Stardew Valley - Review 2024 | Why is this game so good?

[@TheNocturnalRambler]

If you enjoyed this review and want to help my channel continue to grow, then please consider doing me a favor and like, comment, subscribe, and share the video. Engagement like that helps a lot to promote it to a wider audience. If you want to support me more directly I also have Super Thanks set up for a one-time tip, but you can also become a channel Member or Patron where you'll also get access to exclusive bonus content every month (links are in the description). These videos take a lot of time and effort to put together, so I would appreciate any support you're willing to offer. Thank you.

[@KingEdwardMMVIII]

I got into this game because somewhere I saw it mentioned the game was good for anxious people. I'm not the type of person you might expect to be playing the game. 33 years old. Big burly bearded dude. But something about putting this game on just cheers me up.

[@LukasJampen]

It's always nice to come back to it. Over the years it has become a sort of comfort food for me. Whenever I don't know what to play or just want something not stressfull to play I find myself back in stardew valley. Is it perfect? No. Is it fantastic? Absolutely. I tried getting into other farming sims after but they just never hit the same spot.

[@MagicalFishy]

This is one of THE BEST reviews of any game that I have ever seen/listened to. I hope that ConcernedApe sees this! Keep up the great work man. (:

[@drfrankendoodle]

i think more than anything im consistently impressed by the quality of your writing. Its very emotional and evocative and significantly lifts up your reviews. It reminds me of noah caldwell-gervais in terms of going beyond pure critique and leaning almost into novelization. Feels like you're listening to an excerpt from a book about someone's experience playing the game, how it made them feel, etc. as opposed to a simple review. All that is to say, keep up the good work and look forward to your future content. I hope your channel grows commensurate with its quality.

[@TheNocturnalRambler]

Wow, this is extremely flattering. Thank you so much for your support and those kind words!

[@TripleRoux]

Stardew Valley is a gem. So much gameplay, so much depth and so much joy in one place. While other games I love are being destroyed by corporate greed, Concerned Ape is constantly adding free content to his lovely project. Perfection! Thanks for the lovely video!

[@minezweeper2976]

The developer gave all of his best to makes this game, no wonder it became so good

[@Plz8662]

This review made me want to get this game & it’s the first to do so. All other reviews were praising it surface level because it’s popular & it got them views and likes by people that like the game but your review is very sincere and genuine. Thank you for that

[@squirrelsinjacket1804]

Wish I could memory wipe playing this game so I could experience it new all over again lol

[@Plz8662]

@@squirrelsinjacket1804 I ended up buying. I play it maybe once a day or every other day & do like a few in game days worth of stuff & then go play other games. Not to say I don’t like the game I really do I just can’t play it for hours and hours so I play it in small doses & actually really like it. I haven’t been talking to anyone in town though the days go by so fast by the time I water everything & either go fish or cut trees down im out of energy or I was in the mines for 10 minutes & the days over. I do wish the time was a little slower so you could do more in a day because I want to be friends with the people in town but in the beginning you have no money & basic tools so I spend the time doing things that make money so I can upgrade stuff.

[@alex.g7317]

I got introduced to this game on The Apple Arcade at first and then bought it for 4.99. I can say that I probably never would have tried it if it wasn’t on mobile and I’m glad I tried it and now I have it installed on my PC.

[@lunaria33games]

Jezuz, I didn’t know this game had sooooooo much to do 😳. Definitely gonna try it out this weekend for the first time. Wish me luck 😅

[@aamocryp]

this video got me to locate my bluetooth headset so that I can actually focus on listening to it all as a long-time stardewer this is making me itch to get back into the groove of playing the game (it's 1am and I am dead tired), to the point where I found myself getting sad abt the meadow farm not yet being available on mobile anyway, such a fantastic video and I will certainly look into your other videos once I've slept

[@theor1962]

Great review as always. Gotta admit I never paid Stardew Valley any attention cause I just assumed its popularity was from the ultra casual Farmville crowd latching onto it, but I may actually give it a try at some point now.

[@Nitiiii11]

I love the art style of the game. Combined with modern game elements and UI, this is the best.

[@dharunkrishna6634]

My brother recommended me to buy this game, and I did buy it as it was on 50% off. Since then, I have really enjoyed playing it.

[@midnightgaming9849]

I hope you get a lot of views, this game is fantastic

[@TheNocturnalRambler]

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm extremely proud of this review and feel like a lot of other people would enjoy it as well, so it would be nice to see it reach a wider audience.

[@CpZombie]

Great review! One of my favourite channels!

[@khatack]

Man I wish Stardew Valley had some toggle to make the clock pass slower to give you more time to do things. My Time in Portia had that feature and it made playing the game infinitely less stressful.

[@BrandonL0666]

Great review. Dropping a comment to support the channel in hope for wider reach :)

[@logixindie]

Amazing job on this video. Thanks for making me even more excited to play this game. I'm just still waiting for the console update.

[@COCOLEAF1169]

Great review. Quality video review for a quality game.

