Recent reviews by deviled egg

tl;'dr: This is the best farming sim I have played in a long while, and I play a LOT of farming sims. Note that I do enjoy grinding, which this game does a lot. If you don't like it, may not be the game for you.

The Pros:
- Tons of gameplay; I'm about 50 hours in and am still to complete one of the main quests (pertaining to Withergate)
- Three unique farms, four unique areas to explore. You have an elven forest, a futuristic demon city, and Sun Haven itself (generic fantasy fare), where you all have farms. You also have Brimstone Deeps, which is an underwater world, but as far as I know, there is no farm there. It's mostly useful for combat and that kind of stuff.
- Multiplayer is not linked to the same save per se; you can play characters that you made for multiplayer games in singleplayer, as well, even if you weren't the host.
- Tons of romanceable options (although this can be a double-edged sword)
- At least to me, a satisfying gameplay loop. I never run out of stuff to do.

The neutral:
- No stamina. I am not sure if this is a pro or a con, it's just different from how most farming games tend to treat stamina. There's HP and Mana, but Mana is only used for spells and stuff like that, not for actually farming/mining/exploring. This means that you can get the most bang for your buck each day, but it also does mean that it's less of a challenge than in other games.

The cons:
- Some of the characters can seem flat at times. Could be that I haven't made it that far into many of the romance chains (I picked my favorites and mostly stuck to them). But given the sheer amount of romanceable characters, like I said, it can be a double-edged sword, and in this case it makes some of the characters more "flat" feeling.

I feel like anything that could be said about this game has already been said.

100% worth it

My Time at Portia is a fantastic game that encompasses everything that I love personally about the life sim genre. It comes with its quirks, but I'd say at the end of the day, if you're interested, (especially if it's on sale!) go for it.
Highlights

• There's a ton to do. Festivals are interactive, there are 28 available romance options, daily quests to complete, and a huge overarching main plot. By the end of the game, the map is HUGE to the point where the fast travel mechanic is a necessity. The map still doesn't feel empty though, as the large areas are distinct and contain specific monsters/loot that you will need. From what I know, it seems that there is a common challenge to complete the game in 1 year -- which takes a great amount of planning. Personally, it took me about two in-game years to complete most of the story.
  
• There are a ton of quality-of-life improvements that I've wanted in other life sims/farming sims. For example, being able to name chests and go through them by name, rather than color coding. The fishing mini-game is engaging, but not too painful. Characters come with their own social networks, so as you improve your relationship with one character, other characters also get a slight relationship increase. This prevents the whole "going into town and talking to EVERYBODY all the time" problem.
  
• One that I personally love the most is that you can automatically sort things from your inventory into ALL chests where there are matching items. So you can have your "fabric" chest open, but ores will get sorted into the ore chest as well. Saves so much time, I love it.
  
• The setting, which is a post-apocalyptic society grappling with the re-introduction of "ancient" technology, is unique and engaging. The scenery that comes along with it (the pastoral countryside with ruins of an ancient society) is amazing.
  
• The rhythm that you get into by the end-game with upgraded farm/workshop tools is really satisfying. You learn what you need most often, and can kind of prepare for any commissions/quests that come your way.

Mixed
(This is stuff that I personally both like/dislike, OR things that I think will be a love-it-or-hate-it type thing)

• The store system. There are days when the market is up (so it costs more money to buy things, but you also get more money for selling things) and the market is down (the opposite). This can make it frustrating when you have things you want to sell, but it might not be worth it because the market is down. At the same time, it does add a level of strategy that I find fun.
  
• Likewise, instead of one central store, there are different stores/markets that you can shop at, and they sometimes accept different currencies. For example, you can buy furniture from the furniture store, and likewise, you can only sell items that he is willing to buy. He has a set amount of money that he can give you as well, so if you have more to sell, you need to wait for another day. This is a good balancing mechanic imo, but I can also see it annoying some.
  
• Organizing your yard can be annoying. No easy way to rotate things, you need to manually place down some things and place other things via A+G Construction. It makes it kind of frustrating to organize things at times.

Drawbacks

• Some of the graphics are wonky. There are graphics fix mods though, so it's not really that much of a problem, at least to me.
  
• There are some awkward localization moments. As someone who can speak Chinese, I can get what the game was trying to say, but it just comes off awkward in English. Tbf though, it's to be expected on an indie budget, and it doesn't really remove from the charm of the characters or world.
  
• I feel like the beginning of the game feels like a slog. There isn't enough to do, so you end up just kind of wasting time, and some of the directions aren't that clear. It took me looking at a guide to understand how to use the relic scanner in the mines.

tl;dr: Worth it.

its ok