My Time at Portia - Xbox One

You know the deal a distant relative has left you a scrap of land in a far-off town. They re hoping that with the application of a bit of blood, sweat and tears you ll have it turned around and producing profitable… well, produce, in no time. So off you go to farm, right?

Maybe.

While you think you know the deal, the reality of My Time at Portia is that it offers a lot more than straightforward farming. You could, for example, just set off across the landscape for a spot of adventuring. It s a sandbox world with plenty of monsters to kill and dungeons to conquer. There s nothing to stop you (and, given how profitable these things prove, at some point you probably will do a spot of questing sooner or later).

Along the way you ll also need to manage resources, craft vital equipment, nurture relationships with the townsfolk and do a good deal of exploring.

The game is, in short, an impressively ambitious blend of genres that includes dungeon crawling RPG, farming sim, craft em up and sandbox adventure.

It s made all the more charming by its design. You re in a sort of bucolic post-apocalypse. The world we know long since collapsed and the overgrown corpses of its cities litter the landscape, but it s still somehow like a pastel coloured Studio Ghibli set.

My Time at Portia is a peculiarly charming mix of elements that s all its own thing. more