It’s hard to keep your eyes off the horizon in My Time At Portia. Its valleys live in the jagged shadow of broken high-rises, buildings draped with moss and towering factories splitting apart at the seams. I needed to concentrate on the group of adorable pastel coloured llamas ahead. My presence didn’t interrupt their frolicking for a second, but I wished they’d at least try to maul me a little bit; it would make what I was about to do feel less icky. With tennis racket in hand (it was stronger than my wooden sword) I slaughtered them all, collecting what bits and bobs remained to craft a hoodie in a lovely shade of blue. One commission down, and what felt like a million more to go.
It wasn’t long before I became accustomed to the craft-’em-up’s routine: secure a job, harvest that resource, construct some item or elaborate gadget with the materials, and rejoice in the rewards. Developer Pathea Games seems to have Frankenstein’d My Time At Portia from a host of different genres, from classic RPG dungeon-crawling to relationship building à la Stardew Valley or the Harvest Moon series, to simply getting lost in its dystopian sandbox setting, all in the pastoral artistic style of a Ghibli movie.
It fails to seamlessly implement some, while addressing the more infamously annoying flaws of others. Players who find the resource-gathering grind delicious will appreciate how Portia adds new flair to a familiar formula. It occasionally plods along, and its bugs elicited more than a few frustrated sighs, but as someone who’s seen these kind of sims grow up over time, My Time At Portia feels like a fresh addition — and one that entranced me.
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