A game I'd been waiting for longingly. In the first week it was available, I went ahead and bought Disney Dreamlight Valley straight away. I'd already come across the first reviews online, and people were incredibly enthusiastic. The game is mostly compared to Animal Crossing, but is already being called better than Animal Crossing by several outlets. After Disney Magical World 2, I was a bit hesitant. Was I buying another childish game? Would it even be fun enough for me as an adult gamer? I was also seriously torn about which edition to buy. In the end I went for the 'standard' edition, since with the more extensive editions you're really just paying for more stuff. Think furniture, clothing, and so on, like in the Sims. Let me give it away right now, I've now been playing for over a week and I'm addicted.
The story
Through a magical event you end up right in the middle of Dreamlight Valley, and start talking to Merlin (that wizard). He explains all kinds of different things. The most important thing is that you're seen as the saviour of the village. There used to be a lot more residents, but because of a curse, The Forgetting, several residents seem to have forgotten the village, or become lost. Parts of the village are also blocked off by dark thorns. Merlin asks you whether you'd like to use your magic to help restore Disney Dreamlight Valley to its former glory. Of course you want that! So Merlin sends you off on your first quest to look for tools you need, in order to perform various actions. By performing various actions (fishing, gardening, digging, etc.) you earn Dreamlight. You need that Dreamlight again to unlock new areas (Biomes) and enter new 'worlds' to meet new characters.
The Biomes (worlds) in Disney Dreamlight Valley
In the end there are eight biomes. Your house is in the plaza, together with Mickey's house, a square with a well, Scrooge McDuck's shop and Chez Remy's restaurant. In the beginning you'll be there a lot to collect things that grow there and to recharge your energy, which you do, among other things, by simply standing in your own house. You can also recharge your own energy by eating, but you don't always have enough food. From there you walk to the Peaceful Meadow, where you find ponds to fish in, but also Goofy's first market stall, where you can sell things, but also buy crops, as well as seeds.
Then you have Dazzle Beach, which speaks for itself. That's a really big beach that stretches along the south-east coast. Then you also have the Glade of Trust, a kind of swamp, and the Forest of Valor, a forest. The hardest ones are the Sunlit Plateau and the Frosted Heights, since those cost the most Dreamlight. The Sunlit Plateau is reminiscent of the Lion King, and the Frosted Heights of Frozen. Right now I'm saving up for the Forgotten Lands.
It's also good to make sure you can reach the castle. There, using Dreamlight, you can open doors to new (small) worlds to invite new characters to Dreamlight Valley.
The standard activities
Once you've found all the tools, which happens fairly quickly, there are a number of activities you can do by default.
- Gardening: planting seeds, watering the plants and harvesting the crops.
- Fishing: fishing with a rod in the various bodies of water.
- Mining: hitting suitable rock with a pickaxe to get various materials from it.
- Gathering: picking wild fruit as you walk, collecting wood, picking flowers, and so on.
- Digging: digging for materials at marked spots, but also at unmarked spots.
Quests
Besides the standard activities, characters send you off to complete tasks, to help them and eventually yourself too. Based on your friendship level, you get a quest. The higher your friendship level, the harder the tasks and the more tasks you get. Whether you're doing a quest or just standard activities, always ask a character if they want to come along, since that raises your friendship level fairly quickly, so you can progress further in the game.
The tasks, quests, really differ from each other, in terms of difficulty and length. At the start they're fairly simple and completed quickly. The longer you play, the harder they genuinely get. You then need to, for example, collect more materials, and also harder-to-find materials, to complete a quest. Sometimes it also involves talking to characters, or digging for a specific object. Honestly, some quests are more fun than others, but they're often worth it.
To wrap up
It's a genuinely really fun game. I'm not a die hard gamer who sits gaming for whole evenings, but with this game, I sometimes did have that urge. Within about an hour there are already new plants standing there, and you can just go mining, fishing, and so on again. Because of those quests you also always have something to do. I like having a goal, or even multiple goals, in a game, but also being able to wander around a bit freely. This game is exactly right for that, because with Animal Crossing the obligation, and the challenge of discovering new things, wears off fairly quickly (since there simply isn't any left). I definitely don't think this is a kids' game. I've also read that the developer is planning to keep updating the game with, for example, new characters and/or worlds. How great is that!
Disney Dreamlight Valley is currently only available as a download, not as a physical game. It's available for the Nintendo Switch and PC. Want to know more? Feel free to check out their own site.
