The life sim genre is fairly under-represented on Switch. We’re still eagerly awaiting the arrival of Animal Crossing, and the only Harvest Moon game on the system is a half-hearted affair that doesn’t really do the old Marvelous-developed games justice. At the moment, the only real heavyweight available is Stardew Valley, but even then – as brilliant as it is – not everyone is into that retro 16-bit look so many indie games sport these days. My Time at Portia is an attempt to water this drought, and it does a surprisingly good job at it.
The plot is initially fairly basic. As the son or daughter of a once famous builder, you arrive at the post-apocalyptic town of Portia with two aims in mind: to restore your old man's dilapidated workshop, and then use it to build a host of new items and upgrades to help restore Portia to its former glory. The twist, however, is that you aren’t alone: there are a few other builders already living in Portia and they aren’t going to sit back and let you claim all the kudos, so you have to build consistently enough to work your way up the workshop rankings too.
There are three types of building task available to you throughout the game. There’s a commission board in the Commerce Guild where an infinite number of random small tasks are generated for you: make a certain number of a specific object, that sort of thing. Then there are over 100 secondary missions, which require a bit more effort and only appear once you’ve gathered enough reputation or build up your friendship with one of Portia’s many residents.
Most important, though, are the main story missions, and these are so complicated that they can be a bit overwhelming, especially early on in the game when you’re still trying to find your feet. The first major mission, for example – which kicks in about an hour into the game after you’ve registered your workshop – tasks you with building a bridge to unlock access to another part of the game world. Simple, right?
Except a bridge is made up of three parts: two bridge heads and a bridge body. To build each head you need to combine 5 hardwood planks and 3 copper pipes, and to build the body you need to combine 5 bronze plates and 12 stone bricks. But, in order to get those ingredients you first need to build a grinder and a cutter for your workshop and put different materials through those first and our head hurts already just writing this.
It’s also worth pointing out that many of these steps include in-game timers, where you have to wait a certain amount of time for some ingredients to be built. Don’t be too alarmed: this isn’t for free-to-play reasons, it’s for time management reasons, much like many of Animal Crossing’s tasks like giving things to Reece to build. It’s designed to give the feeling that some things take time in life, and there’s plenty to be getting on with while you wait.
It’s a bit full-on from the kick-off, then, and while it’s admirable that the game throws a meaty task at you almost right away and gives you something to work towards over a number of in-game days – you have limited stamina each day before you have to call it a night and head to bed – the fact the game is relatively light on explicit instructions will mean younger gamers may struggle with just this first mission. You’re armed with your dad’s notebook, which is a charming way of learning the ‘recipes’ for each of these builds, but it’s deliberately slapped together in a haphazard way: authentic, sure, but hard to follow.
Get over this enormous hurdle, though, and My Time At Portia (shouldn’t it be My Time In Portia?) eventually reveals itself as the impressively in-depth life sim it truly is. As you work your way through the story-based missions and progress along what actually becomes an engaging little plot over time, you’ll discover the numerous other trades this particular Jack specialises in.
There are around 50 villagers living in Portia, all of whom have relationship meters you can increase by interacting with them, giving them gifts and playing Rock, Paper, Scissors or sparring with them. As your friendship grows with them you unlock either Play or Date options, which let you head off on little adventures like exploring a haunted cave, lighting fireworks or just chatting by the sea. These generally take the form of basic mini-games and are charming enough. If you choose to go down the romance route (same gender romance is possible too, incidentally), it can all eventually lead to marriage and kids.
Then there’s the whole farming side of things, which lets you sow and grow plants. And the fishing. And the raising of animals. And the mines you can enter armed with a pickaxe, radar and jetpack (so you can get out of the massive hole you dug). Oh, and the combat, which is necessary in some areas and on some missions, and works fairly well for something that’s only one mechanic in a game packed with them.
When it all comes together this is a game that you can easily spend hundreds of hours playing, continuing to find new things long after the main story has ended. Thankfully, despite its scope loading times are also fairly minimal, though it could have been so much worse: they were a real concern for us throughout the course of the review process.
We’ve been playing the game for the past month and have had to sit through painfully long loading times every time we entered a new room or area, sometimes lasting over a minute. We did an experiment armed with a stopwatch: from booting the game to continuing our save, to waking in bed and leaving our house, it took 3 minutes and 57 seconds before we were finally standing in the open world section (and only about five seconds of that were us in control).
