My Time At Portia Review

My Time At Portia is, before anything else, a fantastic way to tell interesting stories about your day to your colleagues. Stories that start with you explaining how your latest woodworking project is coming along and end with a detailed rundown of how you beat up a group of llamas with boxing gloves. Stories where you climbed to the highest point in the land just to watch the sunrise or about that time you beat a shopkeeper in a sparring match in the middle of town. These might sound odd to you now but once you experience what My Time At Portia has to offer you’ll understand just how normal, and amazing, this story and others can be.

On the surface My Time At Portia is all about starting a life in a beautiful and engaging world where you run and grow your workshop and farm. As you explore more of it however you’ll find a sea of content to enjoy that pulls inspiration from a range of different genres. This is because not only are you a creative crafter but you are also an adventurer and the world is your oyster. You’ll need to explore, gather, craft and fight to complete your goals here but even the most simple of tasks is made enjoyable.

The first thing you’ll notice about the title is just how beautiful it is. Everything from the world and characters to the user interface has a level of detail and polish that brings a smile to your face. It works in the title’s favour as players will be most likely to find the whole experience rather relaxing and a means to escape from the routine of daily life. There are plenty of options to customize your character as well which aids in this and given the freedom to explore and craft at your own pace, there is never any real sense of pressure or stress.

Should you want to take a break from the daily grid of gathering and crafting mind you there are numerous other activities to enjoy. From entering one of the many ruins found throughout the land you can go digging for ancient treasures and maybe even find a dungeon or two. These will contain monsters to battle which adds another layer of gameplay onto the whole experience. As with everything else in My Time At Portia the controls for these sections are fluid and accessible meaning gamers of all levels can enjoy every section of gameplay.

Of course if you’re looking for a less action based experience then there are options for that. As the days pass and the seasons change, a number of holidays will come and go that see the community come together to express their joy together. Minigames will occur during these times with a wide range of others found all throughout the world. From fishing to sparring with characters, players will never be bored. Then when all is said and done, you can get to know someone special and go on dates even leading up to getting married.

Though My Time At Portia is an engaging experience with plenty to praise it does have a few small bumps in the road that are worth noting. For starters, the audio side of things is great but the volume is all over the place at the start and it feels like the sliders in the option menu don’t represent their actual values. Controller support is also a bit hit and miss with menu navigation taking a hit when playing this way. Input also feels somewhat slower but it is not enough to ruin the experience. I’d personally recommend playing with a mouse and keyboard just to enjoy the more fluid control.

A slightly bigger issue is that collisions and placement of objects within the world are, in a few cases, just straight up broken. Sometimes you’ll find a floating chest or will clip halfway into the wall of a building. You may even find a chest hidden behind an object that you clearly need better gear to access but should you position yourself just right will be able to open. Once again none of these ruin the overall experience but they are a slight oversight that impacts the gameplay even if it most likely results in laughs.

In the end, My Time At Portia is a wonderful time that features so much carefully crafted content that there is no way not to love this title. A few bugs here and there will make the journey a bit bumpy but nothing breaks the game or causes technical problems. With a solid and smooth framerate throughout, players will find it hard to put this title down once they start playing it. All that is left now is to see what the developers add to it next and for you to jump in and start your new life in the charming land of Portia.