Stardew Valley Updates
Released: February 26, 2016
Game Length: 88 Hours
Grade: A+
Premise: A long, long time ago, a developer decided to make his own little game called Stardew Valley. I originally played this game a few months after its release back in May 2016. My review touched on one of my favorite reviewers Zero Punctuation, how the creator spent 4 years to finish it, and my slow progress of learning how everything worked. It is one of those games where you want to constantly be referring back to the wiki on what to do. Otherwise, you will be stuck doing a lot of trial-and-error. But this time around I wanted to focus on a lot of the changes that were made in the past 5 years. And let me tell you that a ton has changed. So let me break it down for you:
Patches
Between Patch 1.0 in February 2016 and Patch 1.1 in October 2016: Stove cooking checks your fridge for items, new craftable floors, modified behavior for spouse after getting married including unique dialogue and new daily routines, random character generator, and more UI options including the option to zoom in/out and adjusting the volume on certain things.
Patch 1.1
- Additional Marriage Options: spouse workspace uniquely setup for each person, Shane and Emily are now marriage candidates with more cutscenes overall; option to divorce and dialogue to fit the occasion, erase your spouse's memory to remove dialogue, and turn children into doves as a way to get rid of them from your property.
- More conveniences: Junimo Hut that includes a way to auto-harvest your crop (with the catch that they will not work in the rain or during the winter), pricey obelisks that allow you to teleport to various locations across the map, a very expensive Return to Farm scepter, gold clock that prevents debris and your fence from decaying, relatively inexpensive catalogues that provide you with all standard decorations infinitely for free, color-code option for your chests.
- New options: You can choose between 5 different types of maps to start the game with; you can build an outside shed for storage, a cellar with casks to process wine and ale made from kegs, and a mill to grind certain food items into cooking ingredients; brief new areas Mutant Bug Lair and Witch's Swamp with their own type of fish and shrines to assist in changing certain features, and a large supply of new furniture to choose from.
Between Patch 1.1 on October 2016 and Patch 1.4 on November 2019: support and fixes for 11 different languages, multiplayer support including more building options and emotes, new perks to smooth over the prices of spring onions and berries, secret notes that provide hints to things that are more hidden like the type of gifts people want, a shrine to change your skills, the option to put hats on your horse, and more decorations. Patch 1.3.27 also included the new Night Market Event that lasts 3 days in Winter with new items, some of which only appear on a specific day in a specific year - so make sure to check in for those paintings everyday.
Patch 1.4
- New Events: Hidden Bundle that unlocks a Movie Theater (sorry if I'm spoiling the surprise) that allows you the option to watch a new movie every season for two years with someone you want to try and build up your relationship with, spouse events, character events, "Trash Bear" event that cleans up the messes around the area.
- Fish Ponds: new inexpensive buildings that can be placed on your farm with the option to "grow your own fish" by placing one fish inside, completing various task quests, waiting a set period of time, and then using your fishing pole to pull them out. The color of the water will match the type the fish swims in (like red for lava eels). They will also produce roe that can be processed in preserves jars. Placing any four types of signs (wooden, stone, dark, or "of the Vessel") will show what's in the pond and how many there are. Sturgeons have the exclusive ability to produce "sturgeon roe" that can be processed into caviar and filling one pond full of crabs will net you a pearl from Willy.
- Tailoring: Every item can now be turned into a piece of clothing (the majority being a type of shirt you can see when choosing your character) or form of dye to be used on your clothes. There are more hair styles, and you can place a hat on your child. All equippable items can now be placed in dressers.
- UI Options: Rearrange museum artifacts, reread old letters, fill existing stacks in chest from inventory, notifications, tabs, currency balances, option to skip the majority of cutscenes, multiplayer tweaks with a new 4-corners map to choose from at the start of the game, improved controller support.
- Other Options: shed upgrades, trash can upgrades, desert trader, golden scythe from a brief Mineshaft Dungeon, woodchipper, squid ink, magic rock candy, mini-Jukebox that can be used outside your house, mini-Fridge that extends the inventory of your standard fridge inside your house, Junimo Kart completely re-designed, Krobus can now be your roommate, changing the color of your juminos by placing a gemstone in their hut.
Patch 1.5 Ginger Island "Expansion"
December 2020, Stardew Valley received a whole new island to explore. With it came new things for every system in the game. There are new dialogue, events, mini-games, puzzles, quests, characters, dungeons, challenges, special note "journal" pages, enemies, equippable items, shop items, new fishing channel with a list of when and where to catch certain fish, trees, crops, new "beach" starting farm, animals including the ostrich and dinosaur, home renovations, decorations, fish, and upgrades. After a few unlocks, you can build a whole new "secondary" farm on the island. With it, you receive a new house and room to grow crops without concern of which season it is (like the greenhouse). In addition to the new volcano dungeon, you will also have the option to try out a new set of levels to the mine (and a "Shrine of Challenge" to change them back-and-forth at will). There are also a slew of other changes to note:
- Special Orders: in addition to the standard bulletin board requesting certain items, there is now a board requesting a large supply of items. You get your option of two different quests that require you to perform a task to collect items (which includes the action itself). Afterwards there is high-chance of receiving a unique item that cannot be obtained anywhere else and a cutscene in relation to the quest.
- Forge: special notes highlighting the functionality, upgrading weapons, enchanting weapons and tools, and combining rings.
- Farm Upgrades: Buildings can be moved including the greenhouse and shipping bin, buildings can be painted, ducks now swim in the water, smaller animals will sometimes follow their larger counterparts.
- Conveniences: Lost & Found box if items are left behind during special events, sitting on chairs, cooking recipes shown in the interface, Jukebox having a random select feature, the option to change the sound of fish biting, inventory auto-organization options, second community upgrade (or also known as a house for Pam), name and gender transformation shrine, most decorations can be placed outside, more decorations to all festivals.
Review
Experience: Going back and playing the new features was a surprisingly fresh take on an old game. The good news is I still had my original 80-Hour Farm on file with around 90% of all tasks completed. So for the most part I didn't have to worry about building up things like relationships, skills, or cooking. The bad news is that there were a lot of changes that would have helped benefit those systems in the first place. They added the feature to look up gift options on everybody on file and take them out to the movies (while buying them snacks) to assist building up their heart meter. Getting and seeing everything from the movie theater, new events, and festivals would have required me to play another two (in-game) years. A lot of these incomplete achievements and new expensive items kept my "completion list" at a low 50%, which didn't go up one bit in the 50 Additional Hours I played checking out all the new stuff from the new island and inside the neighborhood. Simple things like being able to summon your horse from practically anywhere outside or watching things move around in your brand new fish tank is spectacular (especially since you can place one of your hats on one of the sea urchins). I would totally recommend playing or replaying this game. Now that it includes new starter options, the ability to play multiplayer splitscreen or online, and new customization features with the functionality to revert changes you may not have liked to begin with, it is the perfect game to try out by yourself or with others.
7-10-2021