Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley is a surprinsingly good and complete game. It is far too easy to get lost in playing this game. In this game it is not just about farming, fishing, taking care of animals and getting rich in the mean time. The best part is just interacting with the inhabitants of the Valley and Pelican Town and getting to know them. It is such a meaningfull interaction, just getting to know them and they unique stories.

The time aspect almost stopped me from trying this game since I have played many Harvest Moon games and always felt stressed, but in Stardew Valley, even though time flies here as well, you somehow can get more done and still have time left to just wander about if you want, or visit the mines or doing some extra work on the farm. There is so much to do, but there's not really a time limit for completing things so you can choose to take your time and work slowly, and you won't miss anything. If you prefer a more hardcore gamer approach that is possible as well. Stardew Valley works in a very intuitive way and not restricted like in the Harvest Moon games. You can decide much of how you want to play and what you want to do and how, and it's easy to learn how to play. Whenever I first tried things, for example growing crops, I didn't have to read any manuals to not mess up, what I felt was the logical way to do things turned out to be how it actually worked, so I didn't feel annoyed at any point while playing. Also, the character customization is great. You can be either male or female and both genders share all hairstyles and clothes, so players can pick what they want with no restrictions! There are more than 100 shirts, 20+ skin colours, and you can change the colour of your eyes, hair, and pants with sliders so they can be any colour you want. A randomize button will get you set quickly if character creation isn't for you. There are also different farm maps to pick between, and they have different pros and cons. The NPCs have personality and all the lil stories and Heart Events can be funny or sad or just sweet, and gives the town people life. It's not all cute and sweet either. People here have problems and worries and they grow and change as you get to know them, and you learn about their troubles and try to be a good friend to them. The style of the game is that of old-school SNES games and looks really beautiful. A wonderful world of lush colours! The music is amazing and relaxing and I sometimes start the game just to listen to it. And one last thing: It seems like the game can be modded so that things look different or work differently, so it's really a game where you are free to play as you want!

Does what it claims perfectly, if you like farming and grinding its for you

The game is ok in single player, but one of the recent updates broke network co-op. The game added "join by invitation code" functionality which doesn't work on some installations (unknown why) also probably expects steam (crashes when installed with GoG and selecting join by Invite code). They also changed the LAN hosting which used to work fine before, now it doesn't work anymore.

I didn't get this game when it blew up in popularity just because I never have been a fan of these farming/life simulator type games. BUUUUT I decided to purchase it after doing a lot of research about a certain character. ahem....shane...ahem. I thought he seemed like a really well written character so i caved. I have only had this game for three days now and i have over five hours logged already. oops. im obsessed. really. it's really fun and super calming. until i go broke. then i get stressed out. but fr. i'm not the first to say this game is incredible and i wont be the last. ten out of ten. i cant wait to play for 20 hours per day without a break this weekend