Cheating is Okay – Stardew Valley Hot Takes

Cheating is Okay – Stardew Valley Hot Takes

I asked all of you for your hot stardo Valley takes a hot take is something controversial the epitome of this image which I lovingly recreated and over the years of covering stard Valley content I started to realize there’s a lot that’s actually controversial about this super

Popular game so let’s see what a lot of you had to say before we start I just want to mention yes this is a very common video format thank you Arlo for the idea of this video I thought it’d be neat to cover stard Valley specifically with it

First hot take George is the best character his story is touching and he has a funny obsession with leaks I also think it’s a shame that the bachelors and bachelorettes have Bland personalities so now that I think about it Haley and Shane have always been two of my favorite characters due to the

Fact that they have characteristics that change and grow as you get to know them whereas other characters it’s just down to you learning about them nothing really ever changes and George kind of goes through the same thing but I never really see him get the same amount of

Love that Haley and Shane gets in fact we touched upon this briefly in the content creator opinions video that I did a while back George is the only one of these characters that regularly apologizes for how he acted in the past even in situations where he’s really not

The one at fault I think I agree with this one George could use a little recognition for growing as much as he does at his age next up the reward for finishing the community center being just a trophy is disgusting ly cheap I think this one could depend on what you

Consider a reward looking at it in one way when you complete the pantry bundle you immediately get the greenhouse complete the bulen board bundle you immediately get a ton of Friendship with everyone for completing the entire Community Center nothing’s immediate other than that Trophy and a schedule change that isn’t really too beneficial

To you now Pierre’s is open on Wednesdays but Clint now closes on Fridays so you’re kind of not getting anything there but but the way I usually look at it is all the rewards for completing the community center is everything you unlock for the week or so

After that you can repair the boat to go to Ginger Island you get the missing bundle for the movie theater and you unlock the witch’s swamp and the ink Quest this usually makes the few days after unlocking the community center super fun for me cuz there’s always a

Ton of content to do so for me that’s the reward and you know what going back to version 1.3 where there was no movie theater no Ginger Island yeah I could see it kind of sucking I’m looking through a lot of these comments and a

Lot of them are not very hot lukewarm at best which is not a bad thing youall have some popular opinions here’s one Alex is so much better of a love interest when you play as a male rather than a female farmer this is one I’ve seen actually circulating a lot lately

If you didn’t know Alex has like completely different dialogue depending on the gender of the player character if you play as a male it’s actually a very interesting growth similar to Haley or Shane he starts off hesitant but slowly starts to embrace his sexuality and because he’s so hesitant to start he

Kind of treats these situations tenderly and as we discussed before even George learns to accept your marriage he changes whereas if you’re a girl his dialogue comes out much more dude broy like even before you start dating he’s like oh do you own a bikini and you kind

Of don’t get to see his much of the character that you would if you were a male and the thing is I see both sides as a very realistic depiction which makes Alex much more interesting of a character regardless of which gender you choose this next one’s kind of similar

To the community center hot take but it’s a little bit different kind of expands it I know concerned ape didn’t want the story of stard to be heavy-handed but there’s also such a thing as too little there’s a lot of cut scenes at the beginning explaining the setting but then when the community

Center is complete everything’s okay even though nothing happened starting needed there to be more story scenes showing how things in the valley got worse for Joda to feel more like a present threat and for the community center to actually drastically change how things are in the valley I

Wholeheartedly agree with this one again coming back to the fact that the only solid reward you get for completing the community center is a trophy and a schedule change that’s it nothing to do with all the trash that’s in the river all the trash around town and in the

Forest which is deleted with a different cut scene with the trash bear I think would have been nice if that was a consequence of Jojo leaving and like they’re always talking about prices and how JoJo’s so much cheaper but it doesn’t like come into Gameplay at all

Wouldn’t it been nice if Pierre’s prices just went down oh 10% because now he doesn’t have a competitor and now is able to sell much more stock and you know you don’t even need a lot of more cutcenes to accomplish this effect it’d probably just be like one or two more

