I've loved Stardew Valley for years, but the community for this game loves gaslighting you. It's always "Stardew Valley is one of the most relaxing games ever!" until you have to unlock and craft every item, reach max friendship with every NPC, sell every type of crop and catch every fish, all of which require incredible memorization and knowledge of what exact time every single item you need can spawn, punishing you with a huge waiting period if you miss anything.

Playing Stardew Valley casually and learning the optimal Minmax Perfection playthrough are two different beasts. If you read what I just typed above and thought "That sounds extremely obnoxious, why do you like this", honestly, I don't blame you. But based on this and my Super Metroid review, I guess sometimes I like it when a game has more unconventional design, as long as that design harmonizes with everything else that the game is trying to achieve. And Stardew Valley pulls this off incredibly.

I've attempted and failed to reach the Perfection Ending in Stardew several times. Until now, I've always either gotten frustrated or gotten too busy to keep playing it. But in spite of this, it's the one game that I've always come back to. The incredible spritework and soundtrack create an absolutely incredible atmosphere. The rewarding gameplay loop created from the farming mechanics has had me consistently hooked during every playthrough. I don't really want to spoil too much about these though, as not knowing the mechanics in depth will make a first playthrough much more interesting. All you really have to know is that this game has attached itself to my life since I first played it back in 2017.

So as a fan, and as someone who has spent the last 6 years on-and-off trying to complete this game, when I finally got to see that final cutscene, it felt so much more fucking satisfying than if the game had just been handed to me. It was a brilliant sendoff.

I guess this isn't much of a review, is it? I've not really analyzed the game in depth here, this is really just the incoherent rambles of someone replaying (probably) the best life sim game of all time. But I deserve this rambling, I feel. I hope I'll be coming back home to the valley again soon.


Extra note: I said earlier that this game has amazing sprites, but there's one exception. I'm so glad that despite the substantial updates this game has gotten over the years, ConcernedApe has never changed Grandpa's fucked up bed

Stardew Valley feels like coming home.

I can't remember which playthrough I'm on, which is a rarity for me. I've revisited childhood favorites like Zelda and Mario countless times, cherishing each experience. However, as an adult, this happens less frequently. Maybe it's because modern games don't resonate with me as deeply, or maybe my gaming habits have simply changed over time. Yet, whenever I boot up Stardew Valley, it hits all the right notes. Whether I've talked with the residents of Pelican Town dozens of times or played through its events repeatedly, the game retains its magical allure. It feels like a nostalgic return to childhood gaming, a comforting experience I can enjoy every time of the year.

What's truly remarkable is the developer's commitment to continually expanding the game with substantial updates and expansions, all provided for free. Stardew Valley brims with passion and love. Despite its status as one of the most successful indie games of all time, the developer continues to pour his heart into it, enriching the experience for players. I deeply respect and appreciate this dedication, which unfortunately is no longer a given in today's gaming industry.

I could honestly ramble endlessly about this masterpiece of a game. Nearly a decade after my first playthrough, it still holds a special place in my heart and it probably always will.

One of em 3 match puzzle games with a visual novel style story where your choices can affect the outcome of the story.

Going over the gameplay first cuz that's not really the main appealing thing about this game (though i'd be damned not to admit that its addicting): the 3 match puzzle game is pretty simple where you try to complete the objective of each level in a set number of turns; with various methods to make it easier (including microtransactions ofc lol) Other noteworthy gameplay things involve needing crystals (or w/e they are) to unlock story progression, and collecting shards to unlock side stories. While I slacked on the story for long periods of time the 3 match puzzles were one of the things I played sometimes a week, it makes for good fun if I'm short on time or not really in the mood for other bigger games.

While the gameplay can be addicting and good short time waster, its definitely designed with the idea in mind to scoop money out of you in some way or another. Which was expected really, I don't imagine how else they were gonna make as much money as they can out of this game. Still, its pretty frustrating: due to the randomness aspect of the levels you can expect to be stuck on them for unnecessarily long periods of time until you just get, lucky. All the while everything involving payment is shoved in your way to capitalize on that frustration, including refilling your lives. It ends up impacting the story as well due to needing crystals to advance which requires beating levels. In a way, I got lucky in that taking a break from the story while still regularly-ish playing the puzzles meant I ended up with a lot of crystals to continue the story without needing to be forcibly paused.

Now with all THAT aside, onto what's the real meat of the game:

The story and characters are the part of Switchcraft where you can feel most of the passion and effort went into. Spanning over 4 Books, its an interactive graphic novel styled mystery story where your relationships and choices can affect the outcomes.

