(Vita) Stardew Valley review

Cultural phenomenon farming sim receives an imperfect port to Vita that does nothing to diminish the addictive gameplay loop and buckets of charm the game oozes at every turn.

Developer	ConcernedApe; Sickhead Games
Publisher	Chucklefish
Franchise	N/A
Genre	Builder; Simulation
PSTV	Yes
Physical English	No

 

World-building & Story

At the start of Stardew Valley, the player character receives a letter gifting them a farm in the titular town. After thinking it over, the player quits their job at the soulless Joja Corp (an obvious Amazon parody) and makes the move to the countryside.

There, they discover a quaint community still beholden to a bygone way of life – where neighbours help each other out, festivals celebrating important seasonal events are the highlights on everyone’s calendar and the local saloon is an important meeting point for people from far and wide. Yet it’s a way of life that’s severely threatened – Joja Corp has opened a new store in the area and wants to buy the run down local Community Centre to build a warehouse, which will turn this once peaceful rural town into a logistics nightmare run by corporate overlords.

So far, so Harvest Moon, but here the player is given a choice that forms the central pillar of Stardew Valley‘s narrative – you can either support Joja Corp and their takeover of the town, or support the local businesses and work to restore the Community Centre to its former glory. It’s great to be given this branching control of your story and while you might feel a bit like a soul-less monster for supporting Joja, it’s an equally viable choice that changes the town’s development in differing ways, meaning it’s something you may wish to see on a subsequent playthrough just to get the most from the game.

Yet this barely scratches the surface of the narrative riches that Stardew Valley offers. A big part of the focus here is integrating with this community and befriending the locals, who are a fantastic group of characters each with their own quirks. You’ll quickly meet people like the animal merchant Marnie, who cares a great deal for her livestock or Robin, a carpenter who lives with her husband and daughter in the northern reaches of the town. They’ll all start off cordial with you, but as you grow your bonds with them they’ll say hi in the street, send you gifts in the mail and help out with aspects of your farm.

You’ll get them to like you by giving them gifts, which in turn unlocks special scenes where you find out more about them. For example, my suspicions were raised when the Mayor asked to be recover a pair of his underpants from Marnie’s bedroom, but when I later caught them discussing their relationship, I felt a strange compulsion to help keep their secret. Leah is an artist with no confidence in her abilities, Linus is a man who lives possession-free in his tent who you’ll find hunting for scraps of food and Penny is a warm-hearted schoolteacher.

Certain characters can be romanced too and – unlike the Harvest Moon games from around this time – there’s no restrictions on who you can date (it’s embarrassing that it took until recent Story of Seasons games to get same-sex relationships). This allows you to form even greater bonds with characters like Alex, whose difficult upbringing with an abusive father caused him to move in with his grandparents or Shane, an initially cold character whose struggles with alcohol really endeared me towards him. These are real, believable characters and getting to know them all was an absolute joy.

It impressed me that in what is effectively such an open-ended game, there are fully-realised characters here that avoid the stereotype pitfalls of Animal Crossing or the blank slate of The Sims. Of course, beyond this there is a big focus on rebuilding the town and I did love that you can participate in numerous seasonal events from the summer Luau, where you at to the potluck to hopefully make a good recipe or the winter Festival of Ice, where a fishing competition can net some fantastic rewards.

I’ve seen Stardew Valley described on numerous occasions as ‘cosy’ and that’s exactly what I would agree it is – existing in this world, interacting with these people is a joy that I likely won’t ever forget.

 

Presentation & Sound

Considering it goes for basic pixel art graphics, Stardew Valley is still a visual triumph thanks to the amount of care that had been put into every aspect of its presentation, from the smallest animation work to the largest sprites.

So even within the opening moments when you’re designing your character sprite, you can tell there’s something charming here. You’re introduced to the town by Lewis and Robin who yell “Rude!” at each other in big text boxes and I love the surprised face that your character pulls when he sees something shocking, like Munch’s ‘Scream’ painting. Some of the animation work is amazing, like your pet cat flopping on the floor in the summer, but others are a bit difficult to work out (I wouldn’t be able to tell when my cows were sleeping if it weren’t for the ‘ZZZ’ coming out of their heads).

