Recent reviews by Feenie

Stardew Valley is one of my favorite cozy games, and I always come back to it every now and then. You decide one day to stop living in the city to make a change and take over your grandpa's abandoned farm in a cozy rural town that shares the name of the game, Stardew Valley, and live a more simple life.

Well... maybe not too simple. The main storyline of the game, if it counts as one, is to grind and collect and grow things from various seasons... and it can be very grindy. Even the alternative to this requires lots of money, which you also need to grind in if you want to progress.

What separates it from most farming games is that it's more than a farm. There's mining and combat as well, and of course fishing and exploring like other games have. Also, inclusive marriage; so despite the gender you choose when you create your character, you can marry whoever you desire, which Harvest Moon / Story of seasons didn't have the balls to do until Stardew did first.

The story in Stardew is nice, but once you beat the game, it kind of gets... well, boring. I love this game to death, believe me, but I don't feel like I could enjoy beating the full thing over again on my own. I usually go Joja when I make a new farm now, because when all you do is focus on the community center every time you play, it sucks the life out of you just a bit. You have to worry every day of every season about things like, Did I plant every crop I'm going to need this season? Have I caught all the fish yet? Should I sell this? Awww man... I forgot something and have to wait a year to get it in the bundle! But I wanted to unlock the reward!

I do recommend this game despite the grindiness of it, however. I feel like even just playing through it once gets you your money's worth, not to mention many mods are out there to add to the content of the game and give you more things to do. Honestly even if you do beat the game, you can still do things after like decorate your farm, get a divorce to spice things up a little, or 100% and speedrun it just to keep you busy if you like. My only issue is that now that I've beaten it a couple times, instead of enjoying the game, when I make new farms it seems like more of a chore than fun time.

I have tried to find people to play with and make a new farm to just mess around with like a sandbox- with mods encouraged and just... play for fun and explore things we didn't before, or see what would happen if we did something crazy. But every time I say this and get someone to play, they go, "oh I don't want to do mods I just want to play vanilla", when we've both beaten the game, or they'll also immediately start grinding the community center and hoarding things for it and it just ruins the experience for me.

I recently got into a new indie game that's similar called Sun Haven, and the tendencies I have picked up from Stardew carry over, and I'm beginning to unlearn them. In that game I feel compelled to hoard items when I don't need to, grind when I don't need to, and just forget to enjoy a lot of the game in general. Not that I don't enjoy it or this game, because I enjoy them both a lot; but my point is, for a cozy game, Stardew is very very grindy and repetitive if you start a new game. Not to mention you start with such low energy, it takes a bit to get into.

I do like many things, however. I personally am great at the fishing and don't mind grinding it to make bank. I also can get hyper focused on mining and exploring. The characters have nice events and personalities too, and getting to know the town and story make the game worth it. I also like how when you're married you get gifts back every now and then, and I like the farming experience in general and the customization, like decorating your house or designing an efficient and stylish layout for the farm. However I really wish there was just... more to do. (post-story spoiler)Ginger Island is cool and all, but there's not too much to do there either. Oh boy, new farm, new mines to explore, but... eh. It's not enough to keep me playing on the same save after I do everything there is to explore there.

I will say this is an amazing game though that I have put hundreds of hours into, [around 500 on Switch] and is one of the top games I get for friends to play with me because when you aren't playing alone it does hit different, but if you refuse to play with mods or cheats and have no friends to play this with, then you will probably get burnt out after the first run and maybe come back to it to play it again in a few months.

It's one of those games that I play non-stop for days straight and binge, but then get bored and don't pick it up again until I remember how much I used to enjoy it.

Maybe that's why this review is not great despite me highly recommending it; I know that it's a wonderful game everyone should try at least once, but I'm just very burnt out after how much I grind every time I play. It's cozy, but I wouldn't say it's the most relaxing. You will be spending many hours grinding if you want to get through it. But if you like that kind of thing and have the time, go for it! I'm just saying most of the replay value comes with messing around with mods and ignoring the story next time you play.