Or, well, I say that, but its a bit hard to tell how much is affected until a replay is done. Major elements such as your relationships with others and even particular story outcomes definitely are highly dependent on what choice you make, but otherwise a lot of its on the minor side or has very short term effects. This isn't really an issue for me though, and could be proven wrong when I do replay of the story; most of the choices at least feel like they have meaning to them, so my input and by extension values don't feel like they go to waste.

I can't say I'm an expert on teen dramas, but the writing of Switchcraft definitely has those vibes. Drama between friends and lovers galore, tension with superiors, having to hide your magic from the normies (that is quite literally what non witches are called), all them cliffhangers. It can get frustrating sometimes, even cringy, but I don't think its a bad thing for the most part. Its an entertaining story that tries to get you invested in its protagonist, characters, the world, and the relationships between everyone. And yeah, I hella got invested. I felt real fuzzy, proud, and almost even teary-eyed when the story ended, with Bailey determined to continue moving forward in life. Despite all the ups and downs, all the weirdness and awkwardness at times, the journey was fun. It was fun to see how Bailey grew as a person, and what the choices I made said about me and if I too perhaps, grew from them. It was fun to see how magical society was integrated into the regular world. It was fun seeing some story beats that were honestly so awesome, lol.

Like, I'm probably sounding emotional right now, but cut me some slack lol. I technically finished this game in 3 years, I was gonna be sentimental in some way.

I'd go more into depth on each book, but its been quite a long time so I'll save that for when I do a replay, then maybe expect this review to be edited. Off the top of my head on what I felt about the major arcs though:

Book 1 and 2 primarily revolved around the mystery of Lydia's disappearance and pendleton's history of witches. It was a compelling mystery with genuine moments of fear the closer I got to the end, and eventually having a pretty bombastic conclusion where you end up saving the town and witch society from a new dark age. It also really made me appreciate the friendship between Bailey and Lydia, with what one was willing to do for the other despite all the dangers and risks. I'm generally kind of iffy on the friendships Bailey has with most of her age peers, but this was one of the ones I liked most and was glad they continued to show in the later two books.

Book 3 and 4 revolve around the murder of Bailey's mother. These are probably where I found myself to have the most frustrations with the story though the "teen drama" writing vibe was less notable as it was in the first two books. From what I most notably could remember having issue with, is that the protag felt a bit too isolated; perhaps that was the intention, but it didn't feel like you stuck with any sort of friends as much as it did feel like a lot of investigating with random partners at times or just completely be forced to do it alone. Idk, i have mixed feelings about that particular aspect. It had a pretty satisfying conclusion to the overall story at least, though I feel like a few things they could have had better resolved or take a slower approach with.

Ending this off with probably the strongest aspects of Switchcraft, the art and diversity. The art is just gorgeous, it's very vibrant and colourful with cool and expressive characters. One of the most exciting things about the game was coming across the various CGs and screenshotting them, mainly cuz I found them really pretty but they'd also be good reference for my own art, haha. And the cast is quite diverse, in terms of ethnicity and lgbtq+ representation. I appreciate it quite a lot, and kept things refreshing. Not everyday you come across a lot of rep in media, but its nice to see that it's becoming better over time, as can be seen with this game.

Overall, yeah, I'd recommend this game for a casual time and if you can handle some tedious gameplay. I really just wanted to write this review to get some of my feelings out (hence why its also quiiiite longer than normal, whoops)

💜 This game was gifted to Catizens Curations for review.

Absolutely amazing little game where you play as an orange talking Cat who has to go on a quest to find ingredients for pancakes, that the Cat will make with their friend the Squirrel! There is twists and turns in the story and it's a lovely little thing, around an hour long (for me atleast). Achievements are related to finding all the secret cat portraits in the game, so it was rather simple to 100%.

The game has a lovely pixel artstyle with a matching color palette through-out the game. The animations for everything is so simple, but oh so lovely to look at! There is even a ledge climbing animation, which had me squealing because it was so cute. You can also use butter to make the Cat slick so you can go through smaller holes. It's so adorable and silly in all the right ways.

You get to fly in an onion to space, which goes out to a different space entirely, but it's a much bigger space, but to get out of that space you go up and then under the space, to find a talking acorn who sucks you inside it's head space, and then you find yourself back in your own space, and eventually you fly to actual space. Try to wrap your head around that! or don't, and just play the game.

The soundtrack was so lovely and relaxing as well, I loved to listen to it and just jump around as the cat. Definitely going to find that on my music streaming service and add to my playlist of soundtracks I love. Perfection!

It's definitely a recommended from me, it's super cheap, super fun and extremely cute! Get it now!