Introduction
Today we are going to look at Dreamlight Valley. What is this game, and what is it all about? This seems to be a very casual game. You will need to build up your own town. There are also villagers that you will need to help, this is the whole premise of the game, let’s delve deeper!
What did I think before playing Dreamlight Valley?
Since this game looked a lot like Animal Crossing and the Sims combined, I was genuinely interested. There are also a lot of Disney characters, you will need to interact with them and build friendships. I was going to play this on the Xbox, however, I will check the Steam page for information.
The Steam Page
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1401590/Disney_Dreamlight_Valley/
It seems there has been forgetting, and all the Disney characters have forgotten where they live. You will need to befriend them and reveal the whole map. There are many areas to explore and find new items. It also seems there are many outfits, gardens and many more items.
Rating
I rated Dreamlight Valley with an 8.3
I was excited about this game for a while, befriending characters from both Disney and Pixar. Gardening, fishing and cooking, time for a Disney Animal Crossing.Â
Story
The story takes place in a magical realm where the ruler has vanished. You need to take his or her place and rebuild the valley.
Rating
I rate the story of Dreamlight Valley with a 6.1
There are some fun elements, but it seems the story is not their strong suit.
Gameplay
The gameplay is very much quest related, there immediately is a lot of hand holding. This game does not give you the option to find out yourself what to do. It starts out with having to make friends. This is what the whole game is all about, making friends and unlocking more content.Â
In this game, you will be working on earning plenty of star coins. There are many ways to earn star coins, but first you will need to fix the stall, and for that, you need to mine and gather the royal tools. If you want to upgrade the royal tools, you will need to complete quests. However, there are an insane number of quests, like excessively much!
Your main goal is to collect Dreamlight, there are many ways to collect Dreamlight. Your main goal is to gather the orbs and make sure the darkness is chased away. You will need to jump through many hoops to get this done, including many quests to make friends, there are way too many quests, but at least you can cook and never spoil food.
Rating
I rated the gameplay of Dreamlight Valley with a 7,1
There are way too many quests, it went out of hand with how many quests, I could not track anymore what quests I needed to do for what.
Sound and Graphics
Graphics
The graphics are quite stunning, there are many outfits to choose from, plenty of crops to grow, fish to catch and areas to explore. If you enjoy Disney, then you will love the graphics. There is something oddly satisfying about seeing Donald Duck fall.
Sound
The soundtracks are fun and different for each area. The voice acting is actually really good. It almost sounded like you were in the actual Disney movies! The realms that you visit have fun soundtracks as well, however some characters repeat their lines a bit too much.
Rating
I rated the sound and graphics of Dreamlight Valley with a 7.7
There is some room for improvement, and some of my favorite characters were locked behind various quest line walls.
What did I think after playing Dreamlight Valley?
While initially, I enjoyed the quests, but they soon accrued to an immense amount. And then I needed to complete quests to unlock other qeustlines, but before I could unlock those, I needed to unlock a certain realm. Then for that I needed more Dreamlight and complete smaller quests. Yeah, you can see where this is going.
There are fun activities next to the quests, which is important because there are actually quests that take three real days, or crops that need to grow for eight hours and watered every four hours. I did not like that cooking never can go wrong. All in all, a fun game, but too many quests and things locked beyond quests.
Rating
I rated Dreamlight Valley with a 6.3
This game focused too much on real time to complete quests. Moreover, you need to take people with you to gain friendship points and level up. However, Ariel cannot walk. For Ursula, you can spend real money to give her a form on land.
What are my personal thoughts about Dreamlight Valley?
At first, I liked this game, but it did not take long before booting up this game and doing even more quests got monotone and boring. It started to feel like a chore.
Rating
My personal Rating of Dreamlight Valley is a 5.5
What seemed to be a great game in the beginning turned out to be a big chore in the end.
Last Words
Pros
- There are many activities to do in this game
- Manage your own town and decorate it, which is also a quest
- Meet a lot of Disney characters and interact with them
- Dig for secret recipes
- Increase your home to insane sizes,you will not have enough decorations
Cons
- The story is quite, forgettable.
- There are many quest walls
- Too much reliance on real time mechanics
- Upgrading royal tools is locked behind way too many quests
- Cooking never fails
If you enjoy games like Animal Crossing, you might enjoy this game but be warned, there are excessively many quests for you to complete! Completing every quest is going to drain your life!
The Final Rating
7.1
Please let me know what you think of Dreamlight Valley in the comments!
I hope you enjoyed reading this review, I hope to see you in the next review!