One explaining that JoJo is the cause of all the trash and one of Pierre saying hey no competition show us that the community is actually better off it’s so strange to me how many Magical elements exist in this little Valley and almost no one comments on it they don’t really

Talk about the adventures Guild or that there’s places where Monsters Just freely roam it’s almost like pelicant Town lives in a completely separate realm of modern day which doesn’t align with the Fantastical elements that are happening I don’t expect deep lore but I think it would be nice if these two

Halves crossed over a little more so I’m going to go out and say that this fantasy-ish setting Works heavily to stardo Valley’s Advantage I think it’s one of the best parts of the game and it’s actually something that was in the original Harvest Moon games that probably inspired this while Harvest

Moon is a little more grounded there’s still gods and goddesses some of which you can romance and every now and again you’ll catch a yo-kai sighing like kappas in the river or something and that kind of adds a little bit of extra Intrigue that I think a genre like this

Needs for example if sardu Valley was explicitly just regular modern day you already know what that world’s like completely if it’s fullon fantasy you kind of already know what that’s like too of course there’s elves Orcs dwarves there’s magic spells adventurers you’ve seen it a million times in a million

Different animes but if you find a spot in the middle of the modern world and fantasy to make your setting it leaves the player thinking what exactly is magical what’s considered weird and what’s normal this makes a lot of dialogue more interesting because not only are we learning about the people

But we’re learning about the world we slowly learn that people are generally aware that the minds are dangerous but maybe they don’t know why then the spirits Eve Festival comes and there’s straight up monsters caged in the middle of town and some villagers don’t think they’re real and then you have one scene

With Abigail if you married her where she kills a monster and she’s devastated by it she considers that almost equal to to a human life and so you make a grave for it and everything which really puts into perspective the fact that you’re going into the mines and destroying tons

Of monsters on every trip kobis and the dwarf are inherently more interesting because almost nobody knows about them and they’re some of the last of their race which was eradicated either from the war between them or humans we don’t really know exploring the game you find these hints of the old Dwarven

Civilization and maybe even an Elvish civilization and the only way we know that exists at all is because of one weapon that’s in the game it’s almost like a reverse Adventure Time world where instead of a magical world growing on top of a destroyed modern civilization modern civilization popped

Up over a fantasy world and almost eradicated it and it is by far one of the most interesting settings for a video game I think I’ve ever seen and it’s a farming game I don’t think anything needs to change in that regard I think it was done perfectly sometimes

I play the full game with mods that let me cheat because I just want to Vibe and have a cute Farm valid valid valid valid valid valid it’s a single player game you enjoy the game however you want to enjoy it period no exceptions seeing the comments of my stardew Valley

Speedrunning video made me realize how many people still view speedrunning as an insult to the original vision of the game it’s not and I’m going to go a step further even if the creator of the game thinks it’s an insult to the vision of the game it’s still not there’s several

Questionable mods out there and even if God doesn’t forgive you for using them I do so this next one starts out with not so much a hot take but it is by far the wildest thing I’ve read up to this point there should be a minor Arc between us

And Marne convincing her to break up with Lewis or alternatively replacing Lewis as mayor with someone better I feel like we the stardew community often downplay the severity of breaking up a couple I do it myself I joke about dating Robin instead of Demetrius and clearly Lewis has something to work

Through thinking he can’t possibly date one of the business owners while he’s mayor not to mention misusing tax funds to be clear I think it would be fantastic if there was a small Arc between Marne and Lewis where he figures out his problems and they start to date

Publicly but for us to go and try and convince Marne to break up with them I it’s wild to me I’m in favor of a gentler version of this proposal this one’s a very common sentiment in a few in-game years pelicant Town starts to feel Frozen in time no one grows older

No one moves out nothing changes there should be new events that you see only after a certain amount of years and for instance there could be urgency to picking a spouse if you want to marry Sebastian better do it before he moves to zuu City I think this would make a very cool

