@ danielle: Welcome!
Stardew Valley is so great! It's got that nostalgia of old Harvest Moon, but allows for much for creativity.
Of course for me, that's a bit of a curse rather than blessing. My farms always end up looking empty and sad because I can't figure out how to decorate them well.
I used to do Steam PC gaming, but now I'm just a Switch gamer by choice.

Do you like pokemon? The latest generation on Switch has been a revolution imo. Got me back into it. I stopped playing after gen 4.

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Questing: Kpop Nonstop

@ danielle: I really like this pokemon gen.
The main characters are all really good and endearing. Some of the teachers are a bit too over the top in their 'teacher' personas.
Too strong vibes of "ooh, I just love teaching, and seeing my students do well makes me so happy!"
The evil team is fun and I really liked their storyline.
I like most of the new pokemon, though this gen introduced some really annoying evolution mechanics. That's about my only big gripe.
Pawmi>Pawmo>Pawmot is a really good line of pokemon, but evolving to Pawmot is annoying because you gotta make sure that Pawmo runs around for over 1000 steps with you in the 'Let's Go' mode, and levels up without going back away too, or it resets.
Tinkaton is a really good pokemon too. And cute. It has been hammer and does big smashing. Very fun.

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Questing: Kpop Nonstop

@ danielle: My favorite of the new pokemon is probably Tinkaton. It's got a pretty good design and it's actually a pretty strong pokemon too.
Primeape's evolution, Annihilape is probably my second fave. I basically breezed through the game using those two.

This gen has made some great quality of life improvements for people who want to raise the best pokemon too.
From my understanding, It used to be that you had to painstakingly breed pokemon to get ones with the best IV stats or natures, then raise those to become your competitive pokemon. Now you can take any one you catch and 'fix' their stats or natures in whatever way you need. It just takes a little bit of money.

Shiny hunting is a lot easier now too with the sandwich boosts. After you beat the game you can make sandwiches that increase the chance to find shiny pokemon.

The Tera Raid battles are fun and give you a good reason to raise lots of strong pokemon. The 6-7 Star raids can be pretty hard depending on the random pokemon in them.

I'd say get pokemon first while the player hype and in-game events are still going on.
The choice between game versions is really just down to your preference of box art legendary.
Scarlet gets a dinosaur looking ride-able legendary, Violet gets a robot/motorcycle looking ride-able legendary.
Personally, I like Scarlet's legendary more for riding on. The Violet legendary looks kinda cool on the box, but riding it feels awkward to me when I was playing my GF's game on Violet.
There is also the difference in which 'paradox pokemon' appear in the end-game area, but you can just trade for those anyway. You're stuck riding whichever version's legendary you choose.
The professors make very few appearances in the story, so don't let those sway your decision. I was hoping to see a lot of the cavewoman waifu professor sada, but that was not to be.

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Questing: Kpop Nonstop

@ danielle: No, sandwiches are new to Scarlet and Violet. I think I heard you could make Curry in Sword and Shield though. Curry could give you exp, some boosts to spawning wild pokemon, healing your pokemon, and increasing their sociability.
Sandwhich effects mostly change how wild pokemon spawn. Stuff like increasing chances to get larger/smaller pokemon, increasing to chance to spawn certain types, increasing the chance that shinies spawn, or how often your breeding pokemon produce eggs.
I think there were some food making mechanics in older games too, but not as prominent. Poffins, Pokeblocks, Pokepuffs. Basically little treats rather than meals.

You don't need a Nintendo Online subscription to get the in-game events, but you do need it to trade and do online battles.

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Questing: Kpop Nonstop

@ danielle: I picked Fuecoco. It's evolution is pretty cool looking.
Quaxly is cute, but I dislike it's evolved forms. Too flamboyant for my taste. My GF described it as looking like Pave from Animal Crossing in Pokemon form.
Sprigatito is cute and it's evolved forms are good too, but I didn't want to take a starter that becomes a bipedal humanoid form.
Plus Fuecoco's final form is actually a pretty strong pokemon. It's signature move will boost it's own Special Attack stat each time you use it, so it gets stronger every turn, and it's unaware ability can ignore opponent stat changes. Equip it with the item Throat Spray and it's good for Raids or Competitive battles.

By the way, I tried looking at your profile and I think it might be directing to an older user and you somehow were able to signup with the same name.
The profile I see has a completely different avatar and hasn't made any posts in a year.

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Questing: Kpop Nonstop

@ danielle: Maybe that will work. idk
I *think* I know what the issue is.
When I @mention you, it puts a space right after the @ symbol.
Did you intentionally or maybe accidentally put a space before your name?

It could be that the space conflicts with trying to link to your profile, and therefore links to danielle without a space infront of it.

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Questing: Kpop Nonstop