Earthbound vs My Time at Portia
Earthbound
Earthbound is a rather unique RPG featuring a group of four kids with amazing superpowers, namely Ness, Paula, Jeff and Poo, and a nefarious alien race that is hellbent on causing unspeakable destruction on Earth. Help them battle the swarm of monsters, aliens and even dinosaurs that are unleashed upon the by the powerful Giygas. Travel through various landscapes in hopes of finding and confronting the ultimate manifestation of evil to save the world from certain apocalyptic event. Learn more about each of these kids as they own personal stories, as well as funny quirks, gradually unfold as you progress in the game.In addition to its story-driven gameplay, Earthbound is an adventure-themed RPG that manages to evoke a feeling that is a mixture of dread, mainly due to the gravity of the situation these kids are in; and hilarity - these kids can be quite amusing. It'll give you a game experience like no other, that's for sure!
My Time at Portia
My Time at Portia is a charming fantasy-themed adventure RPG that is set on a gorgeous, revitalized world after a post-apocalyptic event wiped out the previous technologically-advanced civilization. In this game, you play as an up-and-coming Builder, a respected role in society, whose sole purpose is to help solve the town's problems by engineering a solution.With a gameplay which may fondly remind you of games like Harvest Moon, My Time at Portia may be grindy in an RPG sort of way (think repeated dungeon runs or resource-harvesting), but the game has a nice relaxing pace, where its quests (both main and side quests) are slowly revealed as you progress. Being a Builder, you can also complete a commission request daily to collect some cash. The game also features an elaborate gifting/relationship-building system, fun ruin-diving areas, tons of interesting characters to meet, and challenging dungeons. You can even romance and eventually marry an NPC (not all though) you like!
The best part of the game is definitely its in-depth crafting system. There are tons of machines you can build to help you generate a wide variety of materials to build other stuff. You can also unlock new machine technologies via the Research Center.
My Time at Portia feels a lot like an adorable MMORPG minus the MMO part. It has the grind, the dungeon runs... but of course, this game places a lot more emphasis on its resource-collecting, as well as crafting and building aspects. Sounds like a game you'd like to play? Well, despite still being in early access, the first chapter of the game is already ready and bugs-free, so if you do buy the game, know that you can at least get a good 40 hours or so out of it.