Stardew Valley

Genre: Top-Down Action-RPG / Management Sim

Players: 1-4 Co-Op (Local Wireless / Online)

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

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Review:

Stardew Valley has generally been referred to as a “Farming RPG” like Harvest Moon, which is fairly apt – the game has much in common with typical RPGs, and farming does make for a large part of what you’ll be doing during this game. However, there’s far more going on here than that.

There’s actually a pretty healthy variety of goals you can pursue in this game. You can focus on building up your farm, upgrading its facilities and working to improve your profits from selling produce. You can collect various items to try to upgrade the local town center. You can keep track of various events and birthdays, town gossip and connections, and try to ingratiate yourself with the locals. You can head to the beach or river to catch fish. You can explore the local cave and fight off monsters to get materials. You can stop in at the local bar and play one of their arcade games… and just when you think you’ve seen all there is, some new event will come up or some new upgrade will become available that can add something new to the experience.

This wealth of gameplay options comes with the presentation of a 16 bit-era game with graphics that do a good job of evoking nostalgia and a nice, relaxed soundtrack. The entire package here coalesces into something mellow and all-around pleasant.

As if that wasn’t enough, the game offers a full-fledged co-op mode to share the adventure with friends (if they have their own Switch with their own copy of the game, anyway). Given that the game always seems to have a wealth of things to do, having an extra helping hand can help you to get a quicker feeling of progress, or you can split your attention to take care of multiple tasks, with different players even able to woo different townsfolk into a marriage (or if they prefer, marry each other).

In short, if you’re looking for a nice, mellow experience with a lot of fun and variety on the Switch, perhaps even to share with a friend, Stardew Valley is fantastic, and well worth playing.

tl;dr – Stardew Valley is a “Farming RPG” much like Harvest Moon, but there’s a huge wealth of stuff to do here, with a charming presentation, a constant stream of new things to change up the experience, and even a wonderful online co-op mode. If you want a fun, mellow experience on the Switch, consider this game a must-have.

Grade: A

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The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

Stardew Valley: Nintendo Switch 2 Edition

Genre: Top-Down Action-RPG / Management Sim

Players: 1-4 Co-Op (Local Split-Screen / Local Wireless), 2-8 Co-Op (Online), GameShare Support

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Review:

When it comes to games that I felt really needed a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, Stardew Valley was pretty low on my list. Yet we have received exactly that, in the form of a free upgrade for players who own the Nintendo Switch version of the game. In its initial release, this version contained some nasty bugs, but as of now the game has been updated and those bugs are gone, so it seems like a good time to look at what the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game adds!

First, don’t expect any graphics or performance improvements here, because there’s not really anything to improve, since this is a relatively quaint-looking pixel art game. There is an improvement to loading times, however – the Nintendo Switch version of the game takes 18 seconds to load to the title screen and 16 seconds to load a game save, while the Nintendo Switch 2 version only takes 11 seconds and 8 seconds, which is a nice improvement.

No, the real improvements here are to the features, and most of those improvements are to multiplayer. For players looking to play locally, the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game now supports 4-player Split-Screen Co-op. For players playing remotely, the Nintendo Switch 2 version increases the player count for online play from 4 to 8. What’s more, the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Stardew Valley supports GameShare for up to 4 players. needless to say, if you enjoy playing Stardew Valley in multiplayer, this is a huge improvement over the Nintendo Switch version of the game.

Finally, Stardew Valley: Nintendo Switch 2 Edition adds Mouse Mode support, letting players more easily move around their inventory and selecting things using the on-screen cursor.

Overall, these all seem like nice improvements to an already-stellar game. I don’t think every player will use all of these improvements, and if you’re a solo player who doesn’t care for Mouse Mode then there’s not much here for you. But… well, it’s a free update, so it’s hard to complain.

tl;dr – Stardew Valley is a “Farming RPG” much like Harvest Moon, but there’s a huge wealth of stuff to do here, with a charming presentation, a constant stream of new things to change up the experience, and numerous wonderful co-op options on Nintendo Switch 2. If you want a fun, mellow experience, consider this game a must-have.

Grade: A

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