Disney Dreamlight Valley

[regemond]

I'm pretty sure the venn diagram of this forum and this particular game is just two completely separate circles situated three miles from one another. 

 

However, I'm nothing if not weird in my game choices, so let's talk about it anyway.

 

This is Animal Crossing meets Kingdom Hearts as far as I'm concerned. The Magic Kingdom has been taken over by a weird darkness (which also has the side effect of making famous Disney characters lose their memories), and it's up to you to cast out the darkness, visit different characters and restore Disney to its former glory. You do this by completing various tasks , whether that's finding Goofy's fishing rod, setting up Scrooge McDuck's store signs (more on him in a minute) or simply by planting and harvesting different crops.

 

So. Mr McDuck. The Scottish, money-swimming capitalist. He's Tom Nook. Buying/upgrading stores or buying clothes and decorations all goes through him. And his prices are just as disgraceful as Animal Crossing's awful banker. I've paid him to make a little store for Goofy (and subsequently upgrade said store). I've paid him to build his own store, and then spent MORE money in there. And it seems he exists solely to leech from my wallet. At least he's true to character, I suppose.

 

It seems to have a lot more focus than AC right now. While I've never played it, my understanding of AC is that you don't really have a specific goal list where you can change your tasks and set new ones. This has an actual focussed goal list. And while that might mean the end game could end up a bit pointless, Disney have almost a century's worth of content to draw from, so they should have no trouble keeping it interesting.

 

The music is just so. Fucking. Charming. From symphonic takes on Let It Go and How Far I'll Go to the simple When You Wish Upon A Star, there's an awesome little tracklist that rotates, and it gives the game this unique personality that's incredibly sedate.

 

Graphics are... functional. They do the job, but they definitely aren't made to impress. There's tons of character, though. Especially in the Disney character models.

 

My biggest negative, and something that keeps niggling is that the controls feel really loose. It's almost as though your avatar is on a slight delay whenever you press buttons. There's no combat and nothing that needs a huge amount of reaction time, but it's just a little distracting when it looks and feels like you're floating slightly above the floor, rather than actually walking on it.

 

After doing my first batch of goals, I've chosen to go to the Moana-themed level. I've stopped it there, because I started last night when Oscar was in bed and I want him to see it, but it's seemed to worm into my brain already, and I definitely want to see more of what it has to offer.

[shinymcshine]

Is it an actual retail game with real content ?

 

I'd just assumed once I noted it was from Gameloft that it would be a freebie 'mobile' game packed with paid for microtransactions. 

[regemond]

It's a full retail game that's currently in open beta (I think), and it's 'free' if you have Game Pass.

 

It looks like it CAN be pay to win, but there's a hell of a lot of content to work through, and like any other MTX game, you don't have to pay anything. It's just quicker if you do.

 

I can already see where the pay to win stuff is gonna be, but as long as I don't come crashing into a wall I'm happy to keep chipping away at it for the time being.