My Time At Portia is a solid and inoffensive little farm sim. It has all the usual trappings of the genre – travelling to a new city, taking over a farm, building some things, farming other things. Remarkable moments are few and far between, and that’s okay too. Sometimes, a game can just be a game.
And Portia is fun, when it gets going. There’s plenty to see and do, from fishing to farming, fighting, building and collecting. Comparisons to Stardew Valley are easy, but this game is more akin to Fantasy Life, with its guild-based quests.
I liked My Time at Portia, but I wanted to love it, I really did. I’d owned a copy on PC for the longest time and never got around to playing it. I thought that with the Switch’s portability, I’d finally find a spare moment to play it.
My Time At Portia thought differently. If I’d waited this long already, it was going to make me wait a bit longer. And then a little bit longer. And then some more, for good measure.
For one reason or another, the loading times on the My Time At Portia Switch port are horrendous. At one point, it made me wait a full three minutes just to load the menu. And then it made me wait another three minutes to actually get into the game.
A patch was released the day before launch designed to fix the issue, but even after installing, I had trouble with load times and glitches during gameplay. There’s such a thing as performance anxiety, but this port really takes the cake.
In addition to the luxurious loading times, every action you take causes a weird, static pause while the game thinks about what to do next, and the action is often glitchy and jilted. It gives the game a distinct sense of being unpolished, as if it were rushed out the door.
It’s unfortunate, because hiding underneath all the layers of ported muck, there’s a genuinely good game. I love a farming sim just as much as the next person, and there’s plenty to do in My Time at Portia.
I spent the opening chapters fighting anyone I could find. I gave a local man a worm, and our relationship slipped into the red. I punched a rainbow llama to death and stole its bones. I got a shiny badge for building a furnace. There’s plenty to do and see, and a great amount of fun to be had – many hours of it, in fact – but until the game is patched properly, you’ll just have to be patient enough to see it.
In its current form, My Time At Portia on Nintendo Switch is only just playable. If you want my advice – it’s best to wait out the storm. A fix is coming, but you’ll just have to wait patiently on the shores for a little while longer.
NO REVIEW SCORE
Highlights: Plenty to do, see and collect; fun gameplay; extremely relaxing
Lowlights: Monumental loading times; Filled with glitches; unremarkable story
Developer: Pathea
Publisher: Team17 Digital Limited
Release Date: Out Now
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, PlayStation 4