Venturing into the town will reveal an old-fashioned settlement with wooden building, a stream running through the middle, seasonal flowers and hidden corners. It’s utterly charming to look at and is filled with little details that show true care in its world – the flu posters on the wall in the doctor’s office or the clock changing with the time of day in the Community Centre. Exploring the sea crashing against the beach in a storm before returning to the warm glow of the Saloon is a cosy feeling that it’s difficult to replicate anywhere else.

The game most comes to life during the seasonal events. In the spring Dance of the Moonlight Jellies, the townsfolk go to the shore to watch the water glow with jellyfish while Spirit’s Eve sees the valley dressed with pumpkins and scary paraphernalia. You’ll eventually be able to explore new areas – the forest (somewhat magical in its design), the mines (dark and brooding) or the desert (sandy and confusing) and each of the different feels they bring is fantastically realised. Still, it’s Pelican Town itself with all its quaint charm that is the real star of the presentation.

With that said, there are a handful of issues with this Vita port, the most notable being a short stutter-y freeze at seemingly random points. It doesn’t affect gameplay massively, but is a bit of a shame given that Sickhead ports on Vita have generally been top notch. I also found the game was a little bit slow to save and had an issue where my animals would sometimes just disappear and reappear later, but I understand this can happen across all versions (I’ve read that the Vita port is also super zoomed in, but having not played any other version this wasn’t an issue for me).

On a final note, the soundtrack is utterly sublime, a selection of seasonal themes that absolutely nail the laid-back nature that Stardew Valley is going for.

Soundtrack highlight – Ghost Synth

(BONUS! – Ancient)

 

Gameplay & Content

While it merely refines the farming mechanics of Harvest Moon with a sprinkling of the dungeon crawling from Rune Factory, it’s difficult not to fall in love with Stardew Valley thanks to the fact it’s so incredibly polished and features such a fantastically addictive gameplay loop that really encourages you to just go one more day.

You begin by customising your player character (a decent amount of choice) and choosing your type of farm (which slightly changes how it will initially develop) before boarding the bus to Pelican Town. When you get off, you’re introduced to your new home by Mayor Lewis and Robin and after that… you’re basically left to your own devices to do whatever you please. One of the greatest things that Stardew Valley does is present you with this freedom right from the outset, making this somewhat of a sandbox adventure that is perfect for short bursts of handheld play.

That’s not to say you’re not given heavy hints about what you should be doing. Early on, you’re given an objective log that will include simple tasks like “grow some potatoes” or “introduce yourself to all the townsfolk” and by doing so, you’ll slowly figure out by yourself what tasks are available. There are numerous different activities here and you can focus on one or two at a time or weave all of them into a day, with the caveat being that you have a limited amount of energy and hours before you have to go to bed, which means you often have to prioritise what you do.

The game uses a calendar system, where there are four seasons (spring, summer, fall and winter) each with 28 days in and although there is a single long-stop event that occurs after two full in-game years, the only thing that will be blocking your progress is that certain things only occur in certain seasons (for example, pumpkins only grow in fall while nothing grows in winter). As such, there’s an element of Atelier-esque time management in here but as previously mentioned, none of this really matters as there’s no penalty for taking as long as you want.

So what is it that you’ll fill your time with? Well, the simplest activity to explain is farming. For this, you simply need to till soil (using a hoe) and plant seeds in it, then water said seeds every day until fruit or vegetables are formed. You’ll get different seeds depending on the season and each so different things – so corn for example produces multiple cobs that you can keep harvesting throughout summer and fall, while yams are a one-time growth that once pulled out of the ground are done.

You’ll need to factor in how long things take to grow (as seasons change, nearly everything dies, so you don’t want anything left over un-harvested) and can craft items such as sprinklers (which water adjacent squares) or scarecrows (to stop birds picking at your seeds) to assist. Sometimes it can be a little finicky to line up the aiming reticule just right (you can tell this is a title originally made for PC) so I generally found myself using the dpad to walk rather than run and slowly laying out rows of seeds.

