Disney Dreamlight Valley (Switch) Review
Release Date: September 6th, 2022
Developer: Gameloft
Platforms: Nintendo Switch (Reviewed), Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC (via Steam and Epic Games)
Price: $29.99 (Founder’s Pack - Standard), $49.99 (Founder’s Pack - Deluxe), $69.99 (Founder’s Pack - Ultimate)
To many, Disney is more than just a company. Disney, arguably, is even more than just the stories they tell. The name Disney itself brings a warmhearted and wholesome feeling because it's an ecosystem of magical properties one can get lost in, experiencing kingdoms, unique worlds, and characters that are relatable and enchanting. Virtually every childhood around the world has grown up with Disney films in some capacity, whether they be the original animations that gave Disney the name and allure it has today, from Sleeping Beauty to Cinderella to Lion King and The Little Mermaid, or its acquisitions from Pixar to Marvel and Star Wars that have opened the eyes of - and introduced universes to - many others. Disney's treasure trove of properties and how each connects with someone around the world in their own special way is what makes it so universally beloved, and the way they intertwine to create the amalgamation we know as the Magic Kingdom encapsulates what is also known as the "happiest place on Earth". While many Disney games have been released for decades where we've gotten the opportunity to play and hang out with our favorite characters as in Disneyland Adventures, Disney Infinity, Disney Magical World, and Rush: A Disney-Pixar Adventure, among a plethora of others more tied to specific properties, few have actually put players directly into these worlds in an immersive fashion, and Disney Dreamlight Valley is the first in a long time that has taken not only the best possible ideas from the most successful farming sims in the last couple of years but also given tons of quality-of-life improvements to create a seamless farming-sim/adventure experience where the cast of characters also feel very much alive and an important part of the world rather than props. It's a game that is fantastic in every sense of the word when it works - but only when it works. While we can't speak for other platforms at the moment, the Nintendo Switch version is an unfortunate mess riddled with bugs and technical issues that if it wasn't for my love of Disney and inherent stubbornness, I likely would've rage quit within the first few hours instead of spending all day and night playing Disney Dreamlight Valley enduring some of the most frequent and egregious crashes I've seen since the launch of Nintendo Switch.
Disney Dreamlight Valley is a wholly new and passionate experience where players have their user-created avatar suddenly transported into Dreamlight Valley as a "magical chosen one" to help the village and its inhabitants overcome an infestation of Night Thorns that have been brought about by a plague known as The Forgetting, which has caused a lot of Dreamlight Valley's people to become lost and forget things entirely. As someone pure-hearted, it's now up to the player to help restore Dreamlight Valley and its villagers by ridding of the Night Thorns plaguing the land and giving the world a much-needed facelift to help shape the look and way for a new beginning in Dreamlight Valley for both former and new residents. The biomes are plentiful, and host resources of all kinds within beachy areas, forest areas, mountainous areas, desert areas, and more, and the realms within the castle at the top of Disney Dreamlight Valley add another layer of smaller hubs that are designed and themed to fit certain characters in mind, from Wall-E to Moana and Frozen to Wreck-It-Ralph. These all come with their own set of quests that are fairly well designed and feel fulfilling, as not only do these increase a friendship meter up to a max friendship of level 10 between residents to increase the bond between the player and them but rewards are simultaneously gained in a number of ways that also include leveling up a category of farming that a character has been assigned to. The quests are thoughtful and feel very much on-brand with each character's respective traits (e.g. expect to cook and gain a LOT of recipes with Remy in the Ratatouille world and retrieve paper for Ursula's contracts), and the way they weave into other characters that you wouldn't expect is well done and makes the world feel cohesive like everyone is aware of one another's existence instead of being segregated and only acknowledging the properties that they're from. That recognition from character to character - and even seeing some speaking to each other as you're just walking around the Valley - makes Disney Dreamlight Valley feel much more alive and natural.
