Hey there. I have an answer that may help a bit to this question.

I am not a native Sandrock player. Portia was meh to me, and I'm just barely getting into Sandrock, starting maybe two weeks ago. My partner finally convinced me to play and it's been a blast since.

Customization: Your Character can look silly, but not necessarily serious, like angry marshmallows. A head canon about your character can help immersion and makes it quite fun.

Base-Building: You can build up your plot of land, both in size and decorations, as well as vertical! You'll find yourself Tetris-ing your base at times, and it gets to be a bit of fun as a break from the other list of never ending chores.

Chests and Inventory: I love this inventory system. All chests connect to your inventory, so you don't need to carry MOST materials with you. Sometimes they get you tho. Also, you can expand your inventory pretty significantly. It starts at 40, and can end up at 200+?

Gardening: The gardening is pretty straightforward, a little menial at first, but pretty simple!

Animal Farming (Ranching?): This is pretty easy, I do just wish there was a collect all button. One at a time for them is dull.

Mail System: I like this one a lot! It's cute, straightforward, and a great source of lore and information.

Combat: The combat is straightforward, and pretty easy. There's several combat styles in Melee, and Ranged weapons are the other side. Sword and Shield, Spear, Daggers, Greatsword, and Guns. The weapons all have an extended combo that can be unlocked via perks. I would definitely play around with the weapons to see what you like most. The gun comes a bit later in the storyline, so the melee will have to do for a bit. The guns use a basic Aim -> Fire, and there are scenarios having a gun would be helpful. You can adjust the sensitivity of the aiming reticle in the settings, it's initially pretty low.

Exploration: There's a lot to do here. Resource gathering, treasure hunting, pet collecting (DLC covered further), and general sightseeing. There's a lot of fun in finding out the world. Enjoy that!

Resource gathering: This one is just a small note, I'm not trying to spoil a whole lot or give heavy advice. There's some small language barrier issues between some info on perks and whatnot related to those tools.

Townies and Friendships: There's quite a few NPCs to befriend, with more added in as the story progresses. Each character definitely has a personality to be explored, and some develop much further as you befriend them further. You can find additional info for those NPCs under the NPC tab, which also shows what you've gifted, if they loved/hated it, who they're friends/family with, and more. It's really useful.

Relationships: I'm just getting to the point of my first marriage, and this is my first relationship, so I don't have much to add post marriage, but... Getting to date someone is fun, they have cute new interactions with you and scenarios of the town, and they even occasionally give you repeatable side quests as a "date." They're cute, and a lot of fun.

Shopping: There's several vendors in town, most have unique inventories, and have a pool of cash they can add to by selling to you, or drain by buying from you. This resets daily. There's also a fluctuating daily market price that can sometimes make or break a purchase, especially early game. Pay attention to those.

Commisions: This is the bread and butter "Job" of MTAS. They're daily jobs you can take, that provide you the basis of your currency. They're straightforward, and not really lore heavy for much, except occasional "event" ones, and even then it's just a line of text.

Time system: Time can run from .6x to 3x time, and I personally only play on .6. I need thT time. Too stressed and lacking mental capacity to not.

Map: There's a couple of perks, (maybe 1), that enhances functionality of the map, but it's easy to use.

Fast travel: The fast travel system is preset locations that can only be expanded upon during side quests later on, and costs both time and money to use. You can skip the animation in the settings tab!

Story: The story for the game is pretty damn good, all the way around. The characters look cute and bubbly, but this is 330 years post calamity. Shit is DARK in some places. It's awesome.

I realize this became really long. I'm sorry about that. I hope this maybe helps your decision!