Stardew Valley (2016)

Stardew Valley is one of my all-time favorite games that I played upon launch in 2016, and I’m giving it a try 10 years later with my expectations a bit lowered, considering how much time has passed between now and release. I was playing this game as a freshly graduated college student when it came out, and now I’m playing it as a father of two children, or just about almost two children. And I’ve got to say, it’s pretty much exactly how I remember it, but I do think I approached it at launch differently than I’m playing it now.

I remember loving this game because I would open up a Google Doc and write down all the things that I wanted to complete and all the things I wanted to do. And that’s just how I like to approach a lot of my favorite games. For example, I love The Binding of Isaac. I love the Like a Dragon series. I love some random titles like Kirby Air Ride and other games like that which have a lot of unlock dopamine built in, like Super Smash Bros. Games like that. Stardew Valley was a really great choice for me because there’s just a ton to unlock, there’s a ton to accomplish, and there’s a lot to do.

I still get that same enjoyment out of the game, but I don’t feel as pressured to complete everything or to do everything optimally. Instead, I just take each day one at a time and do a little bit of some activities each day, try to get some money and improve my farm and my home and my relationships with villagers. I definitely think I’m playing the game now way more in line with how it’s intended, and I’m enjoying it somehow even more, even though I was in love with this game when it came out and dropped off from it after about 80 hours. I’m approaching about 30 hours right now, and I’m nearing halfway through what I would consider a completion of the game, I guess beating the game by finishing the community center.

I’m finding that I’m able to find pockets in my gameplay time with this game where I do find it very addicting, where I’m thinking I have to do this thing and this other thing is in my mind and I’ve got to catch that fish and there’s something I have to get from the mine and let me make sure I water my crops today. There are just all these little things that kind of pop up.

What I love too about Stardew Valley is that things that you need to do pop up in your mind in an organic way. You just think about what needs to be done. It’s not like you’re getting constant notifications about what you need to do. Yes, there are some notifications as far as side quests and things like that, but that’s just one part of the game’s mechanics. It’s not like you’re constantly being told what to do or what your options are. You are given free rein to do whatever you want. You can go to sleep whenever you want. You can choose to go to festivals if you want or not. You get a lot of autonomy as far as how you make your money and how you want to spend your money. There are lots of other little choices built in as far as cutscenes and other things.

There’s a lot of propulsion built into the gameplay just based on the sheer variety of activities and the rewarding feeling that one gets from doing various things. You just start building connections in this game. You are connecting systems to other systems. For example, you are selling crops to make money and then using that money to finance an upgrade for your axe, but you have to go to the mines to get some gold for that. So you do that, and then use your axe to chop down hardwood, and then use that hardwood to build something. Everything is really interconnected in this game.

It gives you the opportunity to do a lot of different things, but you also level up and get skills, and there’s dopamine built into that. There’s also roleplay involved as far as who you choose to marry and whether or not you want to have kids. I’m less interested in those elements, but I still enjoy them and like them as a piece of the game’s overall variety.

I just find Stardew Valley is a really complete experience, and it’s a really nice-looking game as well. Some really nice pixel art. It’s got a good sense of humor. I’m impressed by the writing, considering it’s just one guy writing it and it’s the same guy who did the game design and, I guess, did the music, which is really phenomenal and surprisingly so good for somebody who is just working alone, as far as I know. I think he did it all by himself.

The game is a very cool experience. It’s not the kind of game where I want to play it and only it forever. I do think at some point I put it down and say, okay, let me grab this other game now for a couple hours, or let me take a break for a week or two and come back later, because it can become pretty monotonous. It is a farming game, and the activities are varied, but they’re also limited. There’s only so many things you can do, and it can get a little exhausting. That’s one of the things where I’m like, okay, this is not an absolutely perfect experience, but it really doesn’t detract from anything major.

Overall, Stardew Valley is a lot of fun, and if you approach it the right way, you can have a chill experience that’s also simultaneously really satisfying.

Stardew Valley was not the game that I was expecting to take over my summer and pretty much override any other gaming progress I could make because I was obsessed with this game and this game only, it truly is that good and addictive.

Stardew Valley is not the typical game that attracts me but seeing the rave reviews and general respect that the game has garnered in the gaming space made me intrigued towards it and I’m so glad I was because this farming simulator is not only so much more than that but also has become one of my favourite games that I’ve played in the past few years.

I say that Stardew is more than a farming simulator because while I adored the aspect of farming and building up the farm slowly but surely, it was the characters, their level of depth and the dynamics that you can have with them that really make the game standout. So many of the characters are great and interesting right off the bat, with many of them having a lot more struggles and issues than I was expecting for a cozy game like Stardew is marketed to be. Not only that but the struggles that characters like Shane, Alex, and Pam all experience are handled with care and taken seriously instead of being used for shock factor.

Due to me having to go to university (with me literally writing this review in the car as I’m currently travelling there to move in today), my progress currently has stopped at Fall in Year 2 but even that minute time in comparison to how much other people play has been enough for me to love the game and truly see how great it is, even moreso when realising that ConcernedApe was working on this all by myself and manage to deliver a genuinely incredible game. I’m hoping that when I’m back from university for the holidays, I’ll be able to fall right back in love with the game and continue to restore the Community Centre which is another aspect of the game that I love, alongside the other smaller features like getting mail and picking up quests for the townspeople.

