There are so many problems with Stardew Valley that I could nitpick the hell out of, especially comparing the game to its main influence: Harvest Moon in characterizations. There are parts of the game where I wonder if it's even influence anymore or just straight stealing, but farming games are difficult to make stand out from one another, so I can't give it too much trouble (at least they didn't keep the realism of needing to make your cow pregnant in order to get milk lol) and in the end it /is/ Stardew, the game that's made so many people (myself included) feel so comfortable and relaxed when that's all you want from a game at the time. It's especially nice to escape to when living in the middle of a busy city.

It's not a perfect game, but it satisfies most of what I look for in a Podunk American farming game, and has helped me significantly as a language learning tool by playing it in my target languages. I could critique Stardew from hell and back, but my 1k+ hours I have on it would go to show it doesn't matter much anyways.

Live and work, but don't forget to play and have fun in life. Enjoy it, and enjoy Stardew Valley.

(Haley best wife)