When covering a life sim, it can be difficult to fully summarize its strengths and weaknesses after just a few days of analysis.
Regular check-ins and establishing routines are part of the design in such games, and players are expected to remain reasonable until it becomes clear whether a gameplay loop holds their attention over the course of multiple sessions. have to spend a lot of time
we are playing now Disney Dreamlight Valley – game loftThe answer to the question ‘What if there were Disney characters in Animal Crossing? It means that you can reach we were hooked.
The Animal Crossing comparison may be reductive, but it’s apt because so many elements of Dreamlight Valley are so similar Nintendo‘s global blockbuster.
It still means that the player’s character arrives in a village, acquires a modest house, and is then given free reign to play the game as they see fit.
Disney Dreamlight Valley – Gameplay Overview Trailer
There are still villagers to interact with, some of whom are still anthropomorphic rats and ducks (albeit more globally recognized this time around).
There are still money-hungry entrepreneurs in the village, but this time, instead of Tom Nook and his family, it’s Scrooge McDuck, who runs the shop and upgrades the house.
Despite all this, it should be noted that this is not just a shameless clone of a very popular game. Nintendo’s lockdown-easing escapist sims certainly have a lot of similarities, but dismissing Dreamlight Valley as a simplistic imitation would do a lot of damage.
First of all, the game is much more mission-focused than Animal Crossing and offers a real plot for players to follow if they wish. It revolves around Oblivion, a mysterious force that has affected Dreamlight Valley and its inhabitants.
The Forgetting has spread spiky Night Thorns across the land, wiping out all good memories tied to the Valley. This caused the inhabitants to flee the valley in droves and head to other lands in search of a new life.
Once the player reaches the valley, it turns out that he has the ability to use magic to remove these thorns, so Merlin of sword and stone drives away oblivion, and the castaway Castaway restores things to their original state and restores them to their original state. return.
“It certainly has a lot of similarities to Nintendo’s lockdown-easing escapism sim, but dismissing Dreamlight Valley as a simplistic imitation would do a lot of damage.”
Perhaps you can guess the twist based on this information alone, so it’s good that most of Dreamlight Valley’s more interesting story content revolves around individual stories tied to the 17 characters available in the game at launch. (more to come).
Each character has its own set of missions that the player can undertake by chatting while wandering the valley. Only a handful of characters are inhabited at the beginning, so the overall purpose of anyone wishing to “finish” the game is to bring everyone back to the valley and complete their respective stories.
Some of these are very detailed. After convincing Frozen Elsa to return to the valley, she initially feels homesick and needs to cheer herself up with food made in her hometown of Arendelle. In this way, as the player tries to solve the mystery of the cave with Elsa, the player hears several A multi-part puzzle begins where you tackle the fetch quest of
Having 17 separate stories at launch means there’s plenty of content to play through, and completing each story rewards players with unique items like Donald Duck’s sailor suit and Moana’s Maui gold statue. is given to
It’s clear that Gameloft also plans to grow the game significantly over time. The large castle in the center of the map contains special portals to various Disney realms, where you can find some of the characters and bring them back to the Valley.
At launch, there will be four versions: Moana, Frozen, Ratatouille, and Wall-E, and we already know there will be Lion King content followed by Toy Story universe. However, the castle has 24 unused panels on which portals can be placed. So, in a month there could be 2 years of his content out there, even though he gets 1 added.
It’s uniquely story-based, but even Animal Crossing-like elements are handled well and sometimes even do a better job. It will be even better. You can enhance your pickaxe to break ice, or use your watering can to melt giant infected mushrooms, but they never break.
Tasks such as harvesting fruit from trees and managing inventory are intuitive and make daily tasks a breeze. Furniture storage seems endless, and clothes seem to be locked or unlocked. That means collecting enthusiasts can aim for all 973 themed furnishings and her 716 pieces of clothing (at launch, at least) with relative ease.
You can even expand your home beyond what is possible in Animal Crossing. Our current home has a total of 12 floors with 48 rooms and can be expanded beyond that.
There are a few things that keep us pausing at this stage and preventing Dreamlight Valley from declaring itself a revolution in the life sim genre. The game is still in early access and had quite a few bugs, for example.
on all accounts Xbox Series X/S The version (the one we reviewed) is the most stable, but it still has glitchy animations for water-based characters like Ariel, where one of the character’s legs suddenly becomes very thin when walking, and Goofy It has some nasty quirks such as not appearing sometimes. We visit his stall. That said, most issues we encountered were fixed by a reboot.
Since this is a Gameloft game, it’s also not yet known how monetization will be done. At this point it doesn’t matter in the slightest. However, there are indications that the player’s stamina meter was originally designed to consume quite a bit of money, such as decreasing when performing strenuous tasks such as digging, fishing, or using a pickaxe.
At this point, it’s easy to replenish by eating fruit (which is plentiful) or filling it up as soon as you enter the house, making it a minor and slightly pointless inconvenience at this stage. You can easily imagine a prototype version of this game that was set in
This may seem paranoid, but Gameloft is also responsible for Disney Magic Kingdoms. This is his mobile title released in 2016, and it’s almost unplayable for new players at this stage thanks to timers, energy bars, and an almost endless supply of highly overpriced content. .
“It’s a Gameloft game, and we still don’t know how monetization will work. At this point, it doesn’t matter in the slightest.”
Hopefully Gameloft has learned some lessons since then. So far, Disney Dreamlight Valley has been almost completely financially unremarkable, with the only notable paid content being the ability for players to purchase their own unique items (these first Pixar-themed ones, including Lightning his McQueen’s bed and a replica of Up’s house). This is also a moderate pace. I was able to unlock everything with about 10 days to spare.
However, this is still an early access game and the only way to play at the moment is Xbox You can buy it through Game Pass or by purchasing one of our Founder’s Pack Editions starting at $30. Given that all players pay to access their games in some way, Gameloft may be playing safe for now.
Once Early Access ends in 2023 and the game is free-to-play, monetization will increase as Gameloft seeks ways to benefit what has already proven to be a social media sensation. It will be interesting (and worrying) to see if it becomes more intrusive. – TikTok is currently full of Dreamlight Valley videos.
![Review: Disney Dreamlight Valley is a great alternative to Animal Crossing](/files/2022/10/Disney-Dreamlight-Valley-10-80x45.jpg)
So far, I’m amazed at the depth of Dreamlight Valley. It’s one of the most viable Animal Crossing alternatives available on any system, in several ways – most notably the fact that it launches with 17 separate quest-based storylines to play through. It’s – surpassing Nintendo’s titles.
As it stands, if you’ve exhausted everything Animal Crossing has to offer, if you can’t access it anyway, or if you’re a huge Disney fan and love the idea of sharing a village with whatever you like, then Dreamlight Valley is for you. Heartily recommend Rapunzel’s mother, Christoph from Frozen, Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid. And who doesn’t?
If this continues, adding new characters, items, and story content along with optional “season pass” content to keep the game profitable could make it one of the greatest Disney games of all time. Dear Gameloft, don’t give up.