Stardew Valley has been an adventure. I'm a long-time fan of the
Harvest Moon series, and I resisted
Stardew for years because of... I don't know, loyalty? I'm definitely regretting ignoring this amazing game for so long. Everything that was wrong with
Harvest Moon was fixed by ConcernedApe, and the labor of love really shines through. I've actually purchased the game a second time on PlayStation to play with my kids when they're at my ex's house.
In terms of story, you have a diverse group of narratives that you can label "the game's story." There's each story arc with the NPCs, the story arc with your grandpa's ghost, the story arc of the Fern Islands, and so many little side stories that nothing can be definitively labeled "The Story." Each story has ups and downs, and some are downright heartbreaking at times (looking at you, Shane). The branching narratives are amazing, and I can't wait to sink my teeth into
Stardew Valley Extended, now that I've finally 100% the game over a matter of 9 months and 300+ hours. (10/10)
Gameplay and controls are relatively simple, hearkening back to
Harvest Moon on SNES. The game has played wonderfully on my DualShock 4, Switch Pro controller, JoyCons, the handful of times I borrowed an XBox One controller, and even my recently-acquired Steam controller. When you push a button, the same thing happens, no matter what controller you're using. The control scheme is comfortable and easy to adapt to. It's also well-adapted for keyboard and mouse, as I had to do that a few times, but I prefer a controller overall. (10/10)
The graphics are sprite-based, but they work incredibly well for a farming game. I can run the game on my decade-old laptop, my busted-to-heck-and-back Surface Pro 3, my custom-built AMD gaming machine, or even the old Dell office PC I have hanging around. It's always smooth and responsive, and I have never had trouble getting anything going. My next project is to try to run it on a 20-year-old Compaq laptop I've installed TinyCore on, but that's just for a personal challenge. Each sprite is immediately identifiable as belonging to a certain NPC, and the farmer has a wide range of customization options. The forest, farm, mountains, islands and town all have a level of charm that
Harvest Moon seems to lack in comparison, and ConcernedApe really dialed it in with a diverse color palette. (10/10)
Soundscapes are amazing. I'll sometimes pull up the soundtrack just for listening, and the effects are unobtrusive while still attention-grabbing. The music is probably up there along with the diverse stories for me in terms of favorite parts of the game, and the soundtrack is easily one of the best to come out of any game since the SNES era. It's right up there with games like
Skyrim,
EarthBound, and
Donkey Kong Country, and considering CA developed the game largely on his own, that's even higher praise than it would be for any AAA title. (10/10)
It's not often I give a game a perfect score, but it's also not often I sink over 300 hours into a game or buy multiple copies of a game. ConcernedApe has risen to a rockstar of the indie game dev world, and he deserves all of the praise he gets for
Stardew Valley. I'm sad I slept so long on this game. I'm sad I've finished everything there is in the game. I'm grateful for all of CA's hard work, and I'm grateful that the fan community has put out enough mods that my time with the game will never truly be over. Overall, this is one of the best games in my library. Pick it up, seriously. It runs on a lightbulb and will give hours of entertainment for mere fractions of a penny per hour. Bravo, ConcernedApe. Bravo! (10/10)
5.0