星露谷

This is a game where you can farm, fish, explore dangerous mines, raise animals, make friends, get married, play a minigame on an arcade machine, unlock secret areas with a few new characters, and more. The number of different items in the game is astonishing. The game is fairly relaxing because you have no real upkeep expenses and your character doesn't have to eat to live. Obviously, it is heavily inspired by Every character in the game has something like five special cutscenes. Their dialogue (which is usually just whatever they say when you click on them to say hi) will change as you get to know them. For the six men and six women available to marry, the last few of these will have romantic undertones or be straight up kissing them. One aspect of the game that may seem restrictive but that I like is how saving works. Each day lasts for 12.6 minutes of real time if you play from 6AM to midnight in game, without doing things like pulling up menus or reeling in a fish that pause the game's clock. However, you can go to bed any time you want to end your day. So each day can be over as quickly as you want. This is the only way your day ends, unless you pass out for staying up until 2 AM or you get your health drained by enemies in a place like the mines. Staying up past midnight, or worse, passing out at 2am, will leave your character tired the next day, and getting your health drained will also cost you a few random inventory items. The game saves when, and only when, your day ends. You can have multiple play-throughs with their own save file simultaneously, but you can only have one save file per play through. This is fine, because the game is very forgiving. This game has a lot of replay value.

Stardew Valley is one of my all time favorite games, its not overly complex but has enough depth and grind to keep you interested without making it a frustrating experiance. Had a rough week at work/school? then try this game its quite relaxing and satsifying. The only downside I would argue is the combat which is a tad cluncky you do get use to it however.

I've played through the "story" if you will and there's not much left to discover, unless I start over and romance someone different or aim for the Joja-ending, and still I come back to my farm, making wine, shoving goat-cheese into my lovers face and throwing my baby up in the air hoping she'll learn how to fly. It's just something peaceful to do to stress down and escape the stress of the world. While the rest of the game really is 5-star material it's this stress down thing that really cements it as a 5-start experience.

This game is SO relaxing. The soundtrack is awesome, the pixel graphics are superbly done, and, while it´s essentially a sandbox game, it still has some sidequests that will appeal to oldschool gamers, because you definitely need pen&paper to keep track of all the things some of the inhabitants like most, for example.

If you want a game to relax peacefully to after a long working day, then this is the game for it. I started it by now about 10 times, and it never grew old. There is no time limit, and yet, there is challenge. But nothing bad happens if you don't meet the goal. I enjoy the game together with my husband in multiplayer and we dumped 200 hours together into this game and not regret one single minute of it. Just... buy it. It's amazing, calming and great fun. And there is always something new to discover, as the game still gets updated in 2021.