One of the most important things to note is that while Disney Dreamlight Valley is slated to be a free-to-play game releasing sometime in 2023, the game is available now as an Early Access title, but it's hard to say if the early access to the game is meant by definition because one can pay to have it early through its Founder's, Deluxe, and Ultimate Edition offerings, or if it's because the game is still in somewhat of a beta phase. This is actually a compliment as well because the game itself has an incredible amount of content and feels almost endless from the get-go, with tons of goals to collect and aim for which will give Dreamlight - a special currency mainly used to unlock realms and biomes - including its own version of a battle pass known as the Star Path to give extra premium rewards not typically found in Scrooge McDuck's daily rotational store similar to how it functions in Disney Magical World. Even though that *could* have been enough to launch with, the 'Collections' tab will show that everything that can theoretically be collected at the time of launch is well into the thousands. Recipes (meals), ingredients, fish, memories, crafting, characters, clothing sets, gems, furniture sets, critters, and foraging all make up Disney Dreamlight Valley's core collectibles that all hold an important part of the foundation of its gameplay. It can become borderline addicting to want to collect and make use of everything that can be collected, but thankfully with the way the game is structured, it doesn't overwhelm the player all at once with anything and everything that can be grabbed. A lot are locked behind certain biomes and story progression markers and for good reason. The game doesn't want you to have certain memories or recipes that can fill your stamina meter tenfold, instead working your way up with the ingredients you find little by little. Not only are the meals an important element to the game as they keep your stamina up without having to go back home to rest, but they can be used as gifts for residents in addition to just about anything else.
Disney Dreamlight Valley has arguably become one of my favorite farming-sim adventure games of all time. It's got all the quality-of-life enhancements and perks I've wanted from the genre that normally feels hellbent on making sure stamina usage, scheduled stores/NPCs, and a struggle for income frustrates the player in what should otherwise be a cathartic escape into the very things the average person probably deals with on a daily basis - exhaustion, others being unavailable when you need them, and being underpaid for an exorbitant amount of work - and thankfully Disney Dreamlight Valley GETS that. I keep thinking about how it'll eventually become free-to-play, and while it's highly possible the ecosystem of the game will change between now and 2023, I have trouble seeing how monetization can be done when everything feels so… reasonable. Maybe it's because this proves that there is, in fact, a way to make a free-to-play game that doesn't nickel and dime you every chance it can get just to progress and can actually be enjoyed without having to spend a dime (i.e. Genshin Impact, Tower of Fantasy, Fortnite, Pokémon Masters) and feeling that respect as a player right away instead of immediately being surrounded in a community where those that pay have the bigger advantage (especially in a competitive setting) can almost come as a shock, something akin to constantly being in abusive relationships and finally meeting someone who is kind and treats you right, though you can't help but continue wonder if this is real or if there's another agenda behind it.
Things aren't all peaches and roses in Disney Dreamlight Valley, however. While the game feels undoubtedly complete and is well worth the price of entry at a minimum of $29.99 USD, abuse takes another form on Nintendo Switch. Earlier it was stated that when the game works, it's a fantastic time, which is true, but the technical issues, bugs, and crashes are so egregious that the Night Thorns are the least of anyone's worries. Two patches have been sent out pre-launch and little was done to enhance the experience or stability on Nintendo Switch. As someone who played all hours of the day to squeeze out as much as possible, crashes would happen almost every 15-30 minutes without fail. Most of the time, these would happen when picking up special orbs or notes that randomly spawn when harvesting, digging, or foraging, as well as chests that are sporadically placed throughout the Valley and a villager's home. There were consistent periods of crashes also when entering or leaving a building, and sometimes if too much time is spent in the furniture layout screen where the player can move around just about every asset on-screen indoors and outdoors, it would crash there too. Even when opening up the inventory, the game would suffer from severe freezes, stutters, and lag, and I couldn't help but have immediate flashbacks to YouTuber's Life 2 which handled its gameplay in a similar sense but also suffered from some of the worst technical issues the Switch had seen to-date at the time of the review. Both games offered fantastic experiences with relatively appealing stylized graphics for the Switch, but the technical shortcomings would absolutely crush and mutilate any enjoyable moments to be had with the game. Disney Dreamlight Valley became so bad on Switch that after my fifteenth - yes, fifteenth - crash for the day, I had to admit to myself that it simply wasn't worth it and stopped playing for the night to sleep it off. I couldn't play comfortably after a point because I was always worried about an imminent crash around the corner from anything I could be doing - speaking to someone, crafting something, opening up a menu, picking up an item, placing furniture, cooking a meal, harvesting my crops, going in and out of a building, fast traveling to a realm or biome, watching a cutscene, taking a photo, or even something as basic as switching what tool I was holding in my hand.
