Stardew Valley

The storyline in this game is the way life should be.

Incredibly relaxing and whimsical, with an incredible soundtrack and a lot of fun systems to play with.

Many things about this game are really good. The character friendship system is great, at least early game - later it gets extremely repetitive. Kinda weird for someone you're officially dating to just be saying the same old stuff to you outside of cutscenes. Bunch of different crops, bunch of various things to do, mny ways for players to earn money. I don't however like how much the game pushes you to rush. Plant crops, gather crops, pet your animals, feed your animals, go fishing, also check on your crab pots, gather sap, go to ginger island, find walnuts, but also farm over there, complete museum, don't donate to the museum you'll need it, give a birthday gift, watch all the cutscenes, upgrade your tools, but also go to the mines, but also go to the skull cavern, but also go to the volcano, do it on a specific day, do it all while it's raining, do it all while it's winter, do it all now. It's insane If you take it slow you'll only get to do one or two of these things a day and the season will fly by. And please don't tell me "well you don't have to" because the game IS unfoortunately designed in a way that pushes that, and it's not my responsibility to conscoiusly fight against the game design all the time. There are ways to make games more chill. Another huge issue is multiplayer. When playing alone, every action pauses time, from looking in chests, through fishing, to harvesting crops. When you eat in the mines/cavern you are invulnerable, time pauses for you. Not in multiplayer tho. In multiplayer regardless if you're alone in the mines, time never pauses and you're locked into the eating animation and can't move. It's frankly insane. I can't really appreciate co-op when it barely works (and on top of that is laggy). And personal pet peeve - the shops. Open only a few hours a day, not on all days, and most annoyingly many characters live in their shops, so if you want to give clint or harvey a gift after 4pm forget it.

I always hated the "slowness" of games like some dress up games or f2p stuff from google play store. I always hated the hardness in similar games like terraria or the real time boringness of ACNH. Stardew itself is great, but stardew with mods as I have? (expanded mod, faster walking etc) makes the daily grind MUCH more fun, especially being able to see new looks for buildings with mods. In general the pc vesion is easier, less patched from Nintendo/ console one, but both will stay in my heart.

I now understand why this game is so popular. It's so addicting, before you know it you have sat there playing for 4 hours. Got it on sale for 50% off, but totally worth it full price (it's not that much). Wish I had gotten it sooner!