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Surprisingly good game, I expected a lot less.
Yeah, the biggest gripe is the quest walls.
Cute game
The game looks pretty good to me and should satisfy Disney fans.
It’s a shame that you can’t recruit Star Wars characters. Oh man, how awesome it would be to have Darth Vader walking around in that cute lil town 🙂
That would be frigging awesome!
I liked this game. I can think to buy it when they did discount for it.
I actually would try it, visually look good to my eye
It does look very awesome!
looks like very linear game
It is actually not linear enough, there is too much freedom and too much quests, it overwhelms you!
Hmm.. I see, so it not enought variety and quality in those quests? Because i cant see big number of quests – if they would be just side quest and not neccesary to progress with a main story as a con.
Multiplayer suits to this game, it could be like Palia
Feels too much like work, so many chores.
Games should not be a chore!
Seems like a great game!
Good review!
According to your review this game sounds like pure fan fiction/fan service to me.
A “Sims-like” with Disney characters! I think maybe Simone would have liked it more?
Seems like another money grab game by Disney to me
Seems like another money grab game by Disney to me. But for a Disney game to have such a “forgettable story” is odd since most of their stories are so cut and paste.
The mix of Disney characters and life sim stuff sounds fun, but I really hope they add more to the story too.
I’m not sure even my girlfriend would enjoy this game. She does love Disney quite a bit but she usually plays action games. I think the story might work better if it would be presented like in the kingdom hearts series. But to be honest … decorating a town and cooking sounds nice too. ^^
Seems like it might be too much of a slog for me… :/
Great job with the review! 🙂
This is why I avoid paying grindy online games. It all ends up feeling like a chore.
Seems like a nice relaxing game to spend some free time once in a while.
I had my eye on this one when it came out, but I already got skeptical when I heard about the real-time mechanics. Seeing you being annoyed by them as well makes me even more wary about the game. Not sure I’m gonna try it, even though I like all the other mechanics, but I’ve got a feeling I’m gonna wait for a chance to get it really cheap or maybe Epic will beat me to it XD
Reads a bit like some free to play game with microstransactions to speed up something… Realtime mechanics outside the game is more or less a no go for me. I play games for fun, not for chore. If I have to build my personal life around a game I want to be paid for it 😀
Just having Disney characters appear seems like it’ll boost the game’s ratings.
From what I’ve read in reviews, if the gameplay mechanics are enjoyable too, it sounds really promising.
The gameplay might not be for everyone, but the characters are way too appealing lol
Seems cool to have a game with Disney characters, but for being a Disney game feels a bit weird
Sounds like this game is for Disney fans, and a test of love. If you have enough interest in the characters, you might be able to endure all the quests and time gates. But I think I’ll pass :P, never liked real-time waiting periods.
If those quests were not as overwhelming, and if they had diversity, having that many quests would be a welcome feature. Games with great quests show up once in a blue moon.
Btw, that F in “There is something oddly satisfying about seeing Donald Duck fall.” was too close and I misread it. You know what I read. :death:
Interesting review! I agree, the game quickly turns from fun to feeling like a long list of chores. The Disney charm and visuals are nice, but having so much content locked behind many quests was annoying.
Waiting hours for crops or days for quests made it hard to stay interested. It would be better if players could explore more freely without so much guidance. The game has a cozy feel if you like that style, but it really needs better pacing and fewer quests.
Not the style of game that I would like to play.
I think this game is mostly for younger audience and disney characters fans. Btw i wonder how much official licenses costed producers or if they are affiliated with Disney. From gameplay perspective there is too much grinding.
The game looks really adorable and from what I’ve seen I love all the decorating potential and things for you to unlock, but some stuff sounds like it’s somewhat mimicking half a mobile game which is disappointing… Especially considering how much it costs! This game was also supposed to be free with in-game purchases but they backtracked, not only that but I believe they kept the same degree of monetization in it, which is gross to me for an already expensive base game… and a game that probably has a high player base consisting of children!
It looks like as not that bad relaxing game for Disney fans, but lacks Polish subtitles.
Nice! I think this seems to be the kind of game I would have spent some time in if I was little 🙂
I like Disney cartoons and this game is amazing with cute characters and interesting gameplay mechanics.
Well, I like this Disney game. I prefer this universe to Animal Crossing.
Soooo, basically, if you like making a house, do not care about failing in little stuff like cooking, and if you do not mind an okayish to bad story, you will enjoy this game.
From everything you said sven, I’ll have to say, not my type of game. Sounds fun, alright, decent 6-7/10 (or 7.1 in your case), but yea.