Disney Dreamlight Valley – General thoughts so far!

I’ve actually been asked often, both by friends and random people who generally like these types of games, but also had a request for my thoughts at this point after playing for over 100 hours in nearly 2 weeks. As a reminder, the game is in Early Access and so anything I say here could change.

The short version is if you like stuff like Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, and Puzzles, I do think you should look into it more as you will probably have a lot of fun with this. Disney is definitely a bonus, but not an end-all be-all– I know people who aren’t super into Disney and have still gotten very into the game just due to liking the genre and getting interested in the story. It’s very much a Life-Sim Puzzle Adventure Game that just happens to feature Disney characters. Knowing things about them maybe help with certain quests or discussions, but isn’t a requirement in any way.

General In-Game Thoughts

For the most part, I am enjoying the game so far, but honestly, it’s Disney, there’s customization elements, and there’s puzzles– it’s no surprise I was interested in the game from the start and obviously, have been excited for a while now. And I think when you’re focusing on story stuff, that’s kind of where the game shines most right now for me, even if the puzzles were a bit simplistic, but it is early game so it’s kind of expected.

If you’re the really creative type, I think you can get a lot out of the Touch of Magic Tool as well with so many shapes and motifs you can unlock, but due to certain issues with it (Such as the “mirroring” option causing the item to duplicate into a new layer after being mirrored– great if you want two different colors, but kind of inconvenient otherwise, especially as if you still want to adjust the positioning, you need to either delete the new layer or move them both separately and hope they’re still lined up), you can hit those 50 layers so quickly.

My dress doesn’t look too fancy, but I still ended up hitting 50 very fast as I unlocked more motifs in the game. There’s maybe a few things I could try adjusting using new tools to get myself some more layers, but I’d worry about ruining the outfit in the process. Kind of makes me wish I could duplicate a design so I could test stuff out on a second one without worry of ruining the first. I know there’s an undo button, but I’m paranoid XP

I would say my biggest issue with the Touch of Magic customization right now is the lack of colors– we have so many more shades and even expanded gradients and stuff on existing clothes, plus more styles (I’d love to have a proper overskirt than just an illusion of one), and god, I’m so sad there’s no nice light pink shade to pick for the outfit/certain patterns– I did my best to make it work with the lightest “pink” they had, but I really wish I could’ve made it nicer.

As for actual furniture/item customization, I wish I could comment more on it, but to be honest, I haven’t done much with it yet. It’s not necessarily due to not wanting to, but due to having trouble deciding what to do. Right now, I’m getting such a random amalgamation of stuff with no idea what to predict (I really wish they showed all the items like how you can see certain other things in the Collection just faded out) so I can’t actually plan out WHAT to make. Plus, we have no house exterior customizations yet and… the yellow house really isn’t very me.

On top of that, despite the general customization, some things are locked (such as ponds or big rocks) and many items (and the villager houses) are huge so fitting them around the few objects that can’t be moved can be a bit harder than expected.
I’m also kind of mixed on how much I want to change. I do feel bad fully like… removing trees and shrubs for more room, so I’m really struggling just what I want to leave alone and what I want to change up. I know that’s not really an issue for a lot of people, but for me I find it a bit overwhelming so I’ve just done… well, barely anything despite having plans for where I wanted to put my character’s house since before the game’s early access began.

It’s also a bit difficult because, so far, some areas in quests have been heavily required based off where something may be located and I’m kind of worried moving something could cause issues in a future quest as the story isn’t complete yet. Obviously, this is issue has hopefully been taken into account, but I worry anyway.

There are also situations like The Forgotten Lands where it’s currently just… entirely covered in fire that I’m sure we’ll be able to remove in the future with some quest, but makes it very hard to do much of anything in. Initially, I also wanted to move all the Villains here (I’m going for some kind of theming, okay??), but even this is impossible because Ursula’s house requires water around it (I kind of hope maybe they can eventually have it so water is just stuck to the bottom so you can place it other places) and Mother Gothel is currently living in the big tree in the Glade of Trust. Maybe she’ll move out eventually.

