my favourite game that i've properly completed. i had to immediately decrease the game speed, but otherwise, i fell in love quickly . i must disclaim that i played on pc !!! this means the game is much more stable and there is the potential for modding . console ports aren't too bad in terms of performance nowadays but the switch port is still a buggy mess . back to my experience - the characters are all very unique and for the most part, very expansive and lovable, even if people claim the art direction for the characters is too 'ugly'. the story is actually pretty gripping once you get into it ! the timers don't get tedious if you manage them well. basic but fun combat , and its pretty satisfying to manage the machines you have to submit for missions and commissions ! this opinion seems pretty rare, but i loved this game so much .

from a completionist perspective, not too bad! one guaranteed-to-be-missable achievement that you should look out for, a couple lightly-missable achievements and one ambiguously missable one. otherwise, the achievements are very fun and fulfilling for a game with 91 of them :)

I don't even know where to begin with this. My Time at Portia was such an infuriating and frustrating experience for so many reasons. It tried to be a lot of things but barely ever executed them well. I'll start with the platform - this game is the reason I will never ever play a Switch port unless it was explicitly made for the Switch. The switch port looked BAD, models and textures looked like crap, the world felt half as charming as they looked in the ads, and GOD this game would crash every 5-10 days making you replay a WHOLE day. I always felt like I was on edge, wondering if I'll crash right as I'm entering my house about to go to sleep to save - to that point WHY are there no other save options? Why do you have to sleep to save? But I digress...

If I take out the issues I had with the port and simply look at the gameplay loop, I actually found the resource collecting, crafting, and building gameplay loop pretty addicting - kept me glued to the game that's for sure. Was I having fun while doing so? Not particularly. It felt like a JOB to play this game. However I did enjoy when you make improvements to the city, you get to actually see the items you made and how they have an impact on the town. That felt unique. But was it FUN? Resource collecting was boring and felt like a chore, mining was bland, the dungeons were repettitive, the combat was ABYSMAL and inconsequential. If combat felt less clunky then maybe I could appreciate how this game randomly tries to be like dark souls to move the story along.

Speaking of the story? There almost was none until the last 20%. I bet you get more when you fill each person's relationship bar, but the main story is just about the most bare bones you could get. I found the post-apocalyptic revitalization setting unique and interesting, but it's almost never really explored rather than used as a set piece. It felt like such little payoff for so much work. And you have to do SO MUCH WORK to get through the story. It really drags on towards the end when you really feel like it should be wrapping up. You literally have a mission called "The Final Battle" with this crazy boss fight then.... you have to build a plane that requires the most grinding in the game thus far to beat it? Talk about anticlimactic. At least I can finally say I've beaten it because lord knows I'm never looking back.