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.

The short version of this review is that I highly recommend this game for those seeking a relaxing game filled with things to do, especially for those that love Disney characters. However, I wanted to share my personal reasons why I recommend this game. I want to disclose that my review of this game primarily comes from second-hand experience. While I have played some of the game myself, it was only for several minutes. Additionally, I had purchased this as a gift for my mom back in 2022 as a Christmas gift for her Nintendo Switch.
I'm writing this review for her because she absolutely loved this game.
She was a very casual gamer that enjoyed easygoing games like Animal Crossing and had ventured out to action and adventure games like Skyrim and Assassin’s Creed. She liked those games, sure, but she had gotten stressed and/or frustrated from the gameplay and nature of some of the more intense games. My mom suffered from several health conditions, and I felt that it might be a good idea for her to change pace a little bit. So, like I mentioned, I got her this game for Christmas. I had very little knowledge of this game, but it looked and sounded like a nice Animal Crossing type of game with Disney characters.
She played this game almost every day when she had the chance. Sure, sometimes she’d play other games for a bit, but she’d always come back to this one. It didn’t matter if she had good days or bad days in health or life, but she found a wonderful escape in Dreamlight Valley. It was an easygoing game with so much to do and many characters to meet. She would show me the characters she found and the town she’d built. I’d hear about her adventures and the goals she’d set out to do. She told me how the game made her feel relaxed like none other has before. I can confidently say that this game was the best gaming purchase I’d ever made for my mom.
It’s been exactly one year since my mom passed away. I have since seen the screenshots in her Switch showing me of her experiences in the game. It’s a sweet feeling like no other to see how this game practically transported her to another world where she could be happy and at peace during the last year of her life. From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank the developers for this game and for the joy it gave my mom.

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.

This game has saved my sanity night after night for years as my mental health has declined. It's everything I want in a cozy game; the fact that it's Disney is the cherry on top to me personally. This is the only game that I feel like is fully worth my real money while finding it relaxing and fulfilling to play.

Honestly, such a cute Disney experience. Highly recommended! There's just so much to do here, but tbf its a lot of fetch-like quests, but for a lot of players like me, that's a bit of a backdrop to interacting and unlocking beloved Disney characters and buying and wearing (and posing for photo competitions) the incredible set of cosmetic items in this game. I can't think of another game short of the Sims with this much cosmetics.
I'm not super happy at the price of the game and the dlc's, especially considering it does have microtransactions, but for the price, I got a lot of enjoyment so it kinda works out. Maybe I would feel different if I spent money on microtransactions, but I never did, and I am able to make money and other currencies just by playing. Especially by growing and selling pumpkin vegetable plates, which is currently the best money maker in the game (hint, hint, new players <3 ) . Hope you enjoy if you buy this!

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.