Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen vs My Time at Portia
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen casts you into the role of an adventurer leading a band of three AI companions (a.k.a. Pawns) as you set off into a huge and gorgeous open world in search of fame, glory and treasures. One of the main selling points in this game is the incredibly well-designed combat system where you'll actually need to approach your battles and your opponents strategically rather than simply rush head-on. Find out the weaknesses of your enemies and attack them at their achilles' heel.The game also has some of the most amazing AI learning systems in place where the combat style of each Pawn will change depending on the traits learned from the player. In other words, you can literally train your Pawns to fill in the roles you need them to be. Whether you'll train them as a versatile fighter or to play a very specific role in your group... well, that's entirely up to you. Players will even have a ton of options to choose from when it comes to customizing their characters.
Despite the slightly weaker storyline, Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen is one of the best monster-hunting and slaying RPGs out there where the action-based gameplay feels smooth and realistic enough to immerse you completely during intense battles with monstrous creatures. If this sounds just like a game you'd like to play, be sure to give the game a try!
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.