What to think about something that takes most of what makes it great from something else? These are more just my thoughts than a proper review.
There's this perception in art that highly values originality. We like new propositions. That doesn't undermine a derivative work, however. Concepts evolve, ideas change, gameplay shouldn't stagnate. Still, many dislike plagiarism.
For me, Stardew Valley firmly walks the divisory line between inspiration and plagiarism. Eric Barone, the developer of the game, has mentioned wanting to improve the flaws of the Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons games was his main drive. I'd say it creates as many flaws as it fixes. Still, this is understandable as he was a sole developer.
It is important to judge a piece of art not just as its own entity, one should also consider the times, the environment, what came before it. That's why we still call Ocarina of Time a masterpiece and not just an outdated piece of software.
Now that Stardew Valley has become as influential as HM/SoS, it's worth asking... does it deserve all the praise? Or is it just a good, polished piece? There's a lot of merit in the creation of a good game, but maybe there's bigger merit in the creation of a genre.
Finally, I'd like to say I'm glad he decided to take what started as mere code training to this extent, and that he decided to make it his own, instead of some sort of mod for any HM/SoS game.
There's this perception in art that highly values originality. We like new propositions. That doesn't undermine a derivative work, however. Concepts evolve, ideas change, gameplay shouldn't stagnate. Still, many dislike plagiarism.
For me, Stardew Valley firmly walks the divisory line between inspiration and plagiarism. Eric Barone, the developer of the game, has mentioned wanting to improve the flaws of the Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons games was his main drive. I'd say it creates as many flaws as it fixes. Still, this is understandable as he was a sole developer.
It is important to judge a piece of art not just as its own entity, one should also consider the times, the environment, what came before it. That's why we still call Ocarina of Time a masterpiece and not just an outdated piece of software.
Now that Stardew Valley has become as influential as HM/SoS, it's worth asking... does it deserve all the praise? Or is it just a good, polished piece? There's a lot of merit in the creation of a good game, but maybe there's bigger merit in the creation of a genre.
Finally, I'd like to say I'm glad he decided to take what started as mere code training to this extent, and that he decided to make it his own, instead of some sort of mod for any HM/SoS game.