Summary

Review

I feel weird about Stardew. The game clearly has enormous heart. It's cozy, cute, it's good for a lark. The daily routine is a satisfying loop. I enjoy all the little bits of worldbuilding and glimpses at how this world works. But there's some things that feel deeply wrong with the game. On a pretty basic level.

In Stardew you quit the faceless amazon corporation Joja and become a farmer to get a new lease on life and live in tune with nature. You then proceed to become a sociopathic hyper-capitalist where nearly every interaction with those around you becomes defined by your ever-increasing sphere of influence. I find it strange just how much of the game revolves around money. Your bank account is on your screen at nearly all times. The main quest in the game, fixing the community center requires you to touch nearly all the game's systems. And to advance in those systems you want to make as much money as possible and push efficiency as far as can be done. It just feels like this odd dichotomy. Where the atmosphere of the game and the initial hook, being more in tune with nature, gets hamstrung with all of the actual moment-to-moment gameplay.

I called the player character a sociopath earlier. A strong condemnation, but not an unfounded one. One particular thing I hate in Stardew is the relationship system. I hate that everyone is reduced to gift receptacles. I like that your relationship with the villagers of Pelican Town goes up by talking to them, but the game directly incentives you to repeatedly give them gifts every week so they like you. It's so weird. It's like the Ur-bad example in video games of how to human beings wrong. Where instead of being a person, they're just a meter. I enjoy the actual events you get with them. Again, very heartfelt, if a bit overly saccharine for my tastes. But the way you get there is so icky.

Why is there a system to erase your spouse's memories of your relationship? Or delete your children and turn them into doves? I know why. It's for all the insane people that say "I gotta get all the good boy points with everyone and see everything." These people are not reasonable, they are insane. And they don't need to be catered to. It's so sociopathic and dark. I just think of the humanity of a Disco Elysium and how far from that this is sometimes. It's very frustrating because the whole game feels like it should be some lovely Studio Ghibli fun times. Where we learn about nature and each other and it's bright and nice. To some degree it is, but there's these systemic problems with it that I have real trouble reconciling with the overt themes the game presents.

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