Disney Dreamlight Valley – Never Forget to Remember

I hope everyone has been enjoying all my updated posts about this game as much as I enjoy writing them. As of the time this article was written, the latest update has brought us a beautiful conclusion to the game’s main story. What sets Disney Dreamlight Valley apart from other similar games I’ve played is that there are things to do every day, but it also has elements of any other linear game with a central story to keep it exciting and fun.

Now that enough material has been released, I can write a proper review of this game like I do with every other game’s story!

A magical place like Dreamlight Valley is a place we go to in our dreams, but upon returning, something is not right, the village is infested with Night Thorns, many of the villagers have fled back to their own realms and those that stayed have either lost most of their memories or have vanished into a dimension between two worlds. When arriving, I was tasked to help Merlin clean the place up and figure out what was happening.

Already equipped with the magic of my own, Merlin told me that I was Dreamlight Valley’s monarch and that the plague ravaging the village is called the Forgetting. Eventually not only has it impacted the memories of the villagers, but there are several orbs in each biome that keep Dreamlight Valley stable and all of them have gone missing.

I’ve spent hundreds of hours in this game already and it isn’t easy remembering all of what I had to do to acquire each orb!

The gameplay is like any other simulation game. It’s like my new Animal Crossing, and that was my biggest complaint about ACNH how tools would always eventually break whether crafted or bought. So I can fish, dig, water plants, mine, etc. plus I have free reign of decorating the place with furniture and landscape, though I haven’t changed things too much. Whenever I play these games I tend to spend more time doing daily stuff and quests when I’m given them, whereas I’ve seen other players go all out with designs. There is a design tool which I still have to experiment with designing clothes in this game. It does look a bit easier than in AC so I should set aside some playtime to do just that.

Not only are there quests from the main story but there are also friendship quests from characters as they join the valley. You can level up their friendship by speaking to them daily, giving them gifts or spending time with them while you do fishing or gardening, and there are rewards for unlocking each friendship level. I enjoyed receiving these and the memories of each character returning as I did. But, my one gripe with quests is that many of them were pretty much the same, like when Minnie Mouse finally arrived in my valley after being stuck between the Here and There, she had one quest for me to build a rustic clock that involved gathering a large amount of wood and two hundred pieces of clay!

That’s right, most of the quests in this game are mainly about fetching stuff to craft a specific item for the quest. It reached a point where I would hoard the most common items just so I would have enough for another person’s quest. I also quickly learned which crops produce more profit at Goofy’s stall.

Speaking of Goofy, and other characters, what do I have to say about that? Well, they’re no different than they are in all the Disney movies I’ve seen. Mickey is cheerful as ever, Moana is always doing her water dance and talking about how much she loves sailing, Ariel loves to sing, and Simba walks around bopping from side to side carefree, you know the drill. I find it especially adorable when Stitch takes out his little guitar and starts playing.

Many of the characters I enjoy talking to daily, it’s funny to hear Scar talk all grumpily about his hunger and Ariel even quizzed me on how much I know about her and I got every answer right of course! I loved how after I brought Eric to the valley, he wanted to make a nautilus shell necklace for Ariel that would allow her to transform from mermaid to human and back whenever she liked.

I also found every friendship quest had something too emotional to offer like the end of Scar’s quest made him realize he is capable of having some compassion. I also loved Elsa’s quests where we had to search for the shards to discover the secrets of a mysterious door inside an ice cave, I could go on forever because a lot of the quests were great for character development, even if I was just an errand girl.

So how do I talk about about the game’s best moments in terms of story? There’s always something exciting happening whenever there was a new update that impacted the story revolving around the spread of the Forgetting. Each Biome had a different pillar with its orbs missing that began to destabilize the valley’s biomes. I remember doing this for the Glade of Trust, Sunlit Plateau and Frosted Heights the most.

The Glade involved me venturing to Here and There where Minnie had once been wandering, (when I saw a ghost of her earlier, I mistook it for a glitch) and Kristoff had to temporarily give up his memories of Anna to help me locate the orb, but thankfully he got that back when I completed his and Anna’s line of quests.

The Frosted Heights just needed me to give a little love to Olaf and the Sunlit Plateau took some time it would result in the restoration of the water flowing through, but at least Scar was able to put aside his selfish needs for the greater good to help me.

In fact, what was also exciting about fixing the pillars in the Frosted Heights and Sunlit Plateau is eventually it started to come together as I saw a shadowed version of myself take the orbs which led Merlin to believe that this was the work of the Forgotten. It made me think, is that a past version of myself? It looked a lot like me. There was even foreshadowing of where I would eventually go to confront them.

Eventually with the help of the Fairy Godmother, I was able to step into the Forgotten shoes and it saddened me to make her do many things that resulted in the deterioration of the valley such as ruining the Dreamlight tree for instance, breaking the bonds of friendship and even ignoring some of the wisest advice from Merlin. It was so sad that all I wanted to do from there on out was to face the Forgotten and help her realize that she is loved.

So that’s right, the Forgotten is our main antagonist of the game and they will basically be your doppelganger depending on the gender. For me, she just wanted to be left alone and seemed to want everyone else to know her pain so she took the orbs from the pillars and soon the Forgetting began to spread. Villagers began to lose their memories and abandoned the place and the night thorns began to grow as everything else started to wither. As I found memories of the Forgotten, I learned that she and I were related after all, as I spoke to the villagers and recalled the memories I had as a child such as when Moana told me how we used to play in the sandbox together.

Thus instead of a battle, the Forgotten and I relive our childhood memories. I have come to believe that the Forgotten is like the pragmatic and cynical side of myself in the game, representing the struggles of growing up and letting it consume her to a point where she wants everyone else to feel her pain. Until together we see those memories and remind each other that we don’t need to leave things behind from our childhood when we become adults that is what I have always loved about Disney and continue to live by those morals today.

No Disney movie or even game is complete without a happy ending, it was very emotional to learn of the Forgotten’s pain but it would have been worse to defeat them. Now she roams my valley freely and we made peace. I bet you as more people play this game, they will have even more characters standing here for the final scene!

So my verdict for this game is it is truly a magical place to escape reality whenever you like. It will eventually become free to play when it comes out of early access, my only problem is them introducing microtransactions and I wish they weren’t so forced but there are plenty of things that are free to use like designing clothes and furniture which was recently added with update 5.

There is still going to be tons to do later this year, and I especially can’t wait for the fall update as it will include a Beauty and the Beast realm at last and I may still continue to share posts about those said updates.

It’s a great game that’s still in development and the devs work very hard every day to improve it. It’s my first time playing something fully in Early Access but it was worth my time. I can’t help but give it a perfect score despite the microtransactions, the only thing I don’t like about the game is that the rest is great and seeing that post-credits scene made me extremely eager for what’s happening next because even though the Forgotten has stopped her schemes and the valley is restored, the Forgetting still affects many villagers and the night thorns won’t stop growing so we shall see.

Great game, I am addicted to it and enjoy relaxing with my favourite characters every day. I always look forward to new content. I really hope they add more princesses and villains soon as well.

👽Emily