More than his super racist guard? I felt like there was no way to handle this situation without disappointing Kim… which was not out of the ordinary in my playthrough but still… :(
I had the same experience with Graveyard Keeper but gave it another try a few years later. Either they balanced it more or it bothered me less, but the second time I was able to complete it without ending up hating it :D
I haven’t played since they added a bunch of updates and features but a while back it lacked the deep bonds you can forge in Stardew Valley but they added more content to this part of the game so I guess it became better in this regard. Collecting pets is likely still the main focus.
You start in a base island where you can forage building material and start collecting pets. You then build flying objects (I think you start with a kite?) to leave and discover other islands with different pets and different difficulties (finding out the difficulty is through fuck around and find out afaik).
The building is besides some very basic objects entirely optional but having a barn fit your pets it’s very important. But then you can go out, discover islands and collect pets.
What felt a bit annoying was that there are specific items needed to open dungeons on some of these islands and these items may only appear during a specific season. I was a bit frustrated when I finally found the summer dungeon and it just became fall.
Writing this made me want to replay it since they added a bunch of interesting stuff. But even in it’s unfinished state I would have recommended it.
I guess no cuteness / anime excludes the rune factory series so I’d go with the following recommendations:
Stardew Valley is an all time favorite .
Kynseed feels like the fever dream of someone who once heard of these kind of games. But you can decide for yourself if you want to focus on questing, farming, becoming a business mogul or whatever. Time is not really relevant in this game since you character doesn’t have to sleep and you can just get kids or adopt them and continue you game with them if your character gets old.
Graveyard Keeper has a very different spin on the whole genre, it has a dark sense of humor and not knowing what to do, when the bodies pile up can be stressful but I enjoyed it a lot.
Travelers Rest is a game where you build your own tavern. I only played it for a few hours in early access but it felt relaxing and looked nice so far. It’s out for a while now but I haven’t returned yet (stupid sexy Hades II… )
There are also cross overs with other genres like Moonstone Island which combines building your own home and collecting pets and discovering new islands with their help.
I enjoy reading about stuff I don’t know. It makes me curious. So if I don’t know the game, if the scene sounds interesting, I may look it up and play it. No universal game experience needed.