Look, I played a bit of Stardew Valley, and sometimes want to go back to it, but uh... I don't know how I feel about it being a cosy game. I mean, it is very "cottagecore" and what not but it's not entirely my cup of tea.
Mainly, I don't like how the game actually plays out. Like, you leave the city to move into an idealistic small town with a surprising amount of cute singles and... You turn the entire farm land into a mass production system by the end game. You know that's not what I'd call a cottagecore dream.
I guess my problem mostly is, why is the usual end game just turning into your farm into, you know, a mass production system. I mean, I do like the game, I just feel like end game kinda fails the fantasy of the small town cottagecore feeling we started with. To an extent I do feel like there isn't an easy solution to it?
Allow me to explain. The game becomes a little too chore heavy with optimisation, but the optimisation unfortunately leads to the farm turning into a freaking factory farm, which is... Not what's fun with the fantasy of a farming game in a small town.
Allow me to bring up oldschool management sims as an explanation. Essentially, in management games, SimCity for example, you have to mildly micro-manage and keep an eye on everything. You more or less need to be fast in reacting to crisis, and so, having automation or mild automation helps.
But back with Stardew Valley you kinda run into the challenge of either having to deal with a thousand chores in the morning and keeping the small town farm fantasy or optimise into another Jojo Mart.
At least some chores can not be optimised, like mining or fishing, so there is still some chores to do everyday day that can't be autodone for you. But still, the farm quickly becomes more or less just a full automative process.
I will say, it does feel rather nice to have the family life half however. I mean, the most fun half was waking up before Abigail, rushing to get eggs and milk to make her breakfast before leaving to the mines for the rest of the day, before nipping into the Saloon for some arcade games and than bed. That part mostly holds up 'til end game, it's just the farm that dies out, in my heavily baised opinion.