To craft items, you’ll need to gather them. Some fruits and other collectables can just be found as you walk around but things like wood needs to be chopped down from trees, while stone is mined using a pickaxe. You can eventually upgrade your tools at the blacksmith to make them more efficient, as using them drains your energy which factors back into the time management aspect of Stardew Valley. Crafting is as simple as choosing a recipe with the ingredients in your backpack.

There is a second type of farming available, which is animals. For a fee and some resources, Robin will build you coops, barns and stables while Marnie will sell you chicken (eggs), cows (milk) and sheep (wool) that you can harvest once a day. Keeping your animals happy by feeding them hay, petting them and giving them heaters in winter encourages higher quality produce, which in turn can be refined into artisanal goods like mayonnaise or cheese, which can be sold for much higher prices than just the raw ingredients.

Money and space are two of the big considerations for running a successful farm and thankfully both are straightforward. Goods can be sold to vendors like Pierre’s general store (who also sells seeds) or simply placed in the storage container on your farm to be collected the morning. You make space for buildings by chopping down trees and choosing locations and you can place objects simply by carrying them and plonking them down – it’s very The Sims and retains that title’s accessibility.

There are of course plenty of other ways to make money. You can go fishing, which is a simplistic but addictive mini-game when you get a bite. You can explore the mines, a 120 floor dungeon with monster loot and resources galore the deeper you explore and once you’re finished with it, you’ll unlock even more endless dungeons with better rewards (if you run out of energy or health within though, you’ll incur a large medical bill and lose a lot of the items you found). You can simply go foraging for seasonal goods, cook items in your kitchen or fight monsters and each one of these raises your proficiency in a skill, making you subsequently better at them.

Like I previously mentioned, there’s just so much to do and it’s pretty much all open ended for you to pick as you see fit (there’s even arcade games to play in the saloon like a twin stick shooter or mine cart jumper). None of the mechanics are revolutionary in themselves (combat is a slightly clunky 2D Zelda-like for example, while fishing is Animal Crossing-esque) but as part of an overall package, they’re brilliant and make deciding what to do each day a fun selection rather than a monotonous slog.

The other big mechanic here is the relationship building, where you can speak to and give gifts (twice a week) to the townsfolk to win their friendship. Again, it’s basic but having a supply of cola to give to Sam and peppers to give to Shane was something I liked factoring into my everyday planning and you’re rewarded with sweet scenes as you learn more about them. You can even ask certain characters to marry and move in with you, after which they might help out with the farm or cook dinner for you in the evening.

Just as each NPC has their own weekly and seasonal schedule that you’ll learn, so too do seasonal events occur that you can take part in to get extra rewards, like the maze at Spirit’s Eve or fishing in the Festival of Ice. There’s also the restoration of the Community Centre, which is optional but provides a focus for your activities by delivering certain items to rebuild parts of it to make the Jumino Spirits happy, which unlocks new parts of Pelican Town with new adventures to be had. Or you can choose to side with Joja Corp and save your money for upgrading your farm and house.

The choices are so vast that it meant even after 30 hours, I’d barely scratched the surface and had seen only a year of in game time. I still have the itch to play more – just one more day to catch that rare fish, or repair my relationship with Penny, or explore deeper into the mines. This is an utterly perfected gameplay loop and it’s easy to see why Stardew Valley is such a phenomenon.

 

Conclusion

It hardly reinvents the template of the Harvest Moon farming sim (although its commitment to an engrossing small town narrative and realisation of relationship diversity certainly puts it ahead), but by including so many different mechanics each finely tuned to make an addictive package where you’ll always want just one more go, Stardew Valley cements itself as the undisputed king of the genre. This Vita port may by now be old, out of date and riddled with a few performance issues but like a handful of other games on the handheld that suffer from various issues compared to other platforms, ultimately its charming for and fantastic design evaporate any other concerns. You should play this game on any console possible and if you love Vita like I do, play it on Vita, settle into Pelican Town and enjoy your new calming life of farming bliss.

9.0/10