DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.

NOTE: I got this game free on Epic so price is not a factor.

I went in expecting some sort of escape room game. I got a point and click diorama solving game that is more akin to puzzle boxes.

The puzzles are never too hard, more like a sequence of finding the next available item and where to use it with the occasional minigame to change the pace. Nonetheless, it was satisfying to see the dioramas unfold and open up more and more crevices with items to use elsewhere.

I did enjoy having to find collectibles "hidden" in each level. They were generally in very visible places, but they were sometimes cleverly hidden and I had to replay a couple of levels to find them. It's worth noting that you can find a collectible and quit the level and it will be saved without having to re-do all the rest, that is very much appreciated. There are 3 collectibles in each level: a blue and red gem, all of which are needed to unlock the final two level for the order and chaos endings respectively; and a scroll with some text.

The scrolls seem to be trying to tell some sort of story, but they are such short pieces of text separated by a whole level that it was hard for me to follow what they were saying. But you do get to choose the ending, so it might be something important like the fate of the world, I'm unsure.

Overall, It's an ok, short and easy puzzle box-like game. Nothing extraordinary, but a good time killer.

DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.

NOTE: This review reflects only my playtime on a new farm in the newest 1.6 update. My true cummulative playtime is currently about 500 hours.

Despite loving all the time I spent playing this game, I was not planning on playing any more Stardew Valley even with the 1.6 update on the horizon, but after having a quick look at the big change log with loads of new content (among which were new achievements) I figured it was actually time to do a playthrough in which I actually manage to reach perfection.

I, therefore, went in with high expectations for all the new things this update would bring and, although they all work together to improve on the base game experience, nothing stands out as big or as important as 1.5 felt. They all feel like minor quality of life features scattered throughout the progression.

The bulk of the new content comes in the form of "Masteries" which are basically a final level for each of the five skills that can only be unlocked by gathering tons of experience from any source after having reached max level. I say "tons of xp" but you get so much of it by doing literally anything that it doesn't take that long to achieve. It literally took me longer to get my foraging level from 7 to 10 to unlock masteries in the first place than it took me to get the experience needed to have all masteries. The rewards vary from good to mediocre, but none stand out as amazing. I feel like some of the items normally unlocked and bought in Qi's Wallnut Room would fit better as mastery rewards, but I also understand not wanting to change the content from previous updates.

I, personally, do highly enjoy the new festivals. Both fishing mini-festivals are cool in concept and require strategy to reach their golas effectively, however I feel they are lacking in useful and worthwhile rewards. The desert festival, on the other hand, is actually very good. Having multiple quests that test different skills and reward you with a currency that you can spend on the items of your choice instead of random rewards feels very good. (I might be a bit biased as I just so happened to get the last artifact I was having trouble getting by having Vincent show up in one of the vendor booths on the third day of the festival selling me the Skeletal Hand I so desperately needed.) And most of all I loved that Year 2 had different layouts and dialogues for all festivals (along with new dialogues after quests, events, bouquets, marriage, etc.) made everything feel fresh and townpeople more alive and less robotic and repetitive. Made me wish There were even more layouts for years 3 and 4, but I also understand that the first two years are what is considered the main story.

Regarding things that weren't from the update but it was my first time doing them: I married Sam, so that was a blast; I got as many events as I could and I actually read all of them instead of skipping the ones for NPCs I didn't care about; I finally beat Fector's Challenge (although I had to resort to the save-scummy method); I played and beat the new and improved version of Junimo Kart and I loved it, I don't know why it gets so much hate; I found all Golden Wallnuts and it's still my favorite part of 1.5, they feel very much like TLoZ:BotW Koroks; I did many Qi Quests, Special Requests and Help Wanted Quests, so I always had some goal or another I was working towards; I managed to use Farm Warp Totems more effectively than ever before; I built the Farm Obelisks for the first time in my life and didn't use them even once, I'm simply not used to them; and last, but not least in the slightest, I farmed the money to buy the Golden Clock.

Either my money farming set-up was very inefficient or I'm stupid, but I just do not understand why the Clock is so goddamn expensive. It was taking so long to get the money and I was long done with any other non-repetitive task that I simply gave up playing through each day and started sleeping through them. And even like that it took seasons for me to get to 10 million gold. Had I actually played through all that, my playtime would have been shot up to 200 hours easily. I think it's an unreasonable amount of gold and not worth at all other than perfection and it should be removed or at the very least its price should be significantly lowered.

With that rant out of the way, I finally achived perfection, reached the summit, watched the short cutscene and then came the credits... Wait, what?! This game has credits scene after you reach perfection? How did I not know about this? And why was Cow (White) included but not Cow (Brown)? That just seems unfair. Anyway, that was a nice surprise I did not expect at all and it really made everything worth it. I can now say that I am done with Stardew Valley once and for all. (or until I decide to do a run with remixed bundles enabled, if I ever get around to it)

Overall, what can be said about a game like Stardew Valley that hasn't been said before? It's good, great even. It's the epitome of farming simulator games. It's so good it's capable of hooking in players who are not normally fans of the genre. Highly recommend it to everyone with no caveats.

DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.

NOTE: I took a break from videogames for a couple of months which explaind the gap in my log dates.

I went in expecting a hidden object game a-la Hidden Folks. I got a linear narrative heavy hidden object game, a weird combination that worked surprisingly well.

You play as a seemingly omniscient being capable of working alongside an AI to re-write events in the past in order to fix anomalies in the space-time continuum created by several seemingly malicious entities that turn out to also be AIs. If all of that sounded confusing, is because it is and as the game goes on you will only keep getting more and more information thrown at you with little to no answers and will be expected to retain all past info in order to make sense of the new one, and with no text log it's hard to keep track of everything. (Maybe taking a 2 month long break in the middle of this game wasn't such a good idea.)

But enough narrative, let's get into the gameplay. You will be tasked with finding a crime in a big sprawling city with many things going on at the same time. And you will then need to follow the culprit, victim, suspects, witnesses and sometimes objects forward and backwards through time in order to piece together what happened and what you can change to fix it. You later get access to further tools like x-ray vision to spruce up the gameplay. There will also be minigames sprinkled throughout. They are not super engaging, but they are not too bothersome to deal with.

You might think it's a map too big for a simple crime, but you will be coming back to all 5 eras to solve multiple craimes in a set order. There is also a mode that lets you freely roam the map in order to find easter egg characters and follow them through the timeline.

All the ares are visually distinct and very appealing. It's incredible how much is happening in each screen at the same time.

I do have to mention that some quests require you find some sigils anywhere on the map with minimal guidance on where to look, and they would be an absolute nightmare if not for the existance of hints. I would in fact recommend to being afraid to use them as they have no penalty other than waiting a few seconds for them to unlock.

The narrative, although convoluted and cofusing, is clear on where it's going and satisfying to end. The AI companion is well written and its growth through the campaign can be easily noticed.

It could have used with a few more songs, as spending so much time with the same one becomes very tiring.

Overall, it's a neat twist on the hidden object formula with a heavy enphasis on storytelling, but searching through the same maps with the same song eventually becomes a bit boring, repetitive and dull. I still recommend it as long as you know what you're getting into.