It’s hard for me to really just plan out as I go and I really need to be able to plan ahead and have some idea of what I have to work with to properly make things work so being stuck in this state of unknowing just has had me more or less leaving everything alone beyond placing new houses, many of which I may move again once I get the ball rolling a bit here.

If I do get everything currently possible done, I may start at least making some progress to moving things like I hoped?? But it’s just hard to figure out what I want to do and set things up when I not only don’t know what is currently available (and who knows what else is to come), but also can’t make some things I do want to like the lovely path I’d love to make, but can’t because Alexandrite isn’t in the game yet ;~; I’ll have to mine a lot…

But as for what I have left to do right now… I would say, that ties into my biggest frustration with the game: The Grind is awful. At later levels, you will be crafting and gathering a lot of resources– Hundreds of Iron Ore to make into Iron Ingots (which you then need to make into Tinkering parts), Hundreds of Stone, Wood, Clay, etc. to make various items to proceed in quests… Even Seaweed, which you may get sick of fishing up, is actually used for various crafting materials in the making of Fiber (and balancing it as the favorite food for Sea Turtles as well).

As many of you may be familiar with here, I hate crafting, so needing to constantly have so many items on hand and in such large amounts is exhausting. It sucks just spending hours just smacking rocks and digging into the ground to constantly farm resources. Storage is also a huge problem with chests only being able to hold 16 items each (only your one in-house chest seems to actually upgrade in size) and honestly, even if they eventually add storage expansions, I don’t want a bazillion chests holding different things and trying to keep track. Cooking and Crafting shows they can keep track of EVERYTHING across every chest– let me do that with storing and grabbing things so I don’t have to make a map to keep track of my chests. Especially when items can only go up to 50 or 99 and you need more than that stack amount to even make certain things, it just becomes even more frustrating. If I can’t hold the amount of an item you’re asking me for to craft in a single stack, maybe it’s way too many required for a single item.

The only real positive for me with it is that with crafted furniture, if you have it in your inventory (and I hope they do fix this to make it so it notices items placed too– I’m assuming it’s just a bug right now that it does not), you can then buy more from Scrooge. And when you just made a Clocktower that takes 200+ of various materials to make and you can just buy it for like 13,000 Gold from Scrooge, it is genuinely a relief.

Unfortunately, that grind is where I’m stuck for many reasons:

  • Memories – I really like the memory system in theory. I think it’s fun as you unlock things story-wise and find things you can interact with in the world. I think it’s a lot less fun when you’re just stuck gardening/mining/fishing/cooking etc. for hours even if you don’t need anything just to try and farm parts of a memory that isn’t guaranteed to even be new. I get that this is to be a long-term goal and I’m criticizing about it only about 2 weeks in, but with how it works now, I don’t have faith someone could truly get through the game even when it’s “finished” to some extent and have a good amount banged out. It just feels too random and inconsistent. And I don’t know, being 44/121 even after over 100 hours has me a little concerned pacing-wise, especially as I’m sure that number will go up as more updates come out, plus some I know aren’t available just yet either. Right now, there’s also 47 pieces I have that are fragments are various memories which don’t get counted at all to that number so it’s not like I’m not finding anything… but knowing I still need so much and am getting doubles on memories even now really hurts.
    • In addition, can I just say how much I really hate the “fragmented” memories system? Each memory is already kind of a fragment of a story without literally breaking up one into ~10 different memory pieces you need to find. It’s also just… honestly less exciting than finding a full memory and is another thing adding to an already extensive grind.
  • Motif Bags – The only real way to get Motifs right now is from feeding Critters with a higher chance at doing so when it’s a favorite item. Some of those favorites are some pretty rare stuff and as I get down to just needing the “rare” colors (ones that only show up for a day), I feel less motivated to try for them, especially when I’m getting buried in Dream Shards now. I REALLY hope another way will be added to get Motifs in the future– maybe if a clothing-specific store or something gets added… Or just a character who will sell those magic bags (The clothing, furniture, and motif ones).
  • Dreamlight Duties – I just like completing things, but I definitely have more than enough Dreamlight for future things. I pretty much just have Fishing, Foraging, and Mining tasks left and it’s… definitely a lot. I very much am motivated by what I “need” with those types of things– IE: I’m motivated to get one of each for any kind of collection thing and anything I may need for another collection thing such as cooking and then my motivation dies entirely because it becomes too repetitive for me. I know most people do not have this problem.
  • Crafting – What I’m currently working on. As mentioned, some items just require way too many things, in my opinion, and I don’t know, it kind of feels demoralizing to gather up a full stack of an item just to see it go away entirely on one item.

