Eagle-eyed fans are noticing that Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time shares more than a few commonalities with two other popular Nintendo Switch titles: Breath of the Wild and Animal Crossing New Horizons. “Imitation is the highest form of flattery”—but how much is too much?
Fantasy Life i is a cozy adventure game from game developer Level-5. It’s the long-awaited sequel to its 2012 3DS counterpart. Equal parts resource management and dungeon crawling combat, Fantasy Life i delighted players with its wealth of content, cute chibi-style graphics, and addicting gameplay loop.
Although the game has received much praise online, players have been quick to note that the similarities between Fantasy Life i and other Nintendo titles are so glaring that it’s getting uncomfortable. It seems to go beyond nods to more popular franchises, dipping dangerously close to idea and asset theft.
I’ll walk you through the similarities people are noticing. And by “people,” I mean myself included.
Fantasy Life i has the player put down roots in a Base Camp that shares several qualities with New Horizons’ home island. The style of the map even looks vaguely familiar, with three levels of terrain, various waterways, stairs, and bridges.
There is also a layout tool that eventually unlocks terrain manipulation, allowing players to sculpt the earth or add/remove waterways (some of this takes time to unlock). Even the player house layout looks familiar, borrowing Animal Crossing’s iconic “edge of the map stairs leading up or down” style.
Your buddies (collected NPCs you find and unlock around the world) will even teach you emotes, which you can use on your avatar. The style and theme of these emotes bears a striking resemblance to ACNH, too. Not to mention the “daily task” stamp cards that refresh in real-time, even though the vast majority of the game doesn’t operate around our IRL calendar and clock at all.
Much of that can be explained away by the fact that cozy gamers want similar things out of decorating, landscaping, and NPC interaction from game-to-game. The daily stamp cards are an easy “keep people playing” mechanic that I’m sure shareholders love. Nothing is so egregious that I would be writing this article without the next part.
Take a look at the similarities between Fantasy Life i and Breath of the Wild:
These ones are so obvious it’s almost comical. If it was just those two elements, I would have written it off as a Zelda tribute. But there is also a magic tablet used for game menu and navigation stuff; bluish towers on a fog-of-war map that reveal the layout of the land when activated; “find the little sprout guys” side quest that might as well just be the Korok seeds mission; and a spooky castle protected by some kind of light barrier. It’s all a bit much.
We also have shrines that look, act, and even sound the same as the shrines in Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom. Everything from their shape and color to the naming conventions is a little too familiar. It’s not a nod to a more popular franchise, it’s a headbang that leaves you with a broken nose.
I would be open to more games adoring the “scattered puzzle rooms” mechanic that Breath of the Wild so lovingly popularized. It’s a good idea. Great, even! But for the love of the Seven Sages, make them look a bit different. Make them square or flat or, I don’t know, house-like. Color them red or pink or purple. Call them a Sanctuary, Altar, Chapel, Sanctum, Grove, Godstone, Seat, or Hall. In my opinion, it’s not that hard to keep the nugget of an idea and at least show some effort to repackage it as your own.
That being said, I love Fantasy Life i. I am enjoying it more than I ever enjoyed Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom. (Gaming blasphemy, I know; but that style of Legend of Zelda just wasn’t for me.) And I’m a strong supporter of “Do it similar but better” when it comes to game development iteration and genre polishing.
Idea sharing is what makes video games great. In fact, it’s essential to software design and intrinsically linked to how technology improves over time.
In saying all that, does Fantasy Life take things a bit too far? They aren’t just borrowing ideas, they are borrowing several, very obvious ideas. And the visual similarities are closer to asset theft than polite inspiration.
What do you think? Blatant knockoff? Or ode to the classics? Let me know in the comments!
Stay cozy, gamers!