I’m honestly quite surprised that I’ve never done a review of Stardew Valley before. I’ve done a guide more than 16 months ago and it’s personally my 3rd most favorite Switch game but I never got around to reviewing it. Technically, I almost Never got around to playing it either. Back in August 2019 I went to an anime convention and I was looking up panels and someone who works in anime chose to do a panel just on Stardew Valley.

At the time I never heard of the game but it looked like an interesting panel so not only did I decide to go but I also bought a copy of the game for PS4 before going. I really liked the panel and all the talk about the game got me interested in actually playing it but I only played for a few hours on PS4 and then got bored.

Then around 6 months later I picked up the game again but for the Switch and this time I fell in love with it to the point where I was putting like 20 to 30 hours a week into the game last March before Animal Crossing became a thing. At the time, it became one of the games that I’ve been most invested in and pretty much changed my view towards farming and sim games.

GRAPHICS: 9/10

The thing that’s so great about Stardew Valley when it comes to graphics is that it works so well on so many levels. Not only are the graphics very simple and yet so charming, but the colors work so well and the contrasts are great as well. All the colors blend together so well and if something has a specific color, everything around it has a color that complements it. This makes it so that none of the color contests are jarring and so that they’re all easy to look at.

I also really enjoyed many of the designs when it came to both characters and buildings, the style just worked really well and helped make the game so sweet from a visual standpoint. There aren’t any great 3D visuals or stunning backgrounds and animations but overall, Stardew Valley is just so great to look at.

SOUND: 8/10

I have to be honest, even though I booted up the game dozens of times, the “theme song” was never something that really stood out to me. I remember doing one of those video game theme quizzes on Youtube a few weeks ago and the Stardew Valley one was in there and I had no idea what it was from. It’s a really nice song but at least for me it felt like something that you’d completely forget about if you stopped playing for a month.

The music that plays while you’re playing the game sounds really nice and the generic sounds of your farm, the town, mining, fishing, etc just work so well with the gameplay and can make it feel really immersive at times.

STORY: 8/10

Stardew Valley isn’t just about chickens and wheat. There’s so much more to the game than just farming. You’re given a plot of land that used to belong to your grandfather and the entire places become a ruin so now it’s your job to restore it to what it was like before. But there’s also so much more to do outside of your farm because you get to help rebuild the village, take part in many events, and learn about all of the village residents while also learning about your grandfather. The story and events that make up the entirety of the game are very sweet and charming.

ADDICTIVENESS: 10/10

Farm sim games were already lots of fun before Stardew Valley came along but then this game pretty much revolutionized the genre and gave us a small and simple game that we can waste hundreds of hours in.

One of the best parts of Stardew Valley is the fact that there’s always a bunch of new stuff being added. The game was released more than 5 years ago and yet there was a massive update earlier this year that literally added more than a hundred new things to the game. I was really excited when I first heard about the new updates and when they finally made it to the Switch, I had to get back into the game to check them out and I ended up putting in many more hours into my play through as a result.

The game is very good at bringing players back into its world. In fact, the developer said that there might be more stuff in the future. The game just offers so much to do. For your first couple in game years, you might find yourself spending as much time as you can on each day to make the most out of it. In my case, I think it took like 25 to 30 hours to get through the first year. If you’re playing the game by yourself, you can easily waste 50 to 100 hours doing everything that there is to do and that’s not including all the multiplayer stuff because it’s possible to create one farm with up to three friends, which means you can keep getting sucked back into the game over and over.

DEPTH: 10/10

Oh boy does Stardew Valley have so much to offer you. Even before this massive new update that added so much, there was already a ton of things to do before. First off you have a crazy amount of places to explore because the town and the entire map a as a whole are pretty big. There’s a lot to explore from the town to the mines to your big farmland and other places.

The character system is also quite massive too. There’s a bunch of different residents that you can interact with and you can grow your relationship with them all to unlock cool little story moments and you can even get married and have a kid.

Easily the biggest aspect of the depth is the whole farming aspect. There’s literally hundreds of farm items. Fish, artifacts, and minerals for you to find, catch, farm, mine, and cook. Just messing around with your farmland and planting and harvesting can cost you dozens of hours and by the time you’ve spent many in game years, you might even realize that you didn’t discover everything that there is to discover. Plus on top of that there’s lots of items and furniture that you can buy and craft to make your farm and house as good as it can be.

DIFFICULTY: 3

The game isn’t that difficult. All you have to do is be cautious about what you’re doing and when and you’ll be fine. Maybe you decide to spend one entire day mining for minerals. If you do that, you won’t be able to spend time with the residents or farm, and you also have to focus on your stamina. It also takes time to build up a decent amount of gold so that you can start building bigger farms and start automating the farming process. But once you make yourself a solid routine and build up enough patience, the game will become pretty easy.

OVERALL: 9.2/10

Overall Stardew Valley is currently my 3rd most favorite game on the Switch and I’m sure that it might be pretty high up on other peoples lists, even on other consoles. For people who like farm and sim games, Stardew Valley is a must play and this might even become a game that a non fan could start to enjoy. The coolest thing about Stardew Valley might easily be the price because the regular price is $15 and constantly goes on sale for like $10 or less.

If this was a full priced $60 game, you would still get your moneys worth but getting 50 to 100 hours or more for only $15 is one heck of a steal and makes the game even better. Overall, I think the game is great and I’m sure that many others will agree with me and my overall grade for Stardew Valley on the Switch will be a 9.2 out of 10.