Besides those, it’s mainly “waiting game”-related tasks otherwise. Waiting for Scrooge to restock, waiting for Eric to add new blueprints, waiting for those 1-Day only Critters to come back around, etc. So, when I do feel like playing, I’m either popping on just for one of these or using my brief grind tolerance to work on the above.

The 1-Day only Critters ties into my only other big issue with the game right now: Despite the flexibility of making stores 24 hours and sleep schedules being more like naps (though, those can still be inconvenient to people– they at least seem to wake up for urgent quests, but if you can only play for an hour a day and it’s the one hour they’re taking a nap, you’re out of luck with giving them their favorite items which does suck), there’s a handful of time-specific tasks such as finding the Shards in Mother Gothel’s questline each requiring a specific time of day and some Critters only sticking around for 6-8 hours. Anyone who knows me knows I love pets and I have absolutely bent my sleeping schedule out of shape trying to keep up with them.

Similarly, while it’s great they have made it so crops always grow “in minutes”, when some take 90 minutes to 4 hours, honestly, I wish I had some way to speed it up. Even making it so they grow faster as you level up would be nice.

That said, while friendship is also kind of a grind, I actually didn’t find it too bad in the long run. Between Remy’s Restaurant, favorite items, and even doing the chosen task with whoever when you hang out with them (I find Mining and Gardening to be the best– I may do solely Mining later as I feel like I need more Gems than Crops at this point and it felt the fastest), they honestly can go up really fast and only around 8-10 does it feel kind of slow.

Ursula and Ariel are about the only hang-ups as they currently cannot hang out with you, and in the sense of Ursula, won’t be at Remy’s restaurant (I’m not sure if Ariel goes or not once you do get her the ability to walk on legs again when she feels like it), which means all you can do to get them up is spam them with gifts. While you can give gifts infinitely (Favorite gifts are a boost from 3 different items a day that you get from the first time you give each item that day), it’s still relatively slow. At the very least, it does seem they took this in mind as Ursula and Ariel get more from non-favorite gifts than other characters… but that doesn’t make it any less slow at times.

The Stamina system, at the very least, is honestly really odd because it almost feels unneeded with how easy it is to work with. Go home or eat some fruit you likely quickly foraged from somewhere anyway. I guess it could be a good way to get some people to take a break, but I’m kind of glad that you can just keep trucking along if you want to. It really lets you play at the pace you want… ignoring those weird time-locked situations.

tl;dr version: The Story and Questline stuff are really interesting. Looking for stuff to interact with that could find you a new memory or collectible is a lot of fun. I also really love the puzzles.
The main problem is that the game gets incredibly grindy right now and I don’t think that’s a fun way to expand the playtime. Plus, some strange choices on what’s time locked and what’s not.

Obviously, if you’re the type to go super hard on farming with hundreds of crops plotted and you like spending all day mining, some of these issues may not be a problem at all for you.

I think the game is still really fun and even if you mainly just play for story and some customization, I think you can get a lot out of it. Just those grind 200+ of things may wear you down a bit if you have trouble with those kinds of things like I do.

