Recent reviews by echomics

OVERALL:
This game is cute, fun, and combines a lot of different games' mechanics. It has a cute character creation, linear storyline, MMO-esque profession grinding, AC:NH island building mechanics, and a whole open world! Very similar to the OG game, but with a lot of QoL changes. The multiplayer works fine enough for me. In my opinion, the biggest drawback to the game is RNG-based mechanics.

MULTIPLAYER:
A lot of people have issues with multiplayer, but I personally have not had many issues at all. There is an arbitrary time limit on multiplayer sessions, but I think it works fine; it's just strange. I have not joined any open lobbies and only play with personal friends - this makes communication a lot easier. Crossplay seems to work fine (I'm on PC, friends have been a mix of PC, Switch, and PS). Joining and leaving someone's base camp is so, so much better than something like Animal Crossing. You can leave by talking to certain characters, and it's really seamless. Gifting items is the clunkiest part for me. You can gift one item at a time, but if your friend is in a menu, you cannot gift them the item. Then, it exits you out of the gifting menu completely and you have to go back in and navigate back to the item again. Which is annoying.

STORY:
At the time of writing this review, I haven't finished the main story yet. It's cute. Nothing groundbreaking. Twists are predictable, but I don't mind. It's a goofy game, and the writing on some dialogue did have me laughing! It's fun.

QoL CHANGES:
Switching between Lives is immediate and very, very nice. No more having to run back to the Guild Office to switch up your Life. Fast travel is much better - it isn't tied to buying wickedly expensive houses in different towns. Worktables are much more streamlined, but a little overwhelming. You can craft anything from any crafting Life, no matter what worktable you walk up to. Filters help manage which Life items you can view at a certain time, but I rarely use this feature. There are no more Bounties for boss enemies, which could be a drawback if you enjoyed that aspect. I did not, so this is a huge QoL change for me.

DRAWBACKS:
There are a horrific amount of recipes that are tied entirely to RNG (297!!!!!!), and restricted on a daily basis. Islanders can gift you recipes in return for completing a task, or you can catch them at their worktable in their homes. Regardless, this is difficult to trigger and diabolically annoying. You can also only get one of these per day without changing your system clock. There are also "lootboxes", for lack of a better term, where you can randomly draw recipes and items. I have not engaged with this mechanic, but they are purchasable through a type of resource that is restricted to daily play (unless you change the system clock). I really dislike this mechanic and it is my genuine only main gripe with the game. A good amount of the recipes are called for in NPC requests, and you're left scratching your head wondering where to get the recipe unless you look it up.

Monster and Gather drops can be incredibly frustrating due to the respawn timer on gold-level bosses (5 minutes). Sometimes, you won't get any of the drop you were after at all. It hasn't been a huge issue for me personally, but I know my friends had been struggling with it on mining nodes in particular. There are some workarounds for this (making your own gear with Drop Rate +), but that's relatively high-level / late game. You do have the option of buying some drops, but the currency resource is different and not easily farmable. Some enemies are only in a specific dungeon, and it isn't guaranteed if you'll see them at all. HOWEVER, this is really only important if you care about crafting your own super high level gear. You can get through the game just fine, and you can absolutely get through the story without engaging in Treasure Groves at all.

More minor complaint: you can only have six villagers living in houses on your island at a time - which is only a little sad because I wish I could have more of my favorites. Half of the returning characters are actually from the mobile game, which I did not play. So a lot of the characters you can recruit were completely unfamiliar to me.


Overall, It's a really fun game. I love the grinding. The graphics are cute. I love that they stuck with the Chibi style. Devs are doing a great job keeping up with feedback, and a free DLC is coming in the future. The original on 3DS is one of my favorite games, and this one is too.

Overall, I would absolutely recommend this game to both Rune Factory enjoyers and people who have not yet played a game in the series. There are some downsides to the game compared to previous titles, but I really adore it.

Regarding glitches, I have not experienced any (aside from a very minor UI bug that fixed itself when I loaded a new area) nor have I encountered a single crash.

