Stardew Valley

Highly reccomended for people who are looking to play a game while feeling anxious. :)

Addictive if you're into slow churns and watching grass grow! No Joke! Farming, crafting, fishing, mining, building, decorating, fetch quests, friends, lovers... the whole shebang!

Please note that this review is based on the Steam version of the game. I'm pretty far into the game and I have to say that it's absolutely amazing! It's as if the developer set out to make a homage to the Harvest Moon series and then left it in his dust. This game is better than any of the recent Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons games by far. The gameplay, graphics, and music are phenomenal and you can feel how dedicated the developer was to making a quality game. It's very well programmed and runs smoothly on just about anything. Why are you still reading this? Go buy the game! It's so incredibly worth it. This might be my game of the year for 2016. It's set a very high bar for anything else to come close to topping. Oh, I'm not quite done with the game yet either. In fact I believe the main story lasts for three years of in-game time and I'm only into spring of my second year. I've been taking my time. I may edit this review again further down the road depending on how things go.

This is a very playable game; comfortable and easy to get into, a relaxing, easy playing style and lots of nice and interesting things to do each day. Playing one extra day only takes another 10-15 minutes, so it's easy to justify not quitting! Appealing to kids and adults alike - my young daughter enjoys the game as much as I do. Never played Harvest Moon or Rune Factory but I have played Animal Crossing on the Wii and it's quite similar to that. Most of my thoughts about it are positive so take it as read that I think it's a great game. :) My few criticisms revolve around some knowledge being based too heavily on trial and error. Knowing which gifts to give people to gain favour, for example, and knowing the daily routines of the people in town -- if you have to get a certain item and give it to a certain person within a couple of days, for example, it can be hard to track that person down in time. Some people spend a lot of time in their bedrooms, which you don't have access to if you don't already know that person well. Some method of being able to track people down would be really useful. In some cases I consulted guides on the web to answer some of these questions. Overall, it's a great mix of RPG aspects, exploration, simple combat, puzzle solving and relationship building. Great for all ages, it holds your interest well and seems like it would have a good degree of replayability. Highly recommended!

As this game starts, it would seem like a harvest moon type game but it goes so much farther than that. This game has so much more customization than most farming games on the market right now, and goes beyond farming to include a storyline plot with the 2 different options for the main line (Joja Cola or Community Center), social aspects up to babies, physical fighting with control, complete customization of layout of the farm, and a very large exploration map. This seems like a crash between Harvest Moon and Fantasy Life (3DS). I highly recommend if you want a game with a large amount of replay ability.