[@jobi1kawobi317]

I’m on a Stardew Valley appreciation day. This review was so well done and makes me want to boot up the game when I get home from work tonight. Great stuff! ❤ 🐔

[@Pixel007]

My friends have been recommending me this game for ages Because of you I’ll get it today :)

[@bassyey]

I bought this on PC and Android. Gotta admit, I enjoy it more on Android. It's the perfect game on handheld/mobile because you just play it anytime. My only small criticism (or yapping because this game is so good) is that Android is on 1.5.

[@HYDRARMOR]

Great review! Ty very much !

[@Manwithopinions]

Was not expecting you of all people to talk about this game, but welcome none the less. :)

[@TheNocturnalRambler]

I wasn't really even expecting to enjoy this game as much as I did, but I gave it a chance on a whim and basically fell in love it. Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for the kinds words!

[@LadyUsakoB]

Dont remember when i found this beautiful game, i just love it so much,- he put so much love into it :) I adore the game so much, i have the moonlight jelly song for my ring tone on my phone xD

[@saltylemonton5537]

Reaching the Summit for true perfection is the definitive end you're looking for. Its far more satisfying than grandpa coming down and telling you that you did well. Past that I find that the Joja mart route has way too many upsides compared to the community center, I really think concerned ape needs to balance it so joja has cheap seeds that may die and never yield gold quality crops and that if you did the community center you would get a crafting recipe or a passive buff that makes autopetters only useful for sheep and convenient for everything else. I was never really able to get immersed in the world of stardew valley, the villagers are way to one note, and I honestly dislike most of them. Thats why I dont find selling out to Joja to be a difficult moral dilemma.

[@maxnoble9534]

Great video

[@n3burgener]

Commenting for the algorithm.

[@angrylundy4862]

Its my fav phone game next to bloons and for 5$ its a steal

[@TheNocturnalRambler]

I didn't really talk about the price in the review, but even for the PC/consoles, the $15 price tag is insane considering you could easily rack up hundreds, if not thousands of hours of thoroughly satisfying entertainment if you really get into it. That's not even to mention all the free content updates that could've been sold as DLC or microtransactions. It really makes it easy to like the game when it has such a low cost of entry for such high quality (and high quantity of) content.

[@BlindBison]

Bump

[@jgamer2228]

I saw one channel that said going with joja was the morally wrong choice. The only moral component involved is the one the player chooses to impart on the game

[@Goztw]

why would you want to marry an older woman? weird

[@gearfriedtheswmas]

Play Rune Factory 5 instead.

[@rudebox5688]

The whole rant at around 25 minutes about how stardew is too complicated makes you sound like a pleb. Complaints like this are why we rarely get good videogames anymore.

[@TheNocturnalRambler]

This couldn't be farther from the truth. I'm the guy who famously roasted Skyrim back when it first came out for being overly simplistic and shallow, who's always advocating for more depth and complexity in RPGs. I wasn't even complaining about Stardew Valley being too complicated since I explicitly state immediately after that overview that I personally really appreciate when games don't hold your hand for how it allows you a satisfying sense of discovery when learning things for yourself. I outright praised it for how it allows you to really dig into the mechanics for a more engaging experience, and how it allows the gameplay to evolve as you learn more and become more experienced with its systems. My only real issue with its complexity is just that some things are literally impossible to learn through in-game means, and that there isn't a good way to reference information in-game after it's been told to you. An important point I was trying to make with that section, which I must not have made very clear because you seem to have completely misunderstood me, is not that I personally find the game overwhelming or too complicated, but that it might be the case for other, more casual audiences who aren't as heavily invested in the hobby of gaming but might otherwise find Stardew Valley really appealing. The game has massive widespread appeal with a vast array of people liking it for different reasons and with different people able to find varying levels of enjoyment based on how they choose to approach the game, from hardcore min/maxers who want to speed-run their farms and crunch all the numbers to maximize efficiency, to super laid back cozy gamers who just want to relax and tend to their crops while occasionally socializing and exploring around town. I could see a situation where someone one that more casual side of the spectrum might jump into Stardew Valley and feel confused or overwhelmed, which could potentially be a turn-off for those people. My mom, for instance, plays a lot of super light games; I think she would enjoy SDV but feel like it might be pushing the limits of what she can handle. As I said in the review, it's ultimately up to every individual person to decide how much they even want to engage with the deeper complexities, because they aren't mandatory whatsoever and there are no real consequences for doing anything "wrong," so I don't even consider it to be a game-breaking issue. If anything I just think the game could've used a little clearer messaging in some of its toolbox descriptions and tutorials for how certain mechanics work so that those people might have an easier time getting into the game. I don't see how that would be a bad thing or somehow degrade the depth/quality of the game for the more "hardcore Gamer™" types because it's not scaling back on any of the depth or complexity -- it's just making certain things at the start a little more clear for a new player.

[@rudebox5688]

@@TheNocturnalRambler I mean my retired mum can play stardew ok. I guess your mum is a pleb too.