In the fairly well-known
In 2016 I spent more time than I’d like to admit on my phone playing Disney Magic Kingdoms. Developed by Gameloft, Magic Kingdoms is a free to play city builder along the lines of: Futurama: Worlds of Tomorrow and ice age village. I should have resisted the urge to download the game as I’m not a fan of this particular offshoot of the city simulation genre. And yet that “charm” of Disney has me hooked and endlessly preoccupied with the correct placement of all my attractions.
The past few days I’ve been worrying endlessly with Disney Dreamlight Valley, another Gameloft product that hit Early Access this week. Like Magic Kingdoms, the aim of the game is to shape and expand your city while building relationships with well-known Disney characters. Many people compare the game with Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley because they share a lot of similar gameplay elements and naming those titles probably helps with the SEO. But for me it’s more akin to Disney Magic Kingdomsonly more elaborated and fully realized.
Disney Dreamlight Valley (PC, PS4, PS5 [reviewed]Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S]
Developer: Gameloft
Publisher: Gameloft
Released: September 6, 2022
MSRP: $29.99 (Standard Founder’s Pack, part of Xbox Game Pass)
It’s almost embarrassing how quickly I lost track of time while playing Disney Dreamlight Valley. Literal hours melted into the background as my beautiful black princess planted carrots, baked cakes, searched for gems and ran errands for a small amount of iconic Disney characters. As with any well-developed free-to-play game that Disney Dreamlight Valley will be once it leaves Early Access, it will be able to quickly lower its hooks with enough content to keep players well engaged.
The central story for Dreamlight Valley revolves around your character returning to a special place from their childhood and being whisked away to a fantasy world torn apart by an event known as ‘the Forgetting’. Nearly all of the former residents have fled, and those who remain grapple with memories of a time before nightthorns popped up all over the city. As the savior with a magical twist, it’s up to you to remove the thorns of the night and restore the city to its former glory, as you debate the Disney characters who used to call it home. You do this by farming, fishing, crafting, cooking, mining, digging and helping your new Disney BFFs with their requests.
On paper I can see how that sounds Animal Crossing, Stardew Valleyor Story of seasons. And while the gameplay can come close to those titles, the objectively oriented progression system is much more restrictive than those more open-ended experiences. You’re not just here to make friends and relax in a laid-back lifestyle, you’re here to complete the various story and friendship quests that contribute to the overall goal of restoring the city. If you complete these missions and perform just about every action in the game, you will earn “Dreamlight”. This will allow you to open up new areas of the valley and access the various Disney realms where new town residents can be found.
Let’s get together
Only a few of the realms are now available, regarding Ratatouille, moana, Frozenand Wall-E. Don’t expect too elaborate with these rich. They are not like the worlds you explore in the Disney Magical World games on the Nintendo 3DS. The realms here so far are just small themed areas where you’ll find a few characters asking you for help with a problem. In front of Ratatouille, Remy needs your help in the kitchen. In front of Wall-E, it’s all about waste and plants. Complete their requests, which you should be able to do in a few minutes, and they’ll agree to come and live in your town.
Other characters join in as you unlock more of the valley. Initially it’s just Merlin, Mickey Mouse and Scrooge McDuck, the latter of whom has the most comically inconsistent voice acting I’ve heard in a long time. It doesn’t take long for Goofy to appear, and within a few hours most players should be helping Ursula too. Add to that Mother Gothel, who somehow made the cut for early inclusion, and it’s clear to see that Gameloft, at least for this opening and Early Access period, is leaning towards Disney’s more recent history at building his collection of characters. More are on the way, and I suspect as a game-as-a-service title, we’ll see them added with high-profile updates in the coming months and years.
Hopefully those updates will come with more than just new characters because I’d really like to see more of Disney’s past in this game. Beyond the familiar faces, Dreamlight Valley is a largely unremarkable fantasy world that has no connection to any particular Disney product. If this game had taken place in a more recognizable location, such as Main Street USA, it might feel more “Disney” than it does now. As a lifelong fan of this evil company, I appreciate the references that have made it so far. Never would I have thought that in the year 2022 I would hear a character whistling part of the song from the Splash Mountain ride, but here we are.
It would just be nice to see Gameloft go a little deeper into the Disney catalog as it continues to develop and update this game. For example, the soundtrack fell silent when it started to rain in the valley. Featuring Disney with a few pieces of music related to rain – the score to The old mill“The Rain, Rain, Rain Came Down, Down, Down” and “Little April Shower”, just to name a few – it illustrated how much more history the developers could have.
Heigh-Ho
Of course, all the Disney references in the world won’t matter if people tire of the gameplay loop too quickly. I’ve been obsessed with this game for the past few days, but I’ve also reached a point where I can see a progress wall on the horizon. Some characters ask for items that I don’t have access to yet, and the cost of entering realms and building character homes is going up. Character searches also get more and more complicated, often depending on how far I’ve progressed with other characters in town. Add to that long wait times for crops to germinate and Dreamlight is earned at a slower rate, and it’s clear that I’ve reached the point in a free-to-play game where I really have to put in the time or possibly the money.
In terms of money, Disney Dreamlight Valley features a battle pass inspired “Star Path” where completing certain tasks will earn you credits that you can use to purchase limited-time items. The game is currently hosting a Pixar Fest Star Path, which has several Pixar-themed rewards to earn. As with most battle passes, there is a free and paid number, the latter of which requires “Moonstones”, the game’s paid currency. There doesn’t seem to be a way to buy Moonstones in Early Access, but if you buy in-game with one of the Founder’s Packs now, you’ll get enough to cover the cost of a few of the Star Paths, depending on which edition you jump.
The cost of the paid track for the Pixar Fest Star Path is 2,500 Moonstones. While you’ll earn more Moonstones if you buy the paid track, it seems that, at least for this Star Path event, you’ll only be able to earn 2,175 of them, which probably won’t be enough to cover the cost of the next featured Star Path. cover .
Similar to earning Dreamlight, completing Starpath tasks requires a lot of repetition. Cook so many meals, pick so many fruits, sell so many items, etc. This naturally ties into: Dreamlight Valley‘s gameplay loop, but I wonder if such a system could lead to faster player burnout. How many times will players pick 100 fruits or collect 10,000 coins before they get tired of it? It’s one thing to offer these activities optionally or spread out over the life of the game. It’s another thing to associate these types of tasks with temporary events and fleeting rewards.
Oo-de-Lally
But that’s the nature of a free-to-play game. It may look like something designed with the console audience in mind, but at its core it’s no different from what Gameloft did with Disney Magic Kingdoms. The only difference is that this is a much more engaging experience. If you decide to jump in Dreamlight Valley know that during the Early Access period I ran into a few issues that hindered my progress for a few hours, including ridiculously scarce seaweed – a of vital importance craft ingredient – and little woodland creatures that refused to stop so I could feed them.
In a way, Disney Dreamlight Valley is a wish come true for me. I’ve always wanted a healthy game where I could share a fully realized world with the Disney characters I grew up with. And while I’m sure those characters will eventually be added to the game, what’s here is enough to satisfy the 10-year-old in my soul eating a Mickey Mouse waffle at Goofy’s Kitchen while getting an autograph from a criminal. underpaid man in a Pluto costume.
Disney Dreamlight Valley is now available in paid Early Access for PC, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. It is also part of Xbox Game Pass. It will launch as a free-to-play title on all platforms and mobile next year.
[This scoreless review is based on an Early Access build of the game provided by the publisher.]
CJ Andriessen
Just what the internet needs: yet another white guy writing about video games.
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