The only way you can romance a character in Stardew Valley is by giving them gifts. The more gifts you give someone, the more friendship points you will get with them.
Relationships in Stardew Valley are defined by hearts, which visually show your total friendship points. You can have any number of hearts from 0 to 10 with most normal NPCs and can even get as high as 14 with your spouse.
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Maru is one of the romanceable characters in Stardew Valley, and giving her the right gifts will make the romance process much easier. Since you can only give two gifts per week, you should be careful what you give.
Though Maru likes and loves a lot of gifts/items in Stardew Valley, the best item that you can give her, which you will easily produce if you like farming, is Strawberries.
Table of Contents
- How Friendship Works and Why You Should Give Gifts
- What Gifts Does Maru Like and Love in Stardew Valley
- Best Gift to Give Maru
How Friendship Works and Why You Should Give Gifts
To befriend NPCs in Stardew Valley, you will have to give them gifts.
Some will love some items, while others will hate them. Depending on their reaction, you will get different friendship points.
The normal limit of friendship hearts with villagers in Stardew Valley is 10 hearts. However, with Maru, as a bachelorette, the limit is 14 hearts, which increases once you marry her.
To get hearts with Maru, you will need to start getting friendship points with her.
Each heart in Stardew Valley is worth 250 friendship points, which will start slowly disappearing as time passes.
The best way to befriend someone is to give them gifts they love. This will increase your relationship with them by 80 friendship points.
If you don’t have those items, you can also give them liked items, which will increase the relationship by 45 friendship points.
As long as you don’t give them disliked or hated items, you will only improve your relationship with NPCs by giving gifts. Since you only lose 2 points a day with them, the liked gifts will usually be enough.
What Gifts Does Maru Like and Love in Stardew Valley
Some items in Stardew Valley are universally loved by all NPCs, including Maru.
These gifts are the Golden Pumpkin, Magic Rock Candy, Pearl, Prismatic Shard, and Rabbit’s Foot.
Here is a list of the gifts that Maru likes and loves in Stardew Valley, excluding the universally loved items, and how to get them:
| GIFT | SOURCE | OPINION |
|---|---|---|
| Battery Pack | Lightning Rod, Solar Panel | Love |
| Cauliflower | Farming – Spring | Love |
| Cheese Cauliflower | Cooking – Pam, 3 Hearts | Love |
| Diamond | Mining | Love |
| Gold Bar | Furnace | Love |
| Iridium Bar | Furnace | Love |
| Miner’s Treat | Cooking – Mining Level 3 | Love |
| Pepper Poppers | Cooking – Shane, 3 Hearts | Love |
| Radioactive Bar | Furnace | Love |
| Rhubarb Pie | Cooking – Marnie, 7 Hearts | Love |
| Strawberry | Farming – Spring | Love |
| Copper Bar | Furnace | Like |
| Iron Bar | Furnace | Like |
| Oak Resin | Tapper | Like |
| Pine Tar | Tapper | Like |
| Quartz | Foraging – Mines | Like |
| Radioactive Ore | Mining | Like |
Best Gift to Give Maru
The most obvious choices for gifts for Maru in Stardew Valley are Strawberries and Cauliflower. These are both Spring crops that you can get right at the start of the game and gift them without any major problems.
However, both of these crops are relatively expensive. Most players would prefer to sell them rather than gift them.
Cauliflowers take 12 days to grow, and their seeds cost 80 g. This kind of investment can be brutal at the start of the game.
Strawberries become available very late in the first Spring, and you would most likely profit from them by planting them in the Greenhouse. If you do, then you can easily gift one of the many daily Strawberries you are going to get.
Otherwise, in the early game, you can give her a lot of Pine Tar since you can set up a Tapper to passively produce you some.
Once you get closer to the mid-game, you can start giving something she loves.
Use your second Spring to buy a lot of Strawberry Seeds and put them in the Greenhouse. You should have managed to unlock it by this point in the game.
The Strawberry is very good for money-making purposes, and it is also the best gift you could give Maru in Stardew Valley.
That’s everything you need to know about what gifts Maru likes in Stardew Valley!
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