Stardew Valley is a farming RPG reminiscent of Harvest Moon or rune factory game. You play as a new farmer who’s sick of their old desk job and recently inherited their grandfather’s old farm. The gameplay consists of cultivating crops, raising animals, foraging, fishing, and dungeon crawling. The pixel art style is similar to games of the SNES era. Think early Square Enix.
It is more modern in some details, such as the freedom of movement of your
character and the subtle animations the characters do, such as blinking. There are a lot of different elements to the game, many of which are pretty much voluntary. You can make friends with the town folk, spend all your time fishing, or make a huge farm.
However, you only have a set amount of energy per day, so you can’t do everything at once without a lot of food. The dungeon-crawling element is a lot of fun but can get a bit tense once you get down a few levels, especially when you get surrounded by those stupid flies and you just can’t hit them.
Growing your farm is so much fun and satisfying, especially when you start getting animals. Just look at the teeny chickens! This game is insanely addictive. You can put so many hours into this and not get bored, but the dungeon crawling can get a tad stressful. So overall, I give Stardew Valley a chill-out rating of 4 out of 5. Thank you so much for reading, and come back soon for the next exciting article.