Disney Dreamlight Valley

At the moment, I'm going through a phase in my life where I feel pretty sad and lonely, and having Disney characters tell me how happy they are to see me is like a small virtual hug. Maybe that sounds pathetic but I really don't care. This game is lovely. It gives you freedom to focus on whatever you like- and I do recommend focusing on one thing at a time. Otherwise you'll be overwhelmed because there's always more to do. I have over 100 hours and haven't even unlocked all the realms yet. So there is plenty of bang for your buck, if the gameplay suits your tastes. You don't need a big brain or a lot of energy to enjoy this game. Simply sit back, relax, and watch as Donald Duck falls flat on his face for the fiftieth time.
Now, let's talk performance: So I originally played this game on Switch and it wasn't a good experience due to constant crashing and general performance issues. However, the steam version has been much better for me. I play mostly on steam deck with settings on medium-ish (can't remember off the top of my head). There are frame drops when it's raining, but mostly it's very smooth. I haven't had any crashes during gameplay but I do sometimes have to manually shut down my deck because the game gets frozen while attempting to close. So, just something to be aware of. It's not a very stable game but I still recommend it.

The downsides:
- This game was originally supposed to release for free and never did.
- Lasting bugs w/o fixes. The mailbox crash, the forever red dot in the menu, bugged quests for example.
- Microtransactions via premium currency and items. More on this in the upsides.
-Limited placed item limits (up to 3k individual types of item/6k total items on PC). This drastically limits decoration ability, but I can understand it to avoid lag in game.

The upsides:
-Regular introduction of new content. New characters, new realms, new items, new DLC, etc. There is a lot to do.
-Time limits aren't really a thing, outside of specific timed events.
-Free premium currency all of the time. You'll find it around the valley in chests, you'll get it for entering DreamSnaps. In over 600 hours, I have never felt like I *had* to purchase premium currency.

If you enjoyed ACNH, but wished you had more to do, give this one a shot. You have all the crafting, fishing, gardening, decorating of ACNH with the addition of character and story quests. But catch it on sale. Full price in this economy? Nah.

This game is fantastic because it is what you make it. If you don't want to grind quests, don't. If you don't like decorating, play quests. There are dozens of ways to spend your time. It can be overwhelming at first, but it is easy to pick up on the different game mechanics for players of all skill levels and ages.

★★★★☆ 4/5 – I love this game, but the Premium Shop eventually became too much...
I’ve been playing Disney Dreamlight Valley since it first released on Steam. I actually started playing while I was quarantined with COVID, and it quickly became one of my comfort games. I had such a great time completing all the different character quests, following the storyline, and seeing how the characters and their stories connected with one another.
Then came the Premium Shop.
At first, I tried to play along with it. I purchased Moonstones because I wanted to collect the outfits, houses, furniture, decorations, and other items. But after a while, it started to dawn on me just how much money I was spending on this game. It reached a point where it became difficult to maintain, so eventually, I stopped playing.
A few years later, I came back when I was more financially ready to spend on the game again. I caught up with the characters and story quests, decorated my valleys exactly how I wanted them, participated in DreamSnaps every week, and once again had a genuinely great time.
But eventually, I ran into the exact same problem.
The Premium Shop refreshes every week, and if you enjoy collecting and decorating like I do, it is incredibly easy to spend a LOT of money trying to keep up. A few purchases here and there don't seem like much at first, but they add up very quickly—especially when several nice sets appear in the same week or when there are event-related items you want.
And yes, I understand that you don't need to own everything to enjoy the game. But when so much of the appeal is decorating your valley, customizing your character, collecting items, and participating in DreamSnaps, the Premium Shop can feel difficult to ignore.
I don't mind paying for proper DLCs at all. I've purchased them and I'm happy to do so because they provide substantial new content, characters, areas, and storylines—and I also genuinely want to support a game that I've enjoyed for so many years. I also appreciate how frequently the developers release updates, events, characters, and new things to do.
My biggest issue is simply how expensive the Premium Shop ecosystem becomes over time. The constant stream of limited and rotating items creates pressure to keep buying Moonstones if you want to collect or keep up with everything.
Disney Dreamlight Valley is still a wonderful game. I love the characters, stories, decorating, events, and the amount of content they've continued adding over the years. I have many good memories with it, from playing during quarantine all the way to returning years later and rebuilding my valleys.
But unfortunately, I've reached the same point again: I can't justify how much I'm spending just to keep up with the Premium Shop.
It was great while it lasted. Maybe I'll come back again someday.

