Then get this game. It’s also a lot cheaper than Story of Seasons.

Don’t get me wrong, when Story of Seasons comes to the Switch, there’s that one to get too! But you really can’t beat the value of Stardew Valley. Also, you won’t have those moment of gamers block where you aren’t quite sure how you want to strategize... or at least it is significantly reduced.

you can use it in the desert, fix the bus

I haven't had much time to play Stardew Valley (been spacing it between Xenoverse 2 and Destiny 2), but what I have played of it so far. The farming aspect as well as the relationships feel very familiar to Harvest Moon. Not sure how close that is to Story of Seasons though.

Okay, so I'm preparing myself for the desert, I've read there is a decent amount of iridium there, but I don't see any elevator there. Do I have to do all the cave in one go to reach the bottom? Is there a bottom? And is there a better way to get iridium than that cave?

No bottom, no elevator.

Craft a bunch of stairs and quickly drop down ~300 levels, and get a ton of iridium.... and then never return! There's youtube videos on this to give you the proper direction.

So is it worth to build a slime ranch? I'm hesitant to spend the little iridium I have on that, specially because I don't see that much use out of the slimes. What's the point of the things produced there?

This might help.