My Time At Portia
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Summary
There are games you play for the thrill and action, while others are in your library present just in case you need to relax. My Time At Portia belongs to the latter, and it’s incredibly therapeutic. In a nutshell, it’s an RPG life simulator where you get to play a new resident of Portia, a quiet, picturesque town situated near towering ruins formed after a post-apocalyptic event. You’ll be a builder, and your goal is to restore your Pa’s old workshop to its former glory by accepting and finishing commissions issued by the Mayor and the residents.
My Time At Portia’s gameplay loop is comparable to other life simulators, notably Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley. Although it may hardly be something on your radar if you’re not into this genre, it offers a lot of content, locations to explore, and things to do. However, much like its peers, it trips when it comes to chores, gathering resources, and crafting constraints.
So, should you spend countless hours in My Time At Portia? Let’s dive deep and check out what it has to offer:
Plotline
My Time At Portia is set in a post-apocalyptic world enjoying an age of recovery. Ruins litter the landscape, and inside them are artifacts like TVs, toys, and engines the inhabitants call Relics. The game puts you in the shoes of a newly-arrived builder who has to make a name for themselves.
Instead of solving whatever issues the world has to deal with, the scope focuses on the town of Portia. As a builder, you won’t build massive skyscrapers that’ll change the world but make stone stools for the inhabitants and construct vehicles to make trade easier between cities. There are plenty of NPCs in Portia, each with their own stories, preferences, and routines. You can forge friendships, rivalries, and even go on dates with potential romantic partners. The town also has its holidays and special events that will help you earn various rewards.
Gameplay
In terms of gameplay, My Time At Portia delivers a gameplay loop of accepting quests and commissions, exploring various ruins, gathering resources, and crafting items. It’s almost the same as its peers, but it manages to set itself apart thanks to its sizable world brimming with personality. The town is full of NPCs you can interact with, from Emily, the farm girl, to Dr. Xu, the resident doctor. There’s also Arlo and his other Civil Corps buddies and the gentle Ginger, the mayor’s daughter.
My Time At Portia focuses on having you go through the typical loop. However, you’ll have a significant degree of freedom, and you can do what you want. Though optional, the quests are vital if you’re going to progress through the story and unlock certain events. Apart from these, there are also optional commissions. Accomplishing these earn rewards crucial for upgrading your workshop. Speaking of which, you can do so to increase its size, letting you decorate it further.
Exploration is one of the best aspects of My Time At Portia. Apart from the town, you’ll get to visit caves and ruins to mine ore and scavenge essential resources like relics. In a nutshell, you’ll gather items from the past, like engines to data discs which you can deliver to Petra at the research center. By doing so, you’ll receive new diagrams and things to craft. Gathering ore can be rather monotonous, but there’s always a chance to discover something new with every whack of your pickaxe. However, performing actions like mining, hitting trees with your ax, and even swinging a sword requires stamina. Thankfully, the requirements can be offset by food and obtaining the right skills when your character levels up.
Meanwhile, the combat is simplistic. There are several types of weapons like swords, knuckles, axes, and two kinds of guns. You don’t get to unleash powerful abilities like in other RPGs, but nevertheless, fighting bosses with unique attack patterns is quite exciting.
Crafting specific items requires their respective resources, and you can view them on your workshop’s diagram. The thing is, this part of the game can get tedious. There’s a fair bit of time required to complete a component in progress, and you have to go through multiple phases to finish more complicated items on your diagram.
Finally, there’s the game’s social aspect. You can develop friendships with other characters throughout the town and even go on playdates. If you want to pair your character up with another, you can confess by obtaining a heart knot. Ultimately, you can propose marriage and even go through a divorce.
Graphics/Sound
In terms of presentation, My Time At Portia isn’t the most visually impressive, but its overall design and art style do a pretty good job of delivering a highly immersive experience. The NPCs each have unique designs and are fully voiced, which was a rather pleasant surprise. There’s nothing spectacular about the dungeon and cave designs, but it never gets old exploring and appreciating the beauty of the town and the area outside the walls.
Conclusion
Overall, My Time At Portia is a fantastic life sim, and it’s safe to say it’s probably the most immersive one yet. Though the crafting and building aspects can get grindy and tedious, it has a lot to offer besides that. After all, it has a highly explorable world, decent RPG mechanics, and numerous characters that will make your life - and adventure - in Portia an enjoyable one.