What's so special about Stardew Valley?

[PorkyPig]

I'm planning to buy it on summer sale soon. It kinda looks like terraria/minecraft with animal crossing. What does Stardew Valley do that these other games don't. What are those little things that make this game special.

[Kitsune Dzelda]

Maybe look up a review for peoples ideas on the thought instead of looking up a forum?

Lots of good reviews, and all ya have to do is look below the Store Page button on this thread you posted, a little to the left. Theres also a feature in there that lets you see the Best rated Reviews of all time, if youre looking for opinions alot of other people agree with. Probably a safer bet than here. ^^

[Frandez]

Because u can prank governor and mayor each in-game year + build harem ;)

[Vihear]

Honestly if you played Rune Factory and enjoyed it then you'll probably enjoy Stardew Valley also.

[ChrillBill]

Haven't played Animal Crossing and I only have little experience with Minecraft. But SV is quite different from Terraria. Terraria is far more stressful than SV for starters since it focus a lot on surviving and killing all sorts of monsters. There are monsters in SV but only when you are exploring let's say the mines without spoiling too much. Your farm will never be invaded by an angry group of goblins for example.

SV focuses a lot on farming, socializing and other fun things like crafting and fishing. It is a far more relaxed experience than Terraria in my opinion. It makes you feel like you are part of a community with very interesting characters. You also get to play around a bit with your creativity when it comes to designing your farm for example. You can also spice things up even further with a large variety of wonderful and creative mods if you want. But it truly is a unique and beautiful experience without mods as well. I can't quite put my finger on it but after almost 700 hours I am still completely hooked!

[Radiosity]

As Vihear said, this is a game in the vain of Rune Factory (and Harvest Moon, but RF has combat and so does SV, hence the comparison is closer).

If you don't like routines and having to water crops every day, then this might not be the game for you. If you can get into a zen-like state of just enjoying the 'process' of farming, even the more tedious bits, you can easily sink dozens of hours in.

Of course, there's other stuff beyond the farming to break things up, like diving into the mines, fishing, and socialising, but ultimately farming is the primary aspect.

[Nakos]

It's a quiet, (mostly) peaceful game about leaving the stresses and pressures of the modern world behind and returning to a smaller world, living closer to the earth, in tune with the seasons, and making your living with your hands.

It's a dream of quiet prosperity, which you build yourself, without corporate overlords.

[Peter]

It isn't that good.

[Koodah]

I've played Stardew Valley & Terraria but not Minecraft or Animal Crossing. I have 200+ hours of playtime in SV according to steam plus over 100 hrs in the mobile app version. Terraria playtime according to steam is just 46 hrs.

Stardew Valley is simply more to my taste than Terraria. Whether it would be more to your taste than other simliar-ish games is hard to say, but I can tell you the reasons that I prefer SV over Terraria:

- It's less stressful, more relaxing. But there's still plenty to do and I don't get bored

- while I have tended to get bored with my SV save eventually, that never happens until at least a few ingame years have gone by - which is typically 70 + real time hours. I've definitely got my money's worth out of both my copies by now. I've done 2 saves past completing the community centre to year 3 ish (last year on mobile, and on PC in 2016). Now I'm playing a multiplayer game and occasionally working on a single player save where I take the opposite path to the one where you complete the community centre.

- Even with all this playtime there's still some stuff I haven't seen yet (eg. significant portions of the 1.5 update that came out less than a year ago)

- in my opinion SV focuses more on farming, collecting and socialising whereas Terraria focuses more on exploring and fighting.

- I'm generally pretty terrible at fighting. The amount of fighting required in SV is a good amount in my opinion - it's a part of the game but there's plenty of other stuff to do too. In Terraria I'm probably never going to be good enough at fighting to get to hard mode by myself given how much difficulty I had beating the easier bosses.

- out of the games we've tried (Stardew Valley, Terraria and Don't Starve Together) my boyfriend & I have found SV to be the best fit for us for when we want to play multiplayer. I love Don't Starve single player and have played it nearly as much as SV - even despite my handicap of being terrible at fighting. He's played hundreds (maybe even thousands) of hours of Terraria. But for some reason SV just seems to suit us better for multiplayer gaming.

Also I love SV's music

[ǝsɹǝɯɯı 🖤]

tbh, i have been playing a lot of ac:nh but before that i considered getting this because this game has really nice graphics and the music,, personally, i should play more because there are characters to befriend or choose as a relationship (i think??) but you can also relax and explore many different places!! i bought it on sale because i like games that are good even if they're not popular, but still has a nice charm and that what this is. <33
atm, i have not played much of it but i would love to go back from time to time but i'm more of a terraria person hahah but still i would at least check it out because the pixels especially on animals are so cute! the ost has a nice mellow chill vibe to listen to when i get lost in the game...
as kitsune stated, it's probably suggested that you read the reviews or look up youtube videos as they give a perspective as a breakdown. hopefully there are some considerations and some of the other posts in this thread!

[Astra]

If you're not someone who loves to explore and appreciate subtle and hidden details Stardew Valley's full charm might get a little lost on you. I've been playing the game for years, and I'm still discovering things that leave me saying "how did I miss this?".
Aside from the obvious lure of the game: farming; mining; building; designing; exploring... I think one of it's key selling points, what makes it so special, is that it's a labour of love, and it truly shows - whether that be from realising that the game was made almost entirely by one developer; or just how much content regularly gets added despite it already being a fully encompassing experience; how many subtle details there are to find, many not having been found yet; or even just how wonderful the multiplayer community surrounding it is.

It's not going to be everyone's favourite game of course, but I think most people who understand it's history can agree, from one stance or another, it's a special game.