Recent reviews by Lemurkat

My husband introduced me to this game in 2019 and I have been addicted ever since - and went from farming parsnips and fishing to expanding the world via mods, then creating mods of my own.
Suffice to say, Stardew has become a significant part of my life.
Now 3000+ hours later, I've just started my many-th farm to re-experience the game from the beginning, and strive once more for perfection.

Stardew is a game that is simple on the surface, but the world Barone has created is open enough for players to develop their own lore, and has inspired, in me, fanfiction and mod ideas. The repetition of the early game: the watering, the fishing, even (to a point) the monster slaying, has a meditative calmness to it that allows me to unwind after a day at work. The characters may appear superficially shallow, but once you get to know them you start to realize that they contain hidden nuance and become more than characters on a screen: they become your friends.

This was my first experience of a Visual Novel, and also of a Dating Sim. And yes, I had a plucking fun time playing through the main story arcs, culminating in a BBL playthrough. Overall, this game had far greater depths than one might imagine from a game where the general premise is "human dating pigeons (or other fowl)" and it invoked greater emotion than I expected. I would encourage anyone dabbing their toes in this game to pursue it through the the BBL finale, as there were quite a few surprises and unexpected reveals that the author did a pretty good job of foreshadowing.

I'm not sure Visual Novels are really the style for me, as I do find endlessly clicking through dialogue boxes somewhat exhausting, and there is a certain amount of repetition - although I did not find this game boring or particularly tiresome despite that. This was in part due to the fast forward button, which came in extremely handy: the latter individual character arcs took around 20 or so minutes each (earlier about 40 as I read more boxes). The BBL finale took close to 2 hours, I would guess (my total play time is somewhat exaggerated as I left the Title screen up for a couple of hours one evening).

Also, I loved the music.

It was a fun game, which I enjoyed playing, even if afterwards it kind of kicked me in the emotions harder than I had expected!