To make matters worse, two of my questlines are broken, and neither patch has corrected them. While I've made quite a huge amount of progression in Disney Dreamlight Valley in the short time we got to spend time with it before it became publicly available today, September 6th, I've thankfully been able to continue the bulk of the story and fulfilled most character quests and side quests, but in particular, with Wall-E and Moana, I can't seem to make any progress whatsoever with them anymore. In Wall-E's case, one of the steps in the quest line was to gather two garnets (gems) to give to Wall-E to convince them to come to the Valley and help out, however, unsurprisingly, my game crashed while I was in the middle of mining the various rocks scattered throughout to attain the garnets I needed. Upon bootup and continuing the game (in which the loading rivals that of Animal Crossing reaching 2-3+ minutes) it suddenly updated the quest which then said "Beautiful! Now go show Wall-E!", but despite no garnets on my person, I went ahead and spoke to Wall-E and was greeted with a blank text box where the quest progression/completion box would normally be. It has been like this since the beginning of my playthrough, and no patch that has been sent out has resolved this issue. In Moana's case, it's a much simpler story, but despite not crashing, there is a bug in which I'm no longer able to communicate with her through gifts, conversations, and hangout sessions to increase our friendship because they're locked until you can get characters to Friendship Level 2, however, she's currently friendship level 4 with me and is currently my lowest Friendship level with everyone in the valley, where almost everyone has reached max level.
Discussing the game with my peers who also had early review copies of the game, one even had an instance in which they could no longer fish as they would no longer spawn for them. They could get a plethora of seaweed, but no bubbles (which indicate a variety of fish are available) would appear in any lake, pond, or seaside, leaving a Valley where fish have gone extinct.
My deepest condolences go out to Flounder and the cast of both The Little Mermaid and Luca.
In another case, one peer needed Dream Shards - rare crystallized shards that are used for very specific purposes - to continue quest lines for some characters, including a very important story questline, yet couldn't attain any from the Night Thorns that were spread throughout the valley; plenty of Night Shards, but no Dream Shards. After days of trying, they were essentially forced to restart the game from the beginning despite only having used Dream Shards for quest-related purposes instead of anything they themselves had wanted to use them on. This low drop rate juxtaposed the plentiful offering of Night Shards is a balance discrepancy that could undoubtedly cause a lot of trouble for players, and in worse case scenarios causing some to have to restart entirely.
While there are many more bugs that could be listed, we wanted to tackle some of the worst ones available and make those opting for the Switch version of the game to be aware that the portability comes at a cost. Thankfully, with cloud saves, one can pick up where they left off on another platform and likely get a more stable experience, and for those that own Xbox Game Pass planning to play Disney Dreamlight Valley there on either console or PC, you'll be able to instead use Switch as a tool to get a few things finished in a rapid-fire session before bed. Disney Dreamlight Valley has everything it needs to be the next big thing in the genre and will undoubtedly be a huge hit for fans around the world, and if these bugs, technical, and performance problems weren't so egregious on Switch, Disney Dreamlight Valley would likely see itself getting a near perfect score, but the lingering feeling of your progress being lost once more and a crash being triggered by basically *existing* throws any sense of comfort out of the window while playing Disney Dreamlight Valley on Nintendo Switch. As what should have been the most magical farming experience diminished in quality with each passing hour, it was apparent that the Switch version is less "Dreamlight Valley" and more "Nightmare Alley".
PROS:
Disney's treasure trove of properties shines unlike ever before in a wonderful and immersive farming simulator.
A fantastic art direction with an incredibly deep character creator to make the avatar a player wants, however faithful to one's own look or however unique to a creative vision.
Cloud save support is essential to having an optimal experience where you can play wherever you'd like, picking up right where you left off.
Well worth the budget price of entry at $29.99, though highly recommended on other platforms—Switch should be a last-resort choice.
CONS:
Some of the worst technical issues and bugs seen to-date on the Nintendo Switch.
Performance can be extremely bad during heavier scenarios, also stuttering and freezing when you least expect it to.
Moving around furniture is a bit of a nightmare because of the sensitivity of the sticks, and placements + camera controls are not tuned whatsoever.
The Switch cannot reasonably handle multiplatform games anymore, and constantly defending poorly optimized experiences such as this should be condemned; the sacrifices are not worth it.
It crashed four more times while writing this.
A big thank you and a heap of gratitude to the good folks at Gameloft for providing us a copy of Disney Dreamlight Valley for the purposes of this review!