I had never played My Time At Portia, but after seeing people stream it I was genuinely curious about it. I mentioned this to a friend of mine and they highly recommended the game to me stating that because I love Stardew Valley, they were sure I would love this game. I decided to get a copy of the game and check it out for myself for my own streams. Right from the start I was hooked in. The introduction to My Time At Portia is that long ago civilization as we know it was destroyed and humans came out from living underground to rebuild society.
This is where the character design comes in. You can play as a male or female character. There are a variety of options to choose from with your character's face and hair as well as being able to adjust the color and makeup to the way you want. I do wish there were a few more longer hair options, but that's a minor thing and you do have a lot of freedom to choose how your character looks.
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| Character creation offers a lot of choices. |
Once the character creation is done, you are on a boat arriving to Portia. The gist of the story is you are a builder and you inherit your father's workshop in order to build and expand helping the town of Portia grow. This introduces you to a bit of a tutorial on your house and how to build things in your workshop via machines and items used for crafting. Building and crafting is a big part of Portia naturally as your character is a builder. I actually had fun figuring out which machines I needed to build and how much of each item I needed to make things. Having multiple machines to craft things is definitely a good idea.
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| Use machines to craft and build your way to a better Portia. |
This is where logging and mining come in. You will need a lot of various types of wood, ore, stone, and other materials in order to craft and build things. It is not tedious at all. I actually found it pretty relaxing to just quietly go out gathering. You also get experience points for each action which is nice for leveling up your character. With mining you get to go into ancient ruins and use an item called a relic scanner. With this tool you can scan the area and dig up relics from the old world as well as data discs. The data discs are important because you can take them to the research center in Portia and the scientists there can study them and give you diagrams that allow you to build machines and technology from the old world. You can also use these data discs to put together old world relics that you find in your mining. It's very much like a bit of a treasure hunt and it's great to see what you can discover.
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| Dig for materials and use the relic scanner to find old world items in the ruins. |
You do not have to just mine in the ancient ruins. There are some other ancient ruins that have monsters that you can battle. You can craft weapons to use for fighting the monsters in these ruins. It is a good idea to take food with you that has healing properties as well as healing items that you can get from the clinic. The ruins with monsters are like a dungeon crawler having a set amount of floors. For example, one area can have five floors and you fight all the monsters on the floor. When you get to the fifth floor you have to fight a boss in order to proceed to the next area. The monster ruins usually have four set areas with a certain number of floors and it will give you the levels your character should be in order to successfully complete the area. These battles are a fun distraction from crafting and you are rewarded with items for your character ranging from crafting materials to accessories to weapons.
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| Fighting monsters in dangerous ancient ruins is a blast! |
Fishing is another part of My Time At Portia. Honestly, I like the fishing in Portia better than Stardew Valley. It's an easier mechanic to follow and you actually earn more money from selling fish in the game. You should also save some of the fish to donate to the research center and to gift to one of the resident animals in Portia, a fluffy pink cat named Pinky. Fishing is relaxing and a great way to make money. You can also use the fish to cook different recipes.
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| Chilling out with some fishing. |
Of course you can't get anywhere without friends in Portia. One of the things I absolutely love about the game is that as a male or female character you can romance the available bachelors and bachelorettes. So if you want to romance someone like Arlo you can do that as a guy or a girl. You can also make friends with people. You have a social log that shows your relationship status with people. The people with hearts by their name are people you can romance and marry while the people with stars by their name you can have friendships with, but not romance them.
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| Your social links in the user menu show you where you stand. |
In order to increase those relationships, you need to talk to people as well as giving them gifts they like or love. This is where the Portia wiki is your friend. You can look up different characters and see what items they prefer. My character romanced and married Arlo who loved roses and spicy food. You can also fulfill wishes for people when they tell you about something they would like to have. In Arlo's case it was an arm stretcher. When you give people gifts they like or love, you will see how many friendship points it accrued. You can also spar with people or play rock, paper, scissors and get friendship points that way also. Each person in Portia has their own interesting back story and as you get to know them better you get to learn more about them.
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| Give people gifts they love for increased romance or friendship. |
When a person likes you or you're in a romance with them you can go on play dates or dates. There are several locations on the map where you can play a mini game such as lighting fireworks, playing on a seesaw, or doodling in the sand. This allows you to get to know the person more and increase those friendship points. I found I really liked getting to know all the different people and learning about them.
There are of course a variety of festivals throughout the seasons in Portia. These are so much fun as you celebrate with everyone in town. My two personal favorites are the fishing contest and the snowball battle. You can earn special badges from these events and trade them in for special items and furniture for your workshop. You also increase your friendship points with everyone in town by participating in these special events so it's a good idea to have fun and enjoy it. Once you get the camera you can run around and take photos with people you're friends with which is really cool.
The great thing about My Time At Portia is it gives you the freedom to explore at your leisure and allows you to take your time to just enjoy things at your own pace. While there are a few crafting missions that you have to finish in a certain amount of time, you have a lot of room to explore. Finishing certain story missions also unlocks more of the map for you giving you even more places to go. I love My Time At Portia because of the wonderful way it incorporates all these things, letting you experience the game at your own pace and it is a joy to play and I find I keep playing because it is so much fun.
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| Taking a photo with Arlo. |
*My Time At Portia is available to play on the following platforms: Windows, Mac OS, Xbox One, Playstation 4, and Nintendo Switch
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