Often seen as the staple in any cozy gamers catalogue, Stardew Valley seems to be the perfect farming simulator to have hit our consoles since Harvest Moon. But where did it all begin?
Let me give you some good, old Sarah context to set my Stardew Valley Journey! Obviously if you want to just read the review, you can scroll further down, if you really want to!
I had just started a new HR job. Initially, meaning the first few weeks, I thought I would really like this role. It seemed like a career path I wanted to go into after coming out of fashion retail management however weeks in, I soon discovered that it wasn’t for me.
Soon after getting my switch, I decided to call in sick for a day. I was mentally done being spoken to like trash by a dodgy building firm and getting zero support from the advisors who were meant to help!
So tucked up on my small, spongy sofa bed in a box room of my parents house, I decided to purchase Stardew Valley. I had watched my sister play it previously on PC a couple of months before and really wanted to play it. Now I could. Nothing was going to stop me!
Stardew Valley is an open-ended life simulation game which sees the player go back to her dying grandfather’s dilapidated farm (your choice of name) in Pelican Town. Here, you will need to uplift the farm, by looking after livestock, growing crops and essentially living off the land! You can also befriend (or don’t)numerous locals of Pelican Town, understanding their complex stories and eventually being able to marry one of the potential singles and start a family of your own!
Although the objectives and story in the game is very much based on your progression with the farm and other people of the town, how and when you do it is completely up to you! Whether you want to go hardcore and earn money solely by selling crops you’ve grown or if you just want to get to know all the townspeople first, it’s completely up to you. There’s no time limit majority of the time and the way you approach things can be determined by the player.
Despite being an old gamer at heart, I do get deterred by modern games that use pixel style graphics. I think it’s been very overdone and quite frankly, I am bored of seeing it. I guess the same can be said here. Yes, it does have its charm and the pixel start accompanies the gameplay itself however, the graphics aren’t anything too exciting.
However, it’s not aesthetics that keep me playing. It’s the gameplay. The great thing about Stardew Valley is that day-to-day is filled with so many things you can do to keep you entertained. Obviously, the main objective is uplifting the farm and making it profitable again, but you don’t have to feel secluded in that corner of the world.
There’s even events spread out throughout the in-game year to break up routines and let you experience the fun that Pelican Town has to offer. I especially love the night market that is spread over three days in the winter months, as you get to enjoy coffee on the beach, do some deep sea fishing and even watch a mermaid show.
It’s things like this that keep me coming back, even if I have seen the same cutscene over and over or have jammed all my resources into the community centre for the nth time. It never gets boring. If you’re someone who loves the Harvest Moon franchise or who wants to play a calming farming simulation, then obviously Stardew Valley is perfect for you.
There are many platforms that are available these days, even mobile phones. However, if you have an Xbox, you can play this for free with Gamepass (which I recommend!)