sighs When this was first released into Early Access, I would've given this game a 5-star rating in the blink of an eye. But although we knew that this was eventually going Free-To-Play, I don't think I ever could've imagined the depths of their depravity when it came to the egregious monetization of the game. Nowadays, it's difficult to unlock anything new in terms of items typical to a Life Sim of this caliber. Furniture, clothing, buildings, skins for characters etc. There's a certain rotation of "things" for those playing F2P, but it's very limited. I think the pressure to spend money to unlock anything mildly interesting is predatory and immoral.

Such a surprising game. Gameloft is the studio behind that crappy Disney Magic Kingdom mobile game, so I had some concerns going into a Gameloft produced Disney life-sim. But honestly, after 20+ hours on it I have been having so much fun and playing non-stop. It's just so addicting. It grabs you and you don't want to leave. As a massive Disney fan, a game like this is everything I could ask for. While buggy, glitchy, and sometimes unresponsive controls, Dreamlight Valley supplies endless fun. A great alternative to Animal Crossing for Disney fans!

I do love how this game plays but it is slowly showing it's greedy little horns with in game purchases that are at times wildly priced.

I did enjoy the story and the cast of familiar characters, their dialogues do tend to land on the simpler side, which I would guess is to make it accessible for kids. The collection system for both reagents and character leveling is well made. The game has cross platform saves which is great and I can see it being useful once the game goes free to play after release. You can decorate not only your house (which can have surprising amount of floors) but also the whole village.

I did have fun with this game in the beginning but I like to collect things and knowing I can't unless I open my wallet makes me want to not even try.

I would recommend waiting for free to play to give it a go. Also don't buy it on Switch it runs horribly, despite many "fixes" it's still super slow and looks worse too. Recently, they introduced option to increase item limit of items placed in your village on "high performance hardware" which excludes Switch.

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.

(Finished all the quests in patch 1.7 version of the game)
I can't bring myself to give a live-service game a 10/10 but it was truly a magical experience. It reminded me of just how much I loved Disney and Pixar as a child.
My favorite movie was Atlantis: The Lost Empire (sadly it’s not popular enough to be included in this game (at least as of now)).
Yeah the game is exploitative and buggy (fortunately nothing critical in my case, I only had to reload 20 or so times after getting stuck in textures, while other people have been losing their saves) but I don’t really mind because it’s cute, bittersweet, and fun.

Check out my girl

Where it Shines:
Inclusivity - 10/10
Playing Dressup - 10/10
Gameplay Loop - 8/10
The Good:
DDV was a game I did not expect to love as much as I have. Is it flawed? Yes, in so many ways. But whereas games like Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley just didn't click for me, DDV did. I think it's the heavy character customization aspect. I love playing dressup and buying outfits and interior decorating my home and all that other cool stuff. Sometimes that's all I do and I don't bother with the story at all.
But more than that, the game just feels wonderful to play. It's soothing, calming, relaxing, enjoyable, but in a way that stands apart from others in the genre.
The Bad:
It has the grubby little greedy hands of corporate bs all over it. A game that is purely cosmetic has no business having cosmetic MTX. There's also a lot of bugs and issues that seemingly never get addressed and it's becoming more and more apparent the game is going to move toward F2P at some point and be gacha hell.
Summary:
If you play this game now, while it's still good, it's an awesome experience. But I don't think it will always be that way and will one day be an unplayable pile of garbage. So I advise people to play it now if they're interested. Gamepass is probably the cheapest way to play it as I don't think it's really worth more than $10 in the state it's in.

****note on my ratings:
half ⭐: hot trash garbage
⭐: below average, needs work
⭐⭐: average
⭐⭐⭐: pretty good
⭐⭐⭐⭐: excellent
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: all time favourite
half star ratings between those mean it's slightly better or worse than stated in this list.
*

buggy as heck but lord am i a sucker for disney and animal crossing

also its made by gameloft so im fully expecting to return to this and find everything blocked by paywalls

months later edit : oh look, microtransactions galore
I'm still in love with this game though <3

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!

I'm thinking of waiting until full release to play this again. I don't generally like early access games but I decided to try this one out since it looks great and it is indeed really good, potentially. The problem is that it runs like ass on every single platform, especially on Switch, it's riddled with game breaking bugs and glitches, and every time the game updates it becomes unplayable for weeks. I think until the game is fully released and functional, ignoring the inevitable microtransactions, this will be a solid 5.

This is one of my favorite games! If you like Stardew valley, Animal Crossing or just cozy games / life and farming sims in general you will love this game!

The story is amazing, and there is so much content! There are a lot of quests you can do and so many characters to unlock.

I 100% recommend this game! Especially to any Disney fan!