I own 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Stardew Valley, I think, four times. I have it on PC, Switch, PS4, and mobile. That’s a lot of money for one game, particularly when you consider that, across all four platforms, I’ve probably put in around… two and a half hours. While it’s the best investment around for millions of people - a relatively cheap game offering thousands of hours’ worth of radiant,ꦇ compelling things to do - I&r𓆉squo;ve gotten less bang for my buck out of this game than any other. If I’m not mistaken, it works out at around $24 per hour played. Quick maffs.
The thing is, I love Stardew Valley. When I bought it for PS4, I already had it on both Switch and mobile. I knew, deep down, that if it hadn’t clicked on handheld, there was no way in hell I’d sit down after a long day of work and boot it up on the big screen over something like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Witcher, Yakuza, or Persona. Still, I bought it - another $15 down the drain, you might think🐷.
I disagree. I reckon Eric Barone de✨serves a few quid off me, because even if I don’t personally like playing Stardew Valley, the amount of joy I&rsq♌uo;ve gotten from it over the years is frankly ridiculous.
Stardew Valley is irrefutably one of the greatest video games of our time - nah, make that all time. It is simplistic and repetitive and intentionally mundane in such a hugely successful way that it’s paved the path for more Stardew-likes than I’ve had hot dinners - and I like my dinners hot. Not enough people appreciate this game for its sheer, unbridled, and completely unpretentious geni🌠us. It is exemplary of what video games across the board should strive to be: focused, fair, and fulfilling.
It’s not just from an artistic or critical perspective that I appreciate Stardew, though. Believe it or not, despite only having a couple of hours in it, I know a fair bit about the melodramatic goings-on of the Ferngill Republic. Willy the fisherman is a legend. Elliott’s line “This item gives me a terrible feeling - I'll have to dispose of it" is hilarious. Gil is an enigma. Grandpa is like Santa Claus with really bad frostbite. Krobus… yeah. What I’m trying to say is, I know my stuff.
It’s not just that I read up on Stardew, however, or that I occasionally watch other pe♓ople playing it in the background while I do other stuff - I don’t actually do either of those things, really. I just keep up with the news cycle. Every time a new story about Stardew is published, I’m the first in line to read it. I am absolutely fascinated by this sprawling, fascinating world. I love its inherent absurdity and how it always arrives at coherence by leaning into said absurdity. It is courageous and ambitious and sincerely true to itself at all times. This is largely thanks to how Eric Barone - alias ConcernedApe - operates as a solo dev, but the fact he ౠhas kept it up for so long and only continued to make the game more and more enticing and intriguing speaks volumes.
Just last week, Barone actually said that the game still has 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:one secret nobody has ever found. Bear in mind that Stardew Valley launched in February 2016 - it has been over five years and there are still things that have somehow gone undiscovered by millions of people. Barone actually reckons nobody will ever figure out how to uncover this particular secret. Personally, I hope he’s right. Part of what’s so exciting about🥃 this game is how paradoxical its ostensible simplicity and implicit sense of weirdness and mystery are. I hope🀅 it never changes or compromises on that.
Will I ever give Stardew Valley another try? Maybe! Honestly, I’d like to, although it’🐼d be remiss to ignore the fact that in my handful of hours with it, it never really resonated with me. No, I’m more of a fan watchin🍌g from the sidelines, enjoying the view and the fascinating context that comes with it. Even if I never boot up Stardew again, I love it and appreciate it more than the vast majority of games. Sometimes it’s okay to smell the flowers without picking them - although the steadfast and sprightly denizens of Stardew itself would likely tell you differently.