Quick rundown for people who have never played a Rune Factory game. It's Harvest Moon except you get the RPG mechanics of having a million skills for literally everything and a lot of combat - walking, eating, bathing, you name it, it's a skill. The story is always a little dramatic, but the characters are memorable, charming, and quite goofy. Even the farming is a little extra, and not so slow-paced (in terms of quantity grown and speed grown at). By nature, RPGs can get a little grindy and RF isn't really an exception here.

Pros:
- The game runs without hitching or lagging on my PC.
- I enjoy the keyboard and mouse controls (you can also fully change them on the launcher - not from in game).
- QoL changes from previous titles: seeing where cutscenes are/who they are for, auto pickup items, mass deposit lumber/stone/grass, switching between storage bin/fridge/tool bin/etc from one screen.
- I really find the 3D style charming and for the monsters that are new, they all have really fantastic designs. The colors in the 3D world are really vibrant (compared to portraits).
- The crafting/forging system is just as complex as previous titles, and I love it.
- The character dynamics are really fun and I'm glad to see that a character's event also incorporates other townsfolk.
- Fishing feels easier this time around, which is a good thing because it was impossible for me to catch the rarer fish in previous games.
- It's a lot easier to stockpile lumber and material stone as well.

Cons:
- The voice lines for common actions are way too repetitive (watering at the beginning of the game, picking up any items, brushing monsters).
- The world feels very empty.
- You cannot place furniture very close to anything at all. (There is a mod on Nexus to fix this, I really recommend it).
- Boss fights feel like they take ages because there are long pauses while you wait for them to be vulnerable again after a phase change roar.
- Cutscenes will, without warning, skip through parts of the day or even to entirely new days - this is not a glitch. I recommend saving before doing cutscenes for this reason. It's not so bad, but skipping from 11am to 5pm on a festival day without warning is tragic.
- Murakumo and Heinz feel like they're never in their shops when I want them to be there.
- It feels like it takes ages to get from bronze to silver tools.
- I hate that you can die from using a skill when you're out of RP and low on health. I would rather prefer to be unable to use my skills in these cases. An accidental slipup and I cast my spell seal, also killing me.
- The flower shop takes WAY too long to unlock, with no indication that there even is one or will be one util it's unlocked.

I personally don't think the cons outweigh the pros here, some of them are very small gripes or easy to get used to. RF5 is just a fun farming life-sim with combat and dating.

I would absolutely not recommend this for the Switch, however. If you're looking for a Switch game like this, get Rune Factory 4 Special or wait for Rune Factory 3 to be released on the Switch. I own RF5 for the Switch and I bounced off it so hard, it's tragic.

Overall, My Time at Portia is just a genuinely fun game. It's a lot of time management and time-based crafting, so if you're not into that I wouldn't recommend it. Sometimes you're waiting a few in-game days to have materials ready for a project, but usually you have enough to juggle so you're never just WAITING. Plus, the characters are pretty cute and while the combat isn't INCREDIBLE and detailed, it's just fun to beat stuff up. The character, creature, and world design is really wonderful from a concept artist standpoint, and the world overall feels really cohesive. I haven't reached endgame stuff, but from what I have played, I've just genuinely enjoyed. It's a little laggy, but not too big of a problem if you don't mind turning the graphics down a little.

I've watched a lot of short let's plays of this game (the most recent clip video being RTGame's), and it always looked really fun! Unfortunately, I got bored with the mechanics in about a half hour. It's a little too repetitive for me, personally. I would honestly still recommend it though, because I know the style of game just isn't good for me now.

I loved this game; the writing was stellar, the characters are fantastic, and it felt a lot different than a lot of other visual novels to me. As you go through each route, you learn more and more about the story, from different perspectives. A really great bonus (in my opinion, at least) is the ability to choose your character's appearance (between six different portraits) AND pronouns (she/her, he/him, they/them). It was a really pleasant surprise, honestly!
(not plot spoilers, but super duper minor spoilers, sort of)
Once you beat the main five routes, there's a secret route that I would recommend entirely!
There's a route guide if you're not a fan of exploring around, and it's pretty spoiler-free. It was released by one of the co-writers of the game!
The only thing that is tedious about this game is that there's a lot of repetitive text in the game, but there is a skip-button if you don't want to reread it when you go through all of the other routes. Once you're past a certain point in each route, pretty much everything from there on out is different, though.