Following several delays, Level-5 released the slow-life simulator RPG Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time on May 21. The game has sold over 1 million copies worldwide in only three weeks following its launch, amassing glowing reviews on Steam and Metacritic. But Level-5 CEO and Fantasy Life i producer Akihiro Hino says that a big part of the game’s positive reception is due to crucial changes the development team started implementing only a year ago.
In a special talk show hosted by Denfaminicogamer Channel, Hino says that at one point during development, Fantasy Life i’s gameplay felt very “suffocating,” in a way that would make you want to put down your controller very quickly. He describes the initial approach as “trying to extend playtime at the expense of making things stressful,” especially in terms of player movement being limited. As a result, his team decided that the only way to fix things was to “practically remake” the whole game.
Some of the specific issues Hino highlights are the map and movement. Until a year ago, Fantasy Life i did not have an open-world map at all, it had a “small map,” and it did not allow you to parkour across the terrain, climb cliffs and the like. “It felt narrow and constricted, as if you were trapped in the game’s space,” Hino comments.
To resolve these issues, the development team implemented an open-world map layout and “thoroughly removed anything that made the game feel stressful.” The latter especially refers to movement and travel. As an example, Hino cites Fantasy Life i’s fast travel feature that lets you warp to the nearest work bench after changing lives. Impressively, Hino’s team managed to create the open world map in only two months, by creating a system that helped them turn 2D artwork into 3D terrain.
“In the final version of the game, you can chop a tree, climb up somewhere high, chop a three while you’re up there, climb back down, run around – and just performing these simple actions feels good and comfortable,” Hino explains, suggesting that a big part of Fantasy Life i’s success in today’s gaming climate is the level of comfort it offers.
On a related note, Hino has previously commented that Fantasy Life i’s delays and mid-development overhaul also had to do with Keiji Inafune’s departure from Level-5. Inafune was initially the producer of the title, but after he left the company mid-2024, Hino had to take over the project and steer it in a new direction amidst negative reception from in-house testers.
Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time is out now for PC (Steam), PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch.
Inafune is possibly the most washed developer ever