What to know
- Stardew Valley is an established farming simulator that has a large player base, a great story, and epic content in-game that can provide a great time for anyone who plays the game.
- Sun Haven’s take on the farming simulator, with its fantasy world and story, does provide a certain charm to the game, but it feels like it’s not quite ready yet.
The indie gaming industry has seen its fair share of farming simulators, and Stardew Valley is right there among the best in the industry. It’s a smash hit that has generated a ton of players that went into the game for fishing, harvesting, rearing animals, socializing, and more. These players spent hours on the game building their base, and now a new game makes the entry to the farming simulator. It promises the same glory as other farming simulators but with a bit of fantasy in the mix to spice things up. But, if you are new to the farming simulator and don’t know which one to pick, you have come to the right place. Today, we compare the newcomer Sun Haven against the smash hit Stardew Valley.
A quick history of Stardew Valley and Sun Haven
Stardew Valley first launched in 2016 as an open-ended farming simulator that allows players to fish, cook, grow crops, harvest vegetables, socialize with the people in town, and much more. Since the game’s launch, it got a lot of updates allowing it to grow steadily. On the other hand, Sun Haven is a relatively new game launched this year on March 10th. But can it match and even overcome the glory of Stardew Valley? Let’s find out.
Stardew Valley VS Sun Haven: An in-depth look
Stardew Valley is a game that has grown steadily in the last few years. When we say grown, we mean it has literally grown, both in terms of the player base and in-game world and its content. The characters in the game have a certain depth to them. The dialogues between the characters are richer and form a deeper connection and meaning. The story is really great too. There are different ways of playing the game.
You can mingle with the townspeople and start a life there, or you can just follow quests and leave everything else for a later adventure. So, no matter what type of gamer you are, Stardew valley has something for everyone. Stardew Valley’s dating system, in particular, is quite intuitive. It will really help you connect with the main characters as well as other NPCs.
Sun Haven is built upon a fantasy world as opposed to Stardew Valley’s realistic approach. This gives the game a bit of a Dungeons and Dragons kind of vibe, which is an interesting take on the farming simulator genre. Stardew Valley’s conversations with NPCs can sometimes feel repetitive, but Sun Haven’s NPC dialogues have a lot of unique dialogue choices and can help you feel a genuine connection.
Since Stardew Valley has had quite a lot of time under its belt, it just feels like a more polished game. It’s a game that is made with a lot of love. Sun Haven is a relatively newer game, and even though it has some genuinely good moments in the game, it feels like it’s not complete yet. Some of its conversations can feel connected, while others can feel hollow and devoid of emotions.
But that’s okay. It just means that the game needs a few updates to get it to the same level as Stardew Valley. So, if Sun Haven receives the same amount of love as Stardew, its player base will certainly be quite happy with that. But that also depends on the kind of content the game receives in the future. That brings us to the availability of new content in the game.
Stardew Valley VS Sun Haven: Availability of new content in the games
Stardew Valley has received a ton of content and features over the years that made the game a lot more fun. Sun haven is yet to receive that level of content drop. The game did receive a couple of micro patches since its official stable 1.0 release. These micro patches are meant to fix some of the bugs that users have since encountered, and that includes fixes to cross-platform saves, fixes regarding loading of large save files, fixes to in-game asset glitches, and more.
Some fixes to dialogues have also been delivered, but since the game has over 70K+ dialogues, it may take a while before all the fixes are delivered. But the game developer has promised that they will continue to fix those. The game developer Pixel Sprout Studios has a record of delivering on their promises, so we are hopeful regarding the future of content drop in the game.
Why should you play Stardew Valley over Sun Haven
The game starts with a character that receives farmland from their grandfather, and they can now forge their own path in the game. The content in the game is rich, from farming, harvesting, and improving their skills to finding friendship and love among the townspeople. There’s a great epilogue to the story as well, and the game feels a lot more cohesive. All in all, Stardew Valley feels much more like a polished and finished game.
Why should you play Sun Haven over Stardew Valley
Sun Haven has a much larger world with more choices when it comes to farming, crops, and even meals. It is much more ambitious and has a lot going for the game, but it’s not quite there yet. Sure, it has more activities, a better combat system, lots of bosses, and much better skill choices, but they can be weirdly unbalanced in some areas. In a way, we can call Sun Haven a spiritual successor to Stardew Valley, but it will take some time to become a reality. However, the 8-player co-op support in the game can also be quite enticing.
What would we recommend
Given the stability, popularity, and availability of better content in Stardew Valley, we recommend that you give it a try. Get habituated with the game, and then give Sun Haven a try. That’s not to say that Sun Haven has some game-breaking bugs or something, but it’s just not as polished as Stardew Valley. It will be just as polished as Stardew Valley, provided it gets some time to get the updates that fans of the game are eagerly expecting.
