Disney Dreamlight Valley Reviews
Disney Dreamlight Valley is a frictionless, relaxing spin on life sims that manages to remain heartwarming and charming, despite a few Switch-related rough patches. Dreamlight Valley's unique identity relies heavily on fresh interactions with your in-game friends, and Gameloft will need to continue supporting it with regular updates to keep the Night Thorns from creeping back in. However, what's here at launch is surprisingly touching and thoughtful, and cleverly plays on the nostalgia of anyone who's ever been a Disney fan.
While lacking in story and heart, the life sim and city building mechanics enable players to use beloved Disney characters and decorations to truly design a whole new world.
Steep costs and microtransactions taint an otherwise dreamy life sim.
Disney Dreamlight Valley's whimsy is offset by the frustrations of time management and a monotonous daily grind.
Disney Dreamlight Valley is a typical cozy game that offers nothing new but is resplendent with nostalgia. While it doesn't respect your time, it makes a great time waster.
As for me, I can’t say I was hooked. Dreamlight Valley is a world of cardboard, its inhabitants little more than set decoration and animated sources of material gain. It’s a game about menial labor for menial labor’s sake, the most monotonous elements of a life sim emphasized and weakly justified by the shallow inclusion of marketable Disney characters. It masquerades as a game about friendship while portraying personal relationships as little more than means to an end. Worse than all of that, though, it’s simply boring. Dreadfully, interminably, boring.
At first, I felt a little overwhelmed by all that Dreamlight Valley had to offer. There is just so much to collect, so many things to do and so many tasks and quests. Added to that, Gameloft is sprinkling treasure chests into the game daily and sends mail containing all kinds of goodies. I mean, isn’t this little fellow brilliant? By now, I’m wholly committed to the game, and loving my time with all the familiar characters. The only reason I’m not giving it a Two Thumbs Up at this time is because of the bugs and other things that need adjusting. But, after all, that’s why it’s an Early Access version. This is a must for any Disney fan, and if you’re into simulation games, this is one for you too. You can wait for the free version, but I must admit I’m happy to pay the price for my Basic Edition.
Overall, I feel like this game is worth the price, even if you’re not a huge fan of Disney. The characters are lively and have fun dialogue, even the quests are interesting and don’t feel too much like a chore.The overall gameplay’s engaging with an interesting story that seems virtually endless. I can see myself playing for days without coming close to a conclusion. The game is under constant evolution too; the new DLC that just came out is a perfect example of that. I would definitely give this game a recommendation.
If you’re looking for a cozy game bursting at the seams with things to do that will have you whiling away the hours, Disney Dreamlight Valley is definitely worth it: it’s shaping up to be one of my favorite games of 2022, and it’s not even out of early access yet. The ability to live alongside some of Disney’s most memorable characters, raise their Friendship level and design the world that they inhabit is truly something that I never knew I needed until it arrived.
Even at this Early Access stage, Gameloft has created an awesome game here. There's enough content here already to give a good sense of what's to come, and a foundation to build something rather special.
Disney Dreamlight Valley is already proving itself to be a feature-rich and engaging game, with a really addictive "one more quest" feel to it. Once the issues are fixed, and with some more characters added to the game, this could become the best Disney game in years. Now, if you excuse me, I'm off to continue plugging hours into the game until I get Stitch in my valley as they're teased in the loading screens and I want to befriend them.
An Animal Crossing inspired life-sim populated by the world's most fiercely defended intellectual property
All in all, this game is off to a great start and hopefully Gameloft add voices to the dialogue as the game is quite text heavy and it would be great to hear Mickey, Buzz or Moana talk and sound like their related filmcounterparts. Even so, the text is clever and quite witty at times with a healthy dose of humour thrown into the mix.
As of today, Disney Dreamlight Valley is a fun and compelling life simulation experience, calm and entertaining. It is still to be seen what the game will become in the future, but for now fishing with Goofy has never been this fun.
Review in Italian | Read full review
All of this goes to say that if you enjoy the likes of Animal Crossing: New Horizons and its ilk and you’re a fan of Disney, you’re going to absolutely love Disney Dreamlight Valley. Yes, we remain slightly cautious about how its free to play mechanics will evolve over time – it may not always be so easy to progress, for example – but our early impressions are very positive. We’ve had a great deal of fun with the game so far, and have plenty more to do. We foresee it being quite the timesink over the next few months, and so we’ll be keeping you updated on our Disney-flavoured escapades.