To Team17 and developer Pathea’s credit, a patch was released the day before launch that fixed the issue to a satisfying degree... with one exception. When you initially start up the game it takes even longer now to reach the open world section – around 4 and a half minutes(!) – but once you get there the load times from that point on are greatly improved. Just make sure that if you’re going on a commute you load the game beforehand and use the Switch’s suspend feature to avoid sitting staring at a loading screen on the bus for longer than it takes to listen to a pop song.
My Time At Portia is an enormous game and up until the last minute it looked like it was going to have similarly enormous loading times, which would have lead to a frustrating, annoying experience. Instead, with its eleventh-hour patch, it’s a pleasantly impressive one we have no problems recommending.
Conclusion
My Time At Portia is an ambitious game that actually delivers on what it sets out to do. The crafting can be extremely overwhelming at first and the presence of some in-game timers can be a mild annoyance, but get your head round its detailed multi-step building missions and you’ll end up with a game that could end up racking hundreds of hours on your Switch.
Comments 65
It's a game that almost had me interested but between the mixed reviews, art style that doesn't appeal to me and the fact that I have so much to play already, this one's a pass for me unless I find it really cheap at some point.
It looked lovely but after seeing all those reviews makes me want to wait for a major patch to make it better if there ever is one.
One of those games I picked up in early access on Steam, but haven't got round to trying out the most current build. Hopefully will fill the current void until Animal Crossing comes along!
It’s too bad this game has received mixed reviews. It’s obvious that the devs put a lot of love into it. I’m a big fan of the art style. I hope the studio earn enough to keep going.
I would love to hear what people who played it think of it. I haven’t played it myself.
After sinking about 60 hours into the PC version I am looking forward to getting this on Friday. This is a very nice hold over until story of seasons and rune factory hit the Switch.
Those screenshots look rough, were they taken in handheld?
"same gender romance is possible too, incidentally"
>add to games collection
I was keen and excited (BIG Stardew fan), but I'm a bit weary now after reading the reviews on Metacritic. Might wait for a price drop or more reviews. I specifically looked at non-Switch reviews to get a feel of what the game offers. Too many dodgey marketing stuff going on in the industry and £25 is a fair amount to lose when there are big sales going on at the eShop.
"same gender romance is possible too, incidentally"
So, i can WooHoo with boys ? 😆
The longer loading time on startup followed by shorter in game loads sounds like they fixed loading times by moving more to initial game start. 4:30 is a long time for an indie game though!
@Anti-Matter Yes, maybe you will be able to find the shirtless kickboxer of your dreams in this game
Looks like a slightly less beautiful version of Yonder, which I loved. Really looking forward to this.
4 minutes is absolutely crazy for a load time. How can Mario tennis load in 1 or 2 seconds, while Party Golf takes over 30?! Breath of the Wild takes 30 seconds, yet a seemingly simple game like Kingdom Two Crowns takes like a minute or more. Switch load times are nuts. Donkey Kong tropical freeze was improved over the Wii U, so it's possible to cut down load times (and file size, it's like 10 GB on Wii U compared to 6.6 GB on Switch). My Time at Portia sounds fun, and I may pick it up someday, but I'll probably only do that if they eliminate ridiculous load times like 4 minutes!
I should be at least two hours into this game by now, but I still haven't received my code. I backed this game over 18 months ago, and us console backers have already been left hanging for months (the game should have been released on console late last year) and now it seems lots of us are still hanging well into release day. I really wish now I hadn't backed it. I could have downloaded it this morning and be happily chopping down trees and killing llamas by now.
'If you choose to go down the romance route (same gender romance is possible too, incidentally), it can all eventually lead to marriage and kids.'
Same sex marriage leads to kids?
@dew12333
"Same sex marriage leads to kids?"
The Sims logic. 😆
@dew12333
Everything is possible
Many problems here do seem pretty sticky, but I've played far worst in all of my gaming life. Besides, I can't think of any other game right now to help scratch my need for another non-mobile Fantasy Life game and this game here seems to be it, to me that is.
@dew12333 There's this new invention called adoption, you should look it up. Seems pretty cool 😉
Been playing it all day today...loving it so far. Scratching that stardew itch quite nicely.👍
This review has some issues but overall is not that bad. The galling part for me is the title "REVIEW My Time At Portia - An Engaging Life Sim That Will Eat Up Your Spare Time". This assumption that sensationalist type articles will draw people in with life changing advice is antagonistic to me. I do not fault the author here specifically because this is a trend among the sling and fling writing community that publishers expect when paying low wages. In other words dish it as fast as possible and keep the public attention focused since they are moronic Internet worshipers who mind drift after ten seconds.
