My Time at Portia Mobile Port a Welcome Addition

As we reported earlier this year, My Time at Portia – the fantastic farming and life simulation game – was heading to mobile after having a very successful run on PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch and Steam. We’ve been playing with the mobile build for well over a week now, and while we obviously haven’t made it through everything the game has to offer, we have played our fair share and can easily tell you how this game ports over to Android and iOS.

For reference, we were playing this on an iPhone XS 64 GB model, and for the most part, the experience was really smooth. As someone who generally hates on screen control sticks and buttons, My Time at Portia seems to work them in quite well. Your left thumb stick will control your characters movement speed – although toggling between running and walking by pushing the stick forward was a bit wonky – while your right fingers will control your other functions like gathering, interacting, placing, and more.

Quick First Look

And it does work, although I probably use a clutch formation that few others use: regular grip on the left using my thumb on the walking virtual joy stick, and while gripping differently on the right using my index finger to play the game! It can be seen as awkward, but it works for me! The game also utilizes touch screen controls, like dragging items from your inventory to a storage bin, dragging items to the top corner to ‘track’ them, and more. It’s a good hybrid system of touch controls and traditional joysticks and buttons – when I first loaded up the game, I was worried touch screen controls would not be utilized for things like inventory management, so I’m extremely happy to see that is the case.

But at this point, most of us know what My Time at Portia is all about, so let’s get into what you really want to know. How does this game run? It’s a bit of a mixed bag, actually. There are moments when everything is fine, and the game runs at an acceptable 30 frames per second, and my phone at least doesn’t get too warm in the hands. There are other times, however, when the frame rate takes a pretty hefty hit, the game can chug for a bit, and the phone can heat up past uncomfortable levels. Now, this will depend on the processing capability of your selected hardware, and it’s worth noting I’m playing this on a device that is about 2 years old at this point.

Extended First Look

Still, mobile game developers have worked tirelessly to make sure that their titles work on a range of handheld devices to maximize the potential player base. None of what I experienced will stop me from playing My Time at Portia more, but as you attempt to play on older and older devices, I worry your experience could deteriorate drastically. It’s also worth noting here that I never made it far enough in the game to really have a large workshop to load and manage, so I cannot comment on how my phone would have held up in those experiences.

When it comes to graphics, things look adequate, much better than what i’ve seen other mobile games produce, but still lacking in some details. That was a criticism of the game originally, so it looks like it’s par for the course in that category. But again, it’s more than adequate for playing on mobile, as is the voice acting, music, and pretty much everything else. Actually, I could argue it’s rather impressive, that such a deep and involved game like My Time at Portia could move over to mobile devices so easily and seamlessly, creating a fantastic experience on the go, one that fans could only have on Nintendo Switch.

So now we get to the crux of it all – should you purchase My Time at Portia on mobile? It really depends on how much you enjoy the game. Some will argue that if you have the Switch version, you’d never need the mobile version because the only benefit is the game being portable. That being said, I don’t carry my Nintendo Switch everywhere, but I do carry my phone. With the mobile version, I can play for 10 minutes while my wife runs into the grocery store for a few items, or while my kids are at dance class, or in any other situation where I normally wouldn’t bring my Switch.

The game runs well on mobile, and if you enjoy these types of games, making the purchase is a no-brainer in my opinion. It’s a great experience in a nice, neat little package.