFE i places the story on the middle of the sport, with life-sim parts revolving round it. In reality, if you wish to, you’ll be able to just about simply deal with the storyline, finishing quests, and progressing by way of the world at fairly a tempo, however that is probably not how the sport is designed to be performed.
You may simply department off from the principle quest line and tackle a variety of aspect quests, or simply discover the world and stage up your varied “Lives”, that are the professions you’ll be able to select from within the recreation, starting from a chef to a miner, and varied fight roles too. You may change these on the fly after you have obtained the license for each, which opens up the power to carry out varied duties. Every Life is leveled up individually and has its personal ability tree, so progressing alongside the ability timber and leveling up every Life is basically the place lots of your time can be spent.
If that is not your cup of tea, then the principle questline would not actually require you to do any grinding. In reality, the sport is surprisingly quick. In the event you do not go for any aspect content material, like non-compulsory quests or adorning your individual island (extra on that later), you may full the principle storyline in lower than 10 hours. There are a few “hiccups” the place you may want to seek out further associates to stay in your island with you, and you will want at the very least primary expertise in every of the “Lives”, however apart from that, you’ll be able to just about do quest after quest to progress the story.
Whereas fight is not actually a spotlight of the sport, there’s a first rate quantity of it, and the mechanics in place work nicely sufficient, even when they’re a bit primary. You will have the power to dodge, gentle assault, heavy assault, and, if in case you have a defend, block assaults too. Issue is on the better aspect, though some bosses do put up a good struggle. Once more, grinding often is not a requirement except you are going for 100% completion, simply be sure to have the best tools and a few buddies to struggle alongside.
As for the story itself, as you may think, given the sport’s full title, it revolves closely round time-traveling and time manipulation. There’s not a lot in the best way of twists on this story; the antagonists and protagonists are revealed virtually as quickly as they seem, and whereas there are some fascinating premises, there’s nothing that actually units the sport aside by way of its storyline.
Shortly into the story, you may be launched to an island, which ultimately turns into your “Residence Base”. A spot the place you’ll be able to construct homes, enhance your village, and acquire villagers by saving them from the darkish power utilized by the antagonists.
This village represents a reasonably significant slice of the “aspect content material” within the recreation, and you’ll do issues like settle for requests out of your villagers for sure objects in alternate for rewards, full guild actions to unlock extra decorations, and develop your island additional. It is moderately fleshed out, and the customization, I’d say, is just like that of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, though the personalities of every villager are a lot much less detailed and fascinating.
Actually, it is all about what you are shopping for FANTASY LIFE i for. It does have a storyline, and that is a pleasant rarity within the recreation like this, nevertheless it’s not an particularly deep one, and if you happen to deal with it, you may be achieved very quickly. It has a good quantity of aspect content material, however a lot of it revolves round grinding expertise factors and doing varied duties like mining, cooking, and fishing.
It lacks the shut private relationships you’ll be able to construct in one thing like Stardew Valley, in addition to the enjoyable every day programs in place in video games like Animal Crossing. However you’ll be able to nonetheless have loads of enjoyable with leveling up your jobs to get new gear and leveling up your island to get extra villagers and new decorations, which is what you’ll spend most of your time doing, so if that does sound interesting, then FANTASY LIFE i is price your consideration.
FANTASY LIFE i: The Lady Who Steals Time – Steam Deck Efficiency
FANTASY LIFE i is a good recreation to play on the Steam Deck; it has good controller assist for each menus and gameplay, the sport actively mentions supporting Distant Play Collectively for the straightforward co-op mode, and it has the graphics robotically configured for the Steam Deck.
The graphics preset usually falls round “Medium” settings, and targets 60 FPS, which it reaches virtually 100% of the time, with the odd dip into the excessive 50s right here and there, however not sufficient for me to counsel altering the settings, so depart them as-is.
Energy draw does fluctuate in keeping with your location, however it’s usually round 14-18W, so it is not too intensive on the battery. It’s best to count on round 3.5 hours on a Steam Deck OLED and round 2-2.5 hours on a Steam Deck LCD. Temperatures have been within the 65 °C – 70 °C vary.
Accessibility:
FANTASY LIFE i has restricted accessibility choices. All dialogue is subtitled, even voiced strains. You may allow auto-targeting of enemies whenever you draw a weapon, and controls are rebindable.
Conclusion:
FANTASY LIFE i undoubtedly has its good factors. It has a good storyline, albeit a brief one, and it has loads of aspect content material within the type of levelling up your “lives” and enhancing your island, nevertheless it undoubtedly caters in the direction of gamers who take pleasure in that grind. If that does not describe you, then this recreation may not be for you.
As for Steam Deck assist, you’ll be able to’t actually fault FANTASY LIFE i. Nice controller assist and a graphics preset already in place for the system imply that you may’t actually ask for extra by way of how nicely it runs on the Steam Deck.
Our overview is predicated on the PC model of this recreation.
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