Again I am not targeting the author just the trend of assumptive click bait headlines.
@subpopz Me too. Everything is too bright and have similar colours.
@Zidentia What part of the headline is "sensationalist" and suggests it'll have "life-changing advice"? All the headline does is sum up what the main review text says: that isn't "clickbait". With respect, I think you may be looking for controversy that doesn't exist.
Something about the art style irks me.
@Zidentia What a ridiculous comment hunting for trouble where there is none. Of all the articles to pick on for being "Click baity"... The best part, you say this headline is "sensationalist" and you think someone saying this game will eat up your spare time is "galling"? Do you REALLY find that galling? You're being a bit sensational about the whole thing, no?
I feel like playing this game would just make me want to be playing Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley instead.
I've liked the look of this game, but the load times are still an issue, before I even begin to consider Metacritic scores etc. but as they've had the decency to release it physically I may well give it a shot anyway at some point.
I've finished the Community Center in Stardew and it's grown stale since. This looks like it should scratch that itch now.
I started playing Stardew Valley for the first time last week. God it’s boring. I can’t understand all the 10/10 reviews. Water, sleep, water, sleep, water sleep. It’s been a week and I only have $2300,. These games always intrigue me but then I play them and they’re such a grindey drag.
I just re-purchased AC: Wild World on Saturday, I'm pleased as punch.
@dew12333 adoption is a thing.
@scully1888 @Ryu_Niiyama
This videogames are meant to be fantasies, escapes from reality and the like, surely they can come with better and more magical ways to spawn offspring in same sex relationships than plain old adoption.
@Yomerodes or...no, they couldn’t?
I mean, games are escapism, but that doesn’t mean everything has to be made up, otherwise people wouldn’t obsess over how “realistic” a texture is.
Also, if you play a game about having jobs like gardening and mining, where you can also have a family of your own, probably escapism isn’t your priority; there are fantasy, sci-fi and whatnot for that 😄
@Likethepear you are able to decide what to do and find other activities besides tending your fields. Your options open up as you play the game and do things.
Yup. Been playing all day and it’s fine. Initial load is about 2 minutes. But after that it’s seconds. The latest patch that dropped last night has worked a treat. If you like Stardew of FT then this is a must.
I’ve been playing it all day, and loading times aren’t actually that bad - it takes just under 2 minutes to get the game fully started from the Switch menu, and after that every loading screen I have encountered was between 5 and 10 seconds MAX. Overall, I’m really enjoying it; it’s colourful, silly fun, even though it does take a bit of micro-managing to keep track of all the parts needed to build something. If you’re a fan of Stardew, Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons and Rune Factory, you’ll very likely enjoy this one.
The patch convinced me. Getting this one tonight when I get home.
Man I just don’t know. Good to know the load times aren’t so bad. I see some negative reviews but I wonder if those are from people who don’t “get” the genre. Like how Hyrule Warriors got middling reviews but I put hundreds of hours in between U and 3DS, or how Pokémon Explorers of Sky has a middling metacritic but IMO is the best Pokémon spinoff out there by a long shot.
I guess I’ll wait for a few more reviews from players. The main things holding me back are the fact that there’s so many tech issues and the fact that the real deal (for me), Rune Factory, is coming out. It’d be a different story if it wasn’t confirmed yet.
The mentioned loading screens problem remind me of playing The Sims on PC over the years. Certainly, I would never want to deal with that on a console. It's a shame, because this game caught my eye months back.
@Yomerodes uh why? We are just now getting homosexual romance options in games as is...who is looking for a cabbage patch baby? Are heteros trying to find babies in fields? The point of this is to give a level playing field and to present semi realistic options. Absolutely nothing wrong with adopting.
I have only played one in-game day so far since I want to finish Tales of Vesperia first, but as to the loading times:
the initial loading time when booting up the game takes several minutes which is bad but only happens at the beginning of each playing session. The loading times when leaving a building are very short and you will barely notice them, so the patch definitely helped adressing that
Quite disappointed with the reviews. Stardew valley was good so I was hoping this would be another excellent one.
Meh.. Going back to waiting for animal crossing and terraria.
@TempOr - that made me smile happily.
