Recent reviews by Counteragent

Stardew valley is a relaxing game with no clear goals or directions
The game is very clearly an analogy for real life with all it’s systems mimicking a farm life
So if nothing interests you in it just for the sake of doing that something then the game won’t interest you
The one thing that stood out to me the most are the really short days and the even shorter shops opening hours
Which makes it so you kind of have to plan what you’re going to do the next day because often times if you don’t do that then you just won’t be able to do it because of the time constraints
Days being very short also makes it so you have to constantly be making new plans every few minutes which gives you a sense of constantly achieving something

The game also has a strong social element where you can literally marry and kiss some npcs (only those that are marked as single) and even player characters if you aren’t playing alone
For me the enjoyment would have to come from figuring out how to get as much money as quickly as possible which I didn’t get to experience since I was playing with someone who already had 150 hours in this game
I can name the following main gameplay reasons to play this game:
Figuring out how to get as much money as possible (and all the systems associated with this process, so treating the game kind of like Factorio)

“Social” element (interactions with 28 unique villager npcs which include but are not limited to talking, trading, helping, dating)
Collection/completionism (I have heard that the steam achievments in this game are among the hardest to complete due to how long that would take, and there is a museum with relic items you can find in the game)
You private property building/decorating (explanation probably not needed, I can note that this was the first time when I didn’t feel overwhelmed by my options)

Fishing (You may snicker at me for making this into it’s own category, especially since this doesn’t really offer anything objectively unique - this is part completionism, part money making and part helping npcs.
Yet I have seen fishing in almost every game I have played recently I start to suspect that there really is a demand for specifically “fishing” being in the game, which by the way while seems odd to me should be understandable.
The fishing minigame in stardew valley itself is similar to other fishing minigames you have played, for example the Genshin one.)

And lastly the cave/mining gameplay (it is the familiar loop of breaking blocks and killing enemies and finding valuable items from time to time, with the cave changing enemies and scenery every so often, making the player curious what the next biome will be like. This cave gameplay is fairly different from rest of the game which made it stand out to me.)
There were other gameplay loops like the incredibly challenging arcade minigames but I just didn’t consider them being a big enough part to include as a reason to play the game
But yeah if you end up not liking any of these in the context of the time management element + the interactions with npc then you have no reason to like the game
But you will more likely end up enjoying one or more and enjoy this game!

Awesome game that is surprisingly unpopular!

My only two nitpicks are that I really don't see why Spirit Emblems aren't free, and that some attacks are randomly unparryable without clear reason why, like Isshin's first windblade and Owl's reflection (specifically reflection!) chasing slice being unparryable at the start of the cast. Also how Floating Passage and some other attacks are much harder to parry than they should be due to how the game is coded...

I have spent like third my time exploring the game on my first playthroguh, unsure of where to go next. The game doesn't expect you to find everything it has to offer, even though it is pretty linear in it's progression!

Absolutely incredible boss fights, it is fascinating how all of them feel so different, despite almost all of them just being humans with a katana (regular enemies included in this).
I wish it was easier to quick swap between prosthetics, but even with that the game's combat is super satisfying to experience.

If you like hard games, you have to play this one. And if you think that it was easy - the game has a harder mode on second playthrough, it makes the game much harder!

most fun I had in the last 3 years this game is awesome

It was a lot of new stuff at first but it is actually really fun

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I love Mita

Amazing

this game is REALLY bad.

Needy streamer overload had some ui/gameplay issues, but they could be easily overlooked because the game wasn't about that. But this game IS. Since you get to actually interact with enemies and walk around the map, these issues become that much more apparent and annoying.

Game is completely different from nso and is not similar to it in any way. I guess devs thought they could make something better. There are basically no choices to make, game is more about telling just a story with pixel art visuals with puzzles from time to time. Puzzles that could either hardly be considered puzzles, and puzzles that will make you leave the game like they did to me. Like seriously, how am I supposed to remember the name of roommate of some character the story mentioned like twice?

Pixel art is pretty good, but there are mixels at some times which really confused me because everyone knows those don't look good (some objects having pixels bigger than other objects due to their sprites just being scaled up)

I don't sympathize with the main character at all because he is some dude from far far future that has some magical hacking abilities and gets bullied all the time and his family died in an incident and his mom is in coma. I don't think any of those things make for a particularly relatable character.

enemy interaction is one sided because you always have to avoid them and failure to do so will result in instant death. Well, I say instant, but actually there always plays a short execution animation before being thrown to the death screen, which doesn't feel good, especially if you die to the same enemy a few times in a row. I am glad devs had the presence of mind to make respawn points very frequent to make dying less annoying. It is still annoyign though, I died to the robot at the fountain like 10 times because his pathing is randomized/unpredictable? Like you walk in, then you get stunned for a bit and the robot drops down, then you are allowed to move again, and you have to guess that you just have to hold left to not get instakilled.

There are english translation issues, but I guess this game isn't really for the western auditory, so that is why? Still, it significantly ruins what little immersion the game does offer, and immersion is supposed to be an important aspect I think because how you can see the main character's face reflection looking at the monitor when you are reading chat, and with the quicktime events during cutscenes.

I was looking forward to playing this game from publisher who made my favourite game ever and I did it with an open mind, but the shortcomings left me gravely disappointed and made me question if Nso was just a fluke.

It is actually very good

A must play for anyone even the tiniest bit mentally ill