Mod but as for the vanilla game would add a lot of stress I see many comments on many of my guide videos and even though there’s no strict timelines no deadlines at all in the game people still feel stressed out at the perceived deadlines they have in their head a lot

Of people are like oh the days are too short I can’t do anything you can walk right back to where you were the next day and continue whatever you were doing but that doesn’t prevent people from feeling stressed out and more deadlines would really just exacerbate that stress

And unless you want to have a system like one of the older Harvest Moon games where you literally die of old age you got to draw the line somewhere so where do you draw the line for that do half The Bachelors eventually leave the valley leaving Pelican Town feeling

Empty do you kill off Evelyn and George do shopkeepers retire and have their kids take over the shop actually that sounds kind of cool personally I feel like I’d have to draw the line at Jass and Vincent grow up to be teenagers that’s it you draw the line there time

Stops they don’t really have anything going on in the first place so I think that’s an acceptable change but as for entire characters moving away I wouldn’t want anyone’s entire save file to feel like it’s ruined because they got to a certain point Penny’s a good spouse her

14 heart cut scene is great Believe It or Not jail last one for the day most of the festivals are kind of a time waste after the first time you go I’m glad we’re getting new ones but I wish there was more of an incentive for me to not

Skip all the festivals when they happen the only ones I really like are the stard fair in the Night Market I can feel this one to a certain extent but when I really think about it there’s really only a couple that aren’t worth it after the first time and this is

Mostly thanks to the fact that a lot of them give unique rewards in fact funny you mentioned the startu Valley Fair because that’s one of the few that isn’t worth going to after the first time because regardless of how much money you have going into the event you earn

Tokens completely separate from that so you’re able to earn all of the unique rewards on your first visit but then let’s just go through the festivals in order at the flower dance you get a free heart of Friendship with any of the Bachelors or bachelorettes that you

Haven’t maxed out yet useful as long as you haven’t maxed out every single character the egg hunt is still the only place you can get strawberry seeds which are still the best crop in Spring the luow gives a friendship buff to every single character that attends it once

Again being useful as long as you haven’t completely maxed out every character the jelly Festival has some really cool decorations that can be a little expensive so maybe going back on year 2 when you have more money is more beneficial than year 1 start Valley Fair

As I said actually not worth going back to in year 2 at the spirits Eve Festival you get a free item that either sells for 5,000 gold or works as a universally loved gift or is the only thing you can tailor into the witch’s hat and while it

Can be found in Treasure troves it’s still very rare ice fishing Festival it’s kind of not even worth it the first time you go to it other than for the shy do hat Night Market as you said bangs every single year and feast of the winter star kind of have to admit is

Useless depending on who you get as your secret friend and nine times out of 10 your gift is going to be 10 eggs or a rock and most people don’t even know that the tea set is exclusive to this event did you know though the dialogue

In the egg festival for year 2 is actually unique this was added in version 1.5 and I would love if this also applied to all the other festivals and then at minimum you have a reason to go back just to see what the character have to say thank you for watching and

You want to know what thank you for 200,000 subscribers that’s a huge milestone in my mind and being 1/5th of the way to a million is wild let me know if you like this I might do more in the future thank you for watching and good Night

I’ve come to learn that even though everyone loves this sweet and relaxing game, they sure do like to argue about it! I asked y’all what your scalding hot opinions were, and while quite a few were lukewarm, there were some pretty unique opinions!

Sections:
Intro – 0:00
0:30 – George is the best character
1:24 – The Community Center isn’t worth it
2:34 – Alex is a better love interest as a man
3:41 – There should be more story
5:05 – There should be more fantasy
7:55 – Cheating is okay
8:33 – Lewis and Marnie should break up
9:31 – Marriage candidates should move away
11:12 – Penny is good
11:18 – Festivals are a waste of time

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Here’s the lofi Stardew Valley music I use a lot:
https://djcutman.bandcamp.com/album/stardew-chill

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