{"id":795,"date":"2023-01-27T22:31:07","date_gmt":"2023-01-28T03:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/?p=795"},"modified":"2023-11-03T22:43:53","modified_gmt":"2023-11-04T02:43:53","slug":"disney-dreamlight-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/2023\/01\/27\/disney-dreamlight-valley\/","title":{"rendered":"Disney Dreamlight Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is not a full review. Consider this a partial review. Why? Because I have not completed the game, but I am a decent amount in. Also, this game is in early access, so things can still change from now until release. Note that when this game is fully released, I believe it is planned to be free to play. I will talk about what I think the monetization is, but I’m not certain. For now, I have actually paid for the Standard Edition to play it early.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UPDATE: The game will no longer be going free to play. Read a bit more about it in my update here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dreamlight Valley is a life sim. You are put into a rundown town that needs your help to get back on its feet. You can make friends, cook, change clothes, redecorate and all that fun stuff. Oh, and from the full title of the game, all of the people you meet are Disney characters. So go hang out with Mickey in Dreamlight Valley!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Find it on Steam<\/a> (and some other places, too).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Welcome to the valley.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You have been whisked away from your mundane life into a valley full of magic but also darkness. What was once a beautiful place has been overrun by dark thorns and something called the forgetting. Everyone has been losing memories, but you have the magic touch that will bring them back. To do so, you pretty much go around making Dreamlight Valley a better place to live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Time to weed Mickey’s house!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Gameplay is simple but enjoyable. You clear debris, pick up stuff to harvest, farm crops to either cook with or sell for food. There is also mining and fishing as well. There is no combat here, just friendly feelings. There is a wide variety of clothes and furniture you can buy to customize your character as well as the your house and the town. You are allowed to move stuff around town to make things as you like it. Just plop down Mickey’s house in a different area if it suits you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The selection of furniture and clothes are random every day, so the game does encourage checking in at least daily to see if there are new stuff for sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Expect to pay Scrooge all of your money.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The highlight of the game is interacting with the Disney characters. As of writing, there are 21 characters that you can get in your valley, but more is definitely coming. For one, there is a glaring omission in characters: Belle. Why do I say that? Belle is not in the game, yet she is on the cover art. But there are potentially hundreds of characters that can be added, and I think the plan is to constantly develop more, even after the game comes out. The main problem is there might be a lack of space inside the valley for all of them since they all need houses. Only a few characters share housing. I wonder how the game will solve that problem?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Got to get rid of all those night thorns.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Characters don’t have full voice acting, but they do have lines they say. It makes them feel lively enough. They will wander around and talk to each other or do other activities, too. Just seeing Wall-E wander around is sure to bring a smile to your face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the main draw of the characters are their plotlines. Each one has quests they want you to do that will unlock as you gain more friendship with them. These are actually pretty fun stories, and you get to hang out with the character more. Great!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It’s a normal shovel!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The quests mostly consists of bringing things to the character, but the availability of the items can be random. For example, you might need to mine for garnets, but garnets only drop some of the time. Or maybe you need a certain flower, but that doesn’t happen to be growing. Since the game runs in real time, you will sometimes need to wait for things to blossom or mining spots to return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think that’s fine. It encourages a slower pace of play rather than trying to focus in on one task. Also, you will often have lots of quests, so feel free to take a break from one to do something else. Just relax and enjoy the valley and the characters that are in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You got to have fishing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Being in early access, the game still has bugs. I do hope they’ll get fixed, but there will probably be new bugs, too. Still, at this time, the game is large with several different zones that you can decorate, lots of characters to meet and a smooth gameplay. This feels mostly polished and is satisfying to play. Just hanging around in the valley makes me happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, one thing I wonder about is sometimes quests give clues in the form of pictures of the valley. But you can move things around, so the clues might not match anymore. Maybe don’t move things around too much until later in the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Every door is potentially one or more new characters!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Disney Dreamlight Valley is a life sim game where you get to hang out with some of your favorite Disney characters with lots more to come. As of this writing, the next planned characters included Mirabel (from Encanto) and Simba (from The Lion King). There will also be multiplayer and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, this is an early access game that will eventually be free to play. During this time, you can’t actually spend more money on the game beyond buying early access, but this is what I think the monetization plan for the game is once it is fully released. Note that this is my thought and not from any official source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The game’s premium currency will be Moonstones which will be used in limited time Star Path events. Star Paths are sort of like Battlepass. You pay for the opportunity to unlock rewards while you play. Without paying Moonstone, you only have a limited selection of rewards and less opportunity to gain completion in the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There may be other monetization as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So there you have it. This is a partial review of Disney Dreamlight Valley<\/a>. If things change considerably once it is released, I might make another review. For now, time to enjoy the company of Mickey, Donald, Goofy and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is not a full review. Consider this a partial review. Why? Because I have not completed the game, but I am a decent amount in. Also, this game is in early access, so things can still change from now until release. Note that when this game is fully released, I believe it is planned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vgreviews","category-videogames","tag-life-sim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":903,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions\/903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}