The graphics are cute, consistent, and charming. The character designs are varied and fitting for their personalities. The town is lovely and I'd move there in a heartbeat if I wasn't too damn lazy to put up with countryside.

When it comes to the characters, there's a broad range of personalities and outlooks -- they're all pretty likeable to me, including less popular characters like Demetrius and Clint. Personal favourite is Sebastian, and I'll always have a soft spot for Leah who was my first romance route. Linus is endearing, too.

Dialogue can get pretty repetitive. As someone usually aiming to talk to characters every day to build my relationships with them, I run into repeated chunks of dialogue within an in-game week, which is a pretty big deal when you can only have one individual conversation with each character per day, and has me losing motivation to check in with everyone.

The storyline is far more character-driven than story-driven. Each major NPC has their own sort of mini character arc, especially if you romance them, and there are small storylines such as the Joja Mart vs. Community Center struggle, but ultimately you won't be playing this for any in-depth story. It's a game about the characters and about building your farm up from the ground.

Gameplay is completely fine for what it is. I'm not a fan of the time limit, it feels like I barely have time to do anything before the day is over and I'm forced to sprint back to the house lest I collapse and pass out on the ground on the dot at 2AM and go into the next day with an energy level hit. It makes it hard to enjoy the game and its aesthetics as you play because you feel like you're rushing around and shoving all your objectives in before shops close and you get tired.

It has up to four-player co-op. I've played it with one other player, but I do want to try it with a full game sometime. The co-op is fun, everyone gets their own relationships with NPCs, can marry characters, do all the usual stuff around town, etc. You share a farm, but other players get their own little guest houses on the land.

As surprising as it might be with the high rating and the general praise, Stardew Valley really isn't subjectively for me. I'm not a fan of games where you have to live out every day doing tasks, where you're dropped into the game with little hand-holding and left to come up with your own objectives (you'll probably need to do some Googling first playthrough, because the game Will Not explain how to do anything to you), the time limit is stressful, the repetitive dialogue is tiring, and I've never been able to get past the second season in any solo game I've tried.

And yet it's so damn endearing and charming that I can't justify giving it any less. The fact that this game was made by one guy - yeah, I know, everyone harps on about that in their reviews, but that shit is MIND-blowing. I almost want to give it five stars for that fact alone, because one person creating everything in this game is such a struggle to comprehend.

As a side note, there's a great modding community for this game, including the well-known Stardew Valley Expanded which introduces entirely new characters, marriage candidates, and storylines.

Totally slipped by me, but if anyone cares, I achieved perfection in year 8, around 380 hours. I married Sam and we had two children, that I will assume are beautiful but they stop aging as toddlers so who knows. I've kind of abandoned that farm, but I built another barn and coop and am raising many more pigs, ostriches, and golden chickens for when I return.

But now to get the platinum, I have to go the Joja route. So my new farmer is Evil Mike who runs Front Stuff Farm, has a cat named Shnuggles and is courting Haley. I'm also trying to pick the meanest responses to everyone, except Haley lol. I told Linus to get a job and Demetrius that he's a creep. Looking forward to crushing Alex's gridball dreams.

Just started a new game; it's been a few years since I last played (had completed the main storyline + around 160h of overall gameplay ) and figured I'd try a new farm layout; the seaside farm is so pretty! I'm glad I started from scratch, Stardew can unfortunately get pretty grindy and repetitive when you're far ahead and have a lot of animals and crops to tend to (I'm not a big mod user either so no quality of life upgrades.)

Can't wait to meet all of my favorite characters again!

Can someone explain to me why SV feels so fun and interesting to play compared to its peers? There are literally dozens and dozens of what are basically re-skins of the farming life sim, and this is the only one that I really love. For me the music has a lot to do with it, but that can't be the only thing, can it? I can't really figure it out. Going through these same motions in Story of Seasons, for example, was so boring compared to this. Did ConcernedApe put some sort of hypnosis mind control in it??

I've barely been playing it a month and a half and I've already put more time into it than almost any other game I've played over the last ten years except for maybe The Sims.

After watching my boyfriend play this forever, I have at last established Butt Stuff Farm. I really love this, but especially playing it for myself now, have a few issues:

• I'm having a tough time making money. Is this always the case?
• Really wish you could move faster or had a little more time in the day.
• Small inventory space = 😩

I'm a big farming game fan. As a kid I spent hours playing any Harvest Moon game I could get my hands on, so playing Stardew Valley was a no-brainer. I waited until the multiplayer was added to a console version to buy however since we wanted to experience the game entirely together.

I got entirely too addicted and extremely quickly. I would say my only real complaint, besides some weird multiplayer glitches like lagging when a player goes down a floor in the mines, is I ran out of things to do! I'd love an expansion to a game like this. The townies are interesting to get to know, the customization of your farm is incredibly deep, and there's blue chickens! You can't go wrong with a blue chicken.

I reviewed the co-op gameplay on our podcast Saves Together if you're interested in more of my thoughts! (https://bit.ly/2HxELnv)