Many times have I picked up this game, always unable to finish it. There was something about it that just didn't hook me, not to mention the stress and FoMO even with mods like lookup anything.
I have tried with cheat mods, porn mods, expansions; nothing made it an enjoyable experience.

Was it because the game was boring? was it because I didn't like it?
No, because I lacked dedicated [people] to play with.
It wasn't until I literally got married IRL and I was looking for games to play with my wife that we really got hooked.
I taught her the ropes, and since I never actually finished a year, we quickly got to the max amount of progress I ever got and I was.. really enjoying it!

Being able to be with someone you enjoy being with really makes any experience better, but Stardew Valley has so much stuff to do
back when I first got this game in like.. 2018 or so? the goal was the community center and that's it but now there's like more quests and secrets and masteries and events and it all just clicks so incredibly well. The endgame of this game is truly where the fun is at and that's just incredible to me, that a game [i]actively get's better[/i] at the endgame. That's just an incredibly rare sight in general and I feel like that is because Stardew Valley rewards the player's experience. Time is limited, so you slowly but surely learn how to optimize that more and more until you're at a point where either you want the day to end already or you are doing some extra stuff for hours, days or even weeks ahead.

Stardew Valley has the ability to be as complex as you want but also as casual as you want aswell and I feel like that's just really great.