Farming games kind of stress me out. Don't know why. So this was never gonna be for me long term.

But I do think there's a malicious brilliance in how the game operates. Its not enough that you're building a town for Disney characters to live in or the fact that you get to talk and play with them. The shockingly strong writing for the Disney characters definitely helps, but that's not the brilliance.

The brilliance of the game is in its narrative of rebuilding your home with the Disney characters. With the cast suffering from slight memory issues, no one gets into any specifics. But it establishes that you, the player, had some kind of kinship with these characters. And that plot beat allows the game to eventually build to this line:

Ariel: "Oh, its you [player character]. You've grown so big!"

Its one line. They don't lean into it too hard. But that line captures the core experience of playing the game. Its laser-targeted as nostalgia in a specific way. That mental brainspace of being a child and thinking of Disney princesses as your friend. Its a brilliant, almost dangerously evil tactic. But I kind of respect it. It'd be easier to hate it and the whole Disney franchise model if the game wasn't charming. But unfortunately, its charming, so its easier to give a pass.

When this first came out in Early Early Access I liked it but reached the end of the content quickly, and I'm not the kind of person to play this once every 3 months just because they added Woody from Toy Story. Also this seems like something I would really want to Platinum so I would much rather play on PS5. And there's sadly no cross save between Xbox/PS yet (articles actually seem kinda mixed on this fact so I'm unsure if that's still the case)

When this finally fully launches this year I'm excited to play it!