Disney Dreamlight Valley Review
When Disney Dreamlight Valley was first announced, I will admit that I had my doubts considering Gameloft’s previous Disney games had a lot of monetization implemented within and was afraid the same would happen with this game. But I was surprised when they announced that the game, which may be just as delightful as w88.com, would have an early access before it’s intended 2023 release as a free to play game, one price, full access.
For this review, I bought the PlayStation 5 version which was about 39.99 CDN. I originally wanted to try out the Switch version to put it alongside Disney Magical World 2 but my current Joycons have the drift problem.
Dreamlight Valley may seem like your typical Animal Crossing clone at first but the more that you play, the more you can see where Gameloft added some extra magic to make the game stand out. The game actually features something akin to a story mode where you, a mystical ruler ends up in a dream world where all sorts of Disney and Pixar characters used to live in peace before a dark evil called the Forgetting ruined the kingdom. With Merlin and Scrooge’s help, you embark a journey to free the other characters and bring them back home, yes, even the baddies.
The gameplay revolves around collecting Dream shards, Star coins ( your currency) and memory orbs from doing your routine tasks. You can fish, grow crops and collect random pieces of wood, flowers or veggies to collect what you need to unlock new homes and new area of your valley. Befriending Disney characters to their max friendship level will wield some benefits such as new shops run by Kristoff or upgrades to your magical tools from characters such as Maui and Elsa.
The game is by far the best in terms of graphics and sound in terms of the Gameloft Disney games. Each character is on model and the different areas invoke some elements of past Disney movies. The music featuring some instrumental versions of past songs such as Into the Unknown, Into the Unknown, Mickey Mouse Club and Put on your Sunday Clothes from Hello Dolly shows that the game had a tremendous budget. Most of the voice actors with a few exceptions ( Maui, Anna, Elsa, Kristoff) have their original actors or their usual back-up actors such as Jim Hanks returning as Woody. This game will be known as the last time Pat Carroll voiced Ursula, may she Rest In Peace.
In terms of complaints, while it is an early access game,I would caution everyone that there will be glitches throughout the game such as items going to off limit areas or missions soft locking if you do too many steps before returning to talk to the character, this happened to me with Elsa where she does not want to go in her ice tunnel after I cleared all the ice inside without going back to her first. One other complaint I have is that there is no way to access your photographs after you take them.
For those wanting a new Disney console experience , I would highly recommend Disney Dreamlight Valley since I have a feeling it will grow into a much bigger game overtime with lots of updates coming throughout the rest of the year
RATING: 9 out of 10