Reaching 100 percent Perfection in Stardew Valley can take a decent amount of time, although many of its goals may be already finished through natural gameplay over the first few years. However, other goals on the list, such as building the Obelisks or Golden Clock, require a lot of capital that requires a farm dedicated to profit. The reward for completing this list is unlocking a new area, The Summit, including a roughly five-minute cutscene as well as special golden chickens and golden eggs. There was a clear demand for some sense of “completion” in Stardew Valley, as evidenced by Reddit fan-made completion trackers, but the game’s official Perfection Tracker may not be the best version of this.
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Grinding for Perfection in Stardew Valley
Stardew Valley’s 1.5 update included a new area, Ginger Island, on which players can find the mysterious Qi’s Walnut Room. The Perfection Tracker statue is in this room, so players must complete enough of the game to unlock Ginger Island, which means completing either the Community Center or the Joja Community Development Form. The Perfection Tracker is slightly different in single-player versus multiplayer, but in both cases players will need to catch all fish in the game, craft every item, cook every dish, and complete the items shipped list. These goals, as well as the max friendship with every villager goal, make sense as they encourage players to discover the full range of content in the game. However, some of the more difficult goals, like finding all the Golden Walnuts and buying the Golden Clock, are more tedious and require grinding.
As mentioned, there is a difference between the multiplayer and single-player Perfection Trackers, with the multiplayer version only requiring one Golden Clock per farm. Similarly, only one player needs to catch all the fish and so on, which allows the burden of grinding to be shared. In single-player, many of the tasks required have caused players problems. Two of the Obelisks a player must build cost 500,000 gold, meanwhile the other two cost a million each. Finally, the Golden Clock is the most expensive item in the game, costing 10 million gold. If the player has only done the Community Center route, there has never been such an emphasis on profit, so this can be a daunting task to undertake.
While the game does give players the option to support the JojaMart, much of the dialogue and interactions in the game encourage them to support Pelican Town and its small businesses instead. Much of the appeal of Stardew as a relaxing farming sim lies in this disavowal of modern capitalistic sentiment. It feels strange, then, that completing the game requuires players to transform their farms in order to maximize profit. Amassing the total amount required for all the items on the Perfection Tracker can take time, and by the end of it a brief, sentimental “ending” to the game may feel hollow.
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In Defense of the Perfection Tracker
To be fair, the Perfection Tracker in Stardew Valley is optional, and although it is required to see the special ending cutscene, the player can still experience almost everything else the game has to offer without it. Stardew Valley has all the RPG elements that make players eager to 100 percent it. There is a sense of accomplishment upon achieving Perfection, but it’s down to the individual whether the effort required is worth the reward of 100 percent completion. While the Perfection Tracker requires a different approach, it can just be avoided if the player wishes - although this may leave some with a lingering sense of dissatisfaction.
It is worth noting how much multiplayer alters the Perfection Tracker. While multiplayer requires players to craft an additional item, the Wedding Ring, it is a huge relief to split the rest of its tasks between players. Since the game’s rhetoric favors communal living over individualistic, Perfection being easier with collaboration does make sense. However, there are some limitations to the multiplayer mode and it won’t be feasible for every player. Players can even choose to alter the profit margins in multiplayer mode, which makes the expensive items on the Perfection Tracker more achievable.
Perfection in Stardew Valley is possible to achieve alone, though it distorts some of the overarching themes of the game. It may be the case that the Perfection Tracker was always intended to highlight the benefits of collaborative play, or perhaps it was included due to player demand. Regardless, there are plenty of different approaches to building a dream farm the player wants in Stardew Valley, and the Perfection Tracker is just one of many unique quests in the game.
Stardew Valley is available now on Mobile, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
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