I have friends in a same sex relationship who went the adoption route, their excitement at the arrival of the little one was amazing and beautiful to witness.
I'm a straight man, but I wish for a world where there was more acceptance for love and stable relationships, regardless of sexuality/gender.
As a father I see broken (heterosexual) relationships at the school gates regularly - I'd much rather see a child raised in a happy environment, regardless of the orientation of their parents.
I actually adore this game right now. If you're into the style and enjoy games like Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley I think it's totally worth getting.
@CrazyZelda79 in general reviews seem positive. Metacritic goes from average all the way up to 90.
@TempOr what a lovely thing to read. My husband and I have been together for 9 years and looked at surrogacy but ultimately could never afford it (£15k is what the people we spoke to were asking). We also looked at fostering but were told no because I suffer from depression (although my mental health is stable). It's not worked for us and we would love to be parents. We do keep trying, but as we are both disabled it seems more difficult for us.
The game is fun if you like the sort of game. The art style is pretty and whimsical, and with the update the load times really aren’t noticeable. However the switch port text can be rather difficult to read at times in handheld mode, dock, of course, has no issues. And there are zoom options.
I've been enjoying the game so far. I know I'm going to put a couple hundred hours into it before I move on and my only real complaint is how hard it is to read the text in handheld mode
a 7/10 is good. Yeah look I really am enjoying this game. It needs to some work but I have faith in these devs. If I think about how they brought this game from "pretty much nothing to do" in early access to NIntendolifes titles “A game that could end up racking hundreds of hours on your Switch“ it is clear that these devs love their game. They are also very active with the community which I like. In its current state I am still enjoying it but i agree with 7/10. Once they fix the issues that score can easily be a 9 to 10/10. Fantastic game.
Do I like Gamecube era games?
This is what we have here. A game that is 15 years old in design. It would have been a 9/10 back then but now? Nah. 5/10 at best.
Thankfully they've reduced loading times and some issues with trees etc not re-growing. Unfortunately there's still quite a few bugs going. At the moment I've got bodies of enemies floating off from where they fell before 'poofing', invisible trees I can kick and chop, and the game crashes and closes every time I try to harvest a giant vegetable.....
Then a 10 minute wait from startup to being in the game and I've decided I'm pretty annoyed with it being so rough...
Nice review. I chuckled at some unintentional puns (drought... plot... don't hate me please). The game sounds fun enough, but the character designs look so... unappealing unfortunately. Think I'll be skipping this one :/ hope the devs can make a similar game in the future with different designs.
@Heavyarms55
Exactly, even though I have not played either of those games. Just a feeling that both might be more enjoyable . That being said ... which would you recommend more highly? Animal crossing or Stardew Valley ?
I have both on my massive list of games I want to play
@HolyYoshi Which do you prefer? Real time or game time? Animal Crossing is linked to the former while Stardew works like a traditional game.
@Heavyarms55
Not sure I really have a preference . I like games utilizing both . The graphics lean me a bit towards Stardew Valley as it really looks nice . But in the end graphics always take a back seat to the “meat “ of a game . I plan to play them both , just curious whether anyone liked both but preferred one over the other and for what reasons
@HolyYoshi Well both have benefits. SDV can be played at your own pace as much or as little as you like. And is much more about farming and crafting. AC is linked to real world time and is more about real world events, meeting your villagers and building your home.
@Heavyarms55
Feedback greatly appreciated ! I think I will go Stardew Valley first and then onboard with the new upcoming animal crossing .
This game isn't finished or rather completely polished in my opinion. The graphics look kinda blurry, the character creation is too simple and there is not even an animation for your feet touching the water in the fountain, not to mention any sounds/foley for steps. And this is just what I noticed after playing the first two hours.
If they had put in a few more months of work it could have gotten so much better.
Love this game, took a whole lot of my time
Have the developers patched this game yet to reduce loading times?
@BenAV It's really cheap right now!
@SenseiDje
Shut-up , past me.
Playing this now, and (again) really enjoying it. There's evidently been some chunky patching going on between this original review and now (2023), and there's even some DLC for it.
It's a great game and one of my only cartridge games. A huge time sink, I love the style and all the mechanics and actually the location and the characters are really sweet, and to be fair it has a nice little story.
Definitely a recommend from me - (for what that's worth, lol) - and a bump to this score by at least +1, possibly +1.5...
@dew12333 Adoption? I guess.
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