It will never be the same as when you play it for the first time. I wish I could have that experience back.

This is currently my favorite game of all time. I purchased it a little over two weeks ago since my friend had recommended it to me after I'd asked if he wanted to play Stardew Valley together, and I'm glad he did because Sun Haven is so much easier for me to focus on, and also so much more fun to play in general. Sure, it's incomplete, but in my opinion it's an unfinished masterpiece that's well worth its price.

What I like most about it is that it has a story you get to complete at your own pace; no stress, no rush, just enjoy the game, relax, and do what you want to do. You can play it your way; nothing is locked behind something you're forced to do. Sure there's locations you unlock with the story, but they aren't hard to get to, and once you unlock them you can really do what you want and ignore the story if you have played before.

I'm on year 3 on my main save right now, and it's still not getting old yet 133 hours into this game. I beat the story a long while ago, and I still have so much that I want to do before progressing in one of my other saves! So much to craft, to grow, and there's even a museum that's like the Stardew community center mixed with the museum in that game too, but with better rewards and way bigger. Also it's optional, you can play the whole story without bothering to do it; so you don't have to worry about burnout. Though the rewards are cool and if you finish it you get an achievement so I recommend trying to complete it on one save at least just to say you did it.

Did I mention there's amazing character customization, too? You can choose from several races to be with their own perks; I like being a demon or a naga, personally. But human lets you craft faster, so no matter what race you choose it's never boring! There's not much clothing options when starting a new game, but as you rebuild the clothing store in town, and as you travel to the other locations, you'll have so much to wear you need more than one wardrobe. I have like 3.

Pets and mounts make this game very fun too. In other farming games you usually get a cat or dog and a horse and that's it, unless you count your cows and chickens too. But in Sun Haven, there's over 100 pets, and tons of mounts to ride on; and the pets aren't useless! The more you level up, there will be perks to having them, like helping you gain EXP or increasing your movement speed. With mounts, they start by giving you 30% extra move speed, and it goes up from there as you level up. You can ride on a giant goldfish! A bumble bee! A fox! Or if you have the DLCs, a strawberry cat! A goat from hell!!! SO many fun things with those.

Relationships are still something that are being worked on in the game, but they still have their perks too. When you're close enough with a character, they give you a keepsake you can benefit from; and the wedding rings are even better. You'll be getting married and divorced over and over again to collect 'em all! (and those achievements, of course.)

You can't forget the importance of magic in this game, either. You can use spells to fight enemies, or even aid you in exploration, farming, fishing, and mining; there's a spell for pretty much any way you play the game, which is cool! Who needs sprinklers when you can summon a rain cloud to water your plants?

There's so much more I could say about this game but I will stop now before I type up a lot more and lose track of time. I delete and rewrite or edit reviews a lot too as I play more, so I'll probably have something else to say later. But this is my favorite game now. You should play it.

Gifted this game to my dad, he said he didn't play but he and I share the '♥♥♥♥♥♥ a Chair' achievement so I know he did. Fun for the whole family!

In all seriousness, even though I was serious about that first sentence, this is a ridiculously fun game. As silly goofy as the concept is, it's very unique and a fun way to pass the time. It's not super explicit so it's not gross or something you can't stream, you're just a silly little critter, bangin' into various kinds of chairs.

Each chair has a uniquely generated name, bio, likes, dislikes, and their own personal preferences when it comes to being railed by the silly goofy critter you play as. The more you play, the more you discover about your own chair preferences as well! They have so much personality, it tops the character development of most NPCs in other games!

Oh, I almost forgot to mention... the music? BANGIN'! Absolute BANGERS. One of my friends has many hours in this game just from leaving it open to listen to the music while they work, so if you're looking for a good excuse to give someone when they ask why you're playing a game about making love to chairs you meet on dating apps in a post-apocalyptic parking garage (?), the music alone is worth the price. Hell, show your love to them by gifting your friends their own copy, just like I gave my dad! (and my brother, too!)