This game is absolutely worth buying. The base game alone has SO MANY THINGS TO DO, and the Storybook Vale DLC is AMAZING. With both of those alone you can spend HOURS collecting things, crafting, fishing whatever. Personally I LOVE gifting and cooking. It's also really good for people like me who suffer from bad depression and anxiety. The characters will often have dialogue interactions with you that are truly heartwarming. The base story is in fact linked to depression.
Now I've seen people complain about some points which I'll adress:
- yes the DLCs are expensive as hell. I would be ok with that, due to how many hours of content they bring you. What actually bothers me is that, some of your favorite characters might be locked in one of these DLCs, or just timegated for a future patch, which can be incredibly frustrating. Some of my favorite characters are not in the game after buying all DLCs - and it doesnt make sense. You have a Hercules section, but no Hercules or Megara... Winnie the Pooh but no Winnie the Pooh. Tangled, but Rapunzel is in the Eternity Isle DLC. It's just bad and greedy and nonsensical.
however they recently added pocahontas in a patch, so I'm not entirely sure how this actually works. It seems some are locked in DLC, some randomly come in patches... very confusing.
- yes there are microtransactions using an ingame currency that you can buy with real money. however, the game does a really bad job (intentionally i assume) explaining that this currency can be grinded in other ways (the star path, the snaps challenge, random spawn blue chests), AND (more importantly) some of the store items return later in future premium shops. So there's a heavy FOMO promotion here that, yeah it's aweful. but is only a problem if you REALLY want a specific item or bundle real fast. And, some of the dresses sometimes come back to Scrooge's shop, but I think that's only clothing items. Anyway, yeah the monetization schemes are bad, but you can stll have lots of fun without giving any attention to that.
- to add to the "premium shop" point - the game has SO MUCH STUFF, quest rewards, scrooge items, craftable items - that you can easily get tons of decoration and clothing without paying a cent. I understand the game basically lied by starting very free to play and ending up expensive as hell but still you can do so much and if you like disney in general, you can enjoy so many hours of gameplay and ignore the store. Just be creative.
- Finallly i need to adress the massive list of BUGS this game has. Right now the most buggy part is by far Eternity Isle where you can get items trapped inside map objects etc. This I have SERIOUS issues with. I have felt lost for hours in a quest only to realize by googling that a bug was preventing me from continuing that quest. In adition, the quest log does a really BAD job sometimes explaining what you need to do, leading to sometimes feeling like you're stuck with a bug, but actualy, it's just something not fully explained in the quest log. Again the WORST place is Eternity isle. I had to watch countless youtube videos to even unlock the basic characters. So yes bugs and bad UI/UX are the one thing I would demand Gameloft be more proactive about.
Overall :
this game is worth because it has hours upon hours of content , is super relaxing and chill, and you can play it whatever way you want. its flawed: bugs, FOMO microtransactions. but the sandbox aspect of it, justifies the price especially if you're an overall disney fan.
If you want to try one of the DLCs I strongly recommend Storybook Vale, it's gorgeous, and I havent experienced many bugs or issues there. Eternity Isle is INCREDIBLY buggy and/or confusing.

⭐ **9/10**
This game is pure comfort 💕 Farming, fishing, cooking, decorating - and completing quests with iconic Disney characters is nostalgic and relaxing at the same time 🌸✨
The world is colorful and cozy, and decorating your valley is truly addictive 🏡🎀
Some quests can be a bit tricky, and some gems take forever to find 😅💎, but overall it's the perfect game to relax in.
If you want something calm, cute and magical - this is it 🌟

Disney decided to have its own town/island/Stardew and write a story around kindness, remembrance and an obsession with photography.

It is quite entertaining, although I reckon it should be titled Scrooge Valley, because it's really all about earning a fortune and paying the uncle to appease your friends.

The multiplayer is not... friendly. You need to play many hours on your own before you can join your partner.

I would argue this isn't a game for children. It's a skewed view of the world - not just through eating lemons and gifting pebbles to your friends, but through its subtle message: that everything on Earth is for buying and selling (VAT-free), grinding is awesome, and when your friend ask you to spend 30K or to do something horrible then you owe it to them. Veganism is not a thing and Remy's restaurant bankrupts the ecosystem. The educational value is zero. Zero.