“If you're reading this, you must be in dire need of a change. The same thing happened to me, long ago. I'd lost sight of what mattered most in life... real connections with other people and nature. So I dropped everything and moved to the place I truly belong.” Yeah, where's that, grandpa? A sleepy, unassuming town in the middle of nowhere that harbors dark secrets beneath its glossy veneer, with some standouts being unending and unresolvable family issues and tragedies, debilitating personal vices involving substance abuse and adultery, and a secret war involving the near genocide of an entire race? Damn, pops, if this is the place you truly belong, I don't think I want to know the place where you came from before that.

Don't let people fool you into thinking this is a chill, relaxing, game. It is one of the most stressful farm-life simulators I've ever had the pleasure of buying more than three times across multiple devices and platforms. Sure, the game starts out innocently enough: your dear grandpa bequeaths you a farm, inviting you to escape "the burden of modern life" where you're tasked with rehabilitating its dilapidated acreage by transforming it from an OSHA-inspector's wet dream into a fully operational profit-churning machine whose yearly revenue can rival the GDP of a small nation. A small ask.

Little does the game prepare you though for the various monkey wrenches it throws your way while you stand there like an idiot, pick in hand, not knowing the first thing about farm life because—let's face it—you're a soulless city-slicker whose "bright spirit" was already destined to "fade before a growing emptiness" (gee thanks grandpa for keeping it real I guess). Little obstacles, like: tools not being good enough to clear that damn stump/boulder; having to build relationships with country bumpkins whose realities are so different and in some cases so f***ed up you have no idea how to even begin to relate with them just so you can get access to various recipes as well as the one mirror in all of Stardew Valley that'll let you change your clothes and hairstyle; and constantly being reminded of the relentless march of time ever tick-tocking towards the end of a productive workday filled with tilling, planting, watering, running 20 miles back and forth between farm and town, mining, fishing, fighting literal monsters, and—just as importantly—socializing with the town's poor, unfortunate souls who are just as stuck here as you are but lack any agency in escaping the fates of their own making. Oh but god forbid you try staying up past 2am just to fit everything in this busy schedule, no, that's not healthy for you!

Eventually you learn the tricks of the trade to earn you your first thousand, then hundred thousand, then million gold. You navigate the mazes of interpersonal relationships and escape the labyrinth wedded to a partner willing enough to spend the rest of their tiresome life with you. You figure out what exactly it is that this town needs to restore the magic that your grandpa once saw in it, and after driving out the oppressive force of capitalist greed that plagued the inhabitants of Stardew Valley for years... you optimize the ♥♥♥♥ out of your farm to maximize profits.

So no, Stardew Valley is not a feel-good, lackadaisy wonderland full of flowers and rainbows that you can jump into after a loaded day to destress. I mean sure, you could play it more relaxed than how I describe, by actually taking your time to soak in the game's beautiful art and catchy music, fully appreciating the work of a single developer whose entire focus and passion were poured into making such a beloved videogame worthy of adoration in the same breath as classic Legend of Zelda and Super Mario titles. You could do that... but the Community Center won't rebuild itself, and Penny's birthday is just around the corner.

This is why I can't stop buying it every time it's re-released on a new platform. 10/10 would farm again.