Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time

[darksnowman]

Revealed in the last Nintendo Direct, there's a new trailer from the Level-5 Vision 2023 event.

Yup, this looks like Fantasy Life. There are two new "?" lives so I'm looking forward to finding out what those are, and as well as being able to decorate the interior of your place, you can now place things outside and terraform like AC:NH. I didn't bother with interior decoration very much on the 3DS but as long as the lives and main quest are fun this should be top stuff.

So why the i?
1) the island on which the game is set
2) t'Internet as it has online multiplayer
3) individual because you can live life in your own way
4) to be revealed at a later date...

They're aiming for a global release this year!  

[bob]

Revealed in the last Nintendo Direct, there's a new trailer from the Level-5 Vision 2023 event.

Yup, this looks like Fantasy Life. There are two new "?" lives so I'm looking forward to finding out what those are, and as well as being able to decorate the interior of your place, you can now place things outside and terraform like AC:NH. I didn't bother with interior decoration very much on the 3DS but as long as the lives and main quest are fun this should be top stuff.
So why the i?
1) the island on which the game is set
2) t'Internet as it has online multiplayer
3) individual because you can live life in your own way
4) to be revealed at a later date...
They're aiming for a global release this year! [emoji3] 

5) It's a typo that they're too embarrassed to fix now.

[Ronnie]

The reveal trailer seemed to suggest terraforming was a big deal in this game, which I hope it isn't tbh. Just more Fantasy Life would be great.

[darksnowman]

4 hours ago, bob said:

5) It's a typo that they're too embarrassed to fix now.

 

Like they thought they typed "fantasy life iii" in the subject line of the initial internal proposal email and it got autocorrected.  

4 hours ago, Ronnie said:

The reveal trailer seemed to suggest terraforming was a big deal in this game, which I hope it isn't tbh. Just more Fantasy Life would be great.

Yeah, that's something I'll be keeping an eye on too. I'm hoping the terraforming's quick and basic for the odd request here and there as I'm not really up for designing another island yet.

[Julius]

Delayed indefinitely:

[Hero-of-Time]

Standard practice for anything Level 5 related at this point.

[darksnowman]

I read it is just delayed from its Oct 10th slot, but it will be in the next Level-5 update vid. I'm happy enough with a delay as long as it doesn't end up cancelled. Funnily enough, Denpa Men has kind of been getting me in the mood for Fantasy Life i. Might open up that part of the calendar for me for FF Pixel Remasters now.

EDIT: Nintendo have published a short article on the news page on Switch about this delay. Perhaps they regard it as a big release so that might prevent it disappearing into oblivion.

Edited August 19, 2024 by darksnowman

[darksnowman]

They say it was delayed to make it more fun and give it a major content upgrade. Large open areas, climbing, swimming, ride mounts, quick change between lives. April 2025.

[Dcubed]

Will Level 5 survive long enough for this game to come out? Find out in 7 month’s time… if we’re lucky!

[Julius]

Been a minute since we've heard anything on this, but it's been on the PS Store with a release date of April 23rd/24th releasing with both PS4 and PS5 versions – before very quickly being taken down.

Level 5 just can't seem to get a win. 

Guessing this is one for the rumoured February Nintendo Direct, and we'll got other platforms confirmed in marketing/on social media following? 

[Julius]

This will release May 21st – perhaps delayed from the above PSN Store leak of April 21st? 

Officially coming to all major platforms at launch. 

A whole bunch of asterisks in the trailer description, doesn't exactly instill confidence:

Quote

*The information presented is accurate as of the time of the video's release.

*The version shown in this video is under development and may differ from the final product in some aspects.

*Any prices displayed in the video reflect the suggested retail price at the time of release.

*The translations in this trailer are provisional and may be subject to change before release.

Welp. 

[Dcubed]

I get the feeling that the delay happened because Nintendo were supposed to be the publisher originally, when it was a Switch exclusive, but Level 5 decided to be stupid/greedy and pushed for it to be a multiplatform release.  So Nintendo told them to fuck off, leaving Level 5 to go it alone instead.

Would explain a lot about the weird way that Nintendo were originally seemingly responsible for PR regarding this game, but have since gone radio silent about it.  It’s almost as if Level 5 have learnt absolutely nothing from their previous mistakes…

[Julius]

Huh. Just had a weird thought. 

Will this be the first time a Level-5 game has launched simultaneously on Xbox?

I'm having a quick flick through the games listed on their list of games developed and it looks like they all launched either on PlayStation and Nintendo platforms (makes sense, obviously: Japanese dev and a huge audience on those platforms to boot). I know there are games on their platforms now, for instance Ni no Kuni's remaster and II both are on Xbox now I believe, I think announced during an event, but both were added well after their releases on other platforms. 

Guess it just speaks to their dire situation at the moment. 

24 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

I get the feeling that the delay happened because Nintendo were supposed to be the publisher originally, when it was a Switch exclusive, but Level 5 decided to be stupid/greedy and pushed for it to be a multiplatform release.

 So Nintendo told them to fuck off, leaving Level 5 to go it alone instead.

That's certainly possible.

I was more referring to the previous PS Store leak that it was releasing in April on PlayStation too (April 21st/22nd) – just seems odd for that to leak and for it to then be pushed back (off the record) a month just a couple of weeks later. Guess someone might've just mistyped the release date when accidentally pulling the trigger early, though?  

Worth highlighting actually that, prior to this, and making it all the more stranger, is that their CEO Akihiro Hino personally started to tweet about and market the game early this week:

He's even tweeted about it more since then. Just so wild to see, you'd think it could've easily factored into one of the events we've had the last few weeks –which really makes you wonder just how recently they jumped ship from teaming up with Nintendo to market it like @Dcubed mentioned. 

Edited February 14 by Julius

[Julius]

Against all odds, this game has done pretty well for itself!

After a decent audience turnout on Twitch at launch (40k+...who are all these people watching a game like this?!) and a good bit of buzz around the game (currently at Very Positive on Steam, 92+% of nearly 3.5k reviews), the game now stands at over 500k+ copies sold. 

Good stuff. Be interesting to see how the next year or so plays out for Level 5 with their current line-up, but this seems like a strong first step. 

Edited Saturday at 10:54 AM by Julius

[Hero-of-Time]

Game looks great and people on Era who are playing it are loving it. I'll be picking it up once the price comes down. It launched as a digital only game for £60. 

[Glen-i]

At least half a million people desperate to finally get a life.

Nicked from @Ugh first aid

This having online play kinda tempts me. If I wasn't saving up for a Switch 2, I probably would've bit.

[Julius]

A Switch 2 Edition of the game has been announced, to launch alongside the Switch 2 on 5th June. The paid upgrade from the Switch version of the game will be $2.59/€2.27 (no GBP pricing detailed currently, but I imagine it'll be around £2). 

Quote

This enhanced version takes full advantage of the hardware’s capabilities, offering significant improvements.

● Reduced Load Times:

Enjoy smoother scene transitions and faster game launches for a seamless experience.

● Improved Graphics and Frame Rate:

Visuals are more beautiful and animations more fluid than before.

Good for them capitalising on this, and the upgrade asking price is peanuts, so I think it's pretty fair! 

Edited Tuesday at 12:18 PM by Julius

[Dcubed]

Seems petty to charge for the upgrade, but whatever.