How Disney Dreamlight Valley Helped Fix my Relationship with Disney

Hi I have a confession to make, I am an ex-Disney adult. I went to the parks almost every month back in the day. I went to Dapper Day, D23 and I even got married at Disneyland. What changed? The magic died back when I got married at the Happiest Place on Earth. I’ll spare you the details but let’s just say having to deal with the corporate side of Disney really smacks those rose-tinted goggles off your face. For three years after my wedding I wanted nothing to do with the mouse or his house. Kingdom Hearts used to be my favorite game series, but I couldn’t even look at it. Don’t even get me started on Epic Mickey. But time does really heal a lot of scars and when I saw Disney Dreamlight Valley when I was perusing GamePass I decided to give it a shot and it was, for lack of a better term, Magical. 

When articles say it’s Disney Animal Crossing they are not kidding. You create your character, show up in this valley filled with Disney Characters that need your help repairing the place so that more Disney characters can come and hang out. So you are crafting, farming, building homes for the toons, fishing, playing dress up you know the good stuff. Every day you log in you get rewards and just like animal crossing you wanna login every day see how the toons are doing maybe complete a quest or two really fast and then go about your life. Unlike Animal Crossing you can have your villagers follow you around and give you buffs to your everyday activities of your choosing like for example you can assign Goofy to help you with fishing and when he is hanging out with you he will give you extra fish. Having characters follow you around and help you do chorus is really charming and I feel supported as we try to improve the ruined village together. The characters also have really nice detail to them, when WALL.E is helping you out he will play “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” and Goofy does his signature “perfect cast” when he is fishing. 

I like to think Donald is making fun of you by copying your pose here.

I was worried when I first started playing it since I saw that there might be microtransactions, but that worry was squashed when I started actually playing the game. The in game currency (Moonstones) can be acquired by just logging in and opening chests or getting more with the battle pass type events. Regardless of your feeling toward Disney as a company I think you should give this life sim a shot if you liked Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon. If Disney spurred you over the years it might be time to go back to the valley and see some old friends, they’ve missed you.