Exclusives and Monetization

Obviously, I’ve been playing since Day 1, but I do hope they will reconsider and let people be able to get the Week 1 Bonus items later on, even if maybe you need to spend some money to get them. Similarly, I still think the Founder’s Pack items should stick around after the game launches Free to Play– considering the prices for the packs were likely around the amount of Moonstones you get, the items were essentially free gifts, so I hope they do consider just putting them in the market for people to buy, though, maybe for cheaper since they won’t come with Moonstones or any other bonuses. I know right now this isn’t the plan, but with Early Access, things can change so I’m just saying again how I really hope they consider this.

Similarly, I hope all “Star Path” stuff can still be gotten as well in the future, considering there is still supposed to be a premium store. I also hope something can be done for those who maybe have no way to access the ADT to get the Dreamlight Valley Jersey as well.

Now, let’s talk about the biggest question I get asked about: The Game’s Monetization. I’ve spoken previously about my concerns with the Star Path, so now that I’ve experienced and finished it, I wanted to refine my thoughts a bit.

I will say, in general, I’m still not a fan of Mission Pass systems. That said, I do think Dreamlight Valley’s is better than many I’ve seen previously, but it does also fall into a bit of a concerning grind at points.

The way the system works, at least for the moment, is it costs 2,500 Moonstones (Likely to be about $10 based off the estimates they gave for how many months you can complete based off the amount you got from each Founder’s Pack) to unlock or 4,100 if you take an extra 100 Event/Mission Pass Currency (Discounted for your first purchase of 100) which allows you to get a bonus three tasks showing up in addition to the three already and unlocks more items you can buy on the Star Path.

Essentially, there’s five pages of rewards with a bonus page at the end if you get everything. To unlock the next page, you need to buy at least three items from the current page. So, for example, if you get three items on page one, you’ll unlock page two. Buy three items on page two, you can unlock page three, etc. The only thing that requires you to have EVERYTHING unlocked is the final page which lets you exchange an extra event currency (which, you’re unlikely to have unless you bought some to get some items right away) for Moonstones.

I actually liked this system a lot as I only really wanted a few items from each page so this let me get nearly everything I really wanted pretty quickly before working on getting the other items just for completionist reasons. Item costs varied– Motifs were pretty much always 5 while clothing and furniture often varied between 10-25. The most expensive item was the IncrediSquirrel, who I needed immediately, which cost 40.

Some pages also have Moonstones available as well. Some of the tiers also allow you to get more Moonstones which I kind of wish some weren’t tied to Premium so people who go hard on the tasks can maybe get some Moonstones to help pay for their tier.

That said, you are able to get 10 Moonstones Daily from a blue chest somewhere in the Valley to help build up currency, but while you may manage to earn a lot of Moonstones from doing the Premium Star Path, it’s impossible to really get a leg-up unless you’ve bought Moonstones previously. I think anyone who has a Founder’s Pack will have some advantage in the future and maybe be able to keep up with it and have a good supply of Moonstones for future ones as well, but anyone who jumps in when it’s Free to Play will be unlikely to get Premium without putting in some money which I do think kind of sucks. You really do get an advantage from playing now in Early Access.

I would say my big worry with the Star Path though is the missions themselves. As mentioned, you can only see 3 at a time unless you get the Premium version which lets you see 6. There is a permanent set of tasks, it’s not random (the only thing I think may be random is the order you get them), and so when you have a task to go catch 20 Tuna, you are stuck with that task unless you buy the event currency you’d get from it to essentially “skip” it.

There’s no re-rolling on tasks and so if you get six that may be a bit too hard for you or require things you can’t access yet (because some of these tasks do require certain areas and characters unlocked), you’re essentially screwed until you can get those things… And even then, RNG can be rough. Grinding 20 Topazes took me ages, especially as any from your Companion don’t count, and the Plaza really just wanted to constantly give me Garnets.

I really wish they had it so you could see all tasks from the get-go so you can always make progress with the premium thing just being tied to some items you can claim. I only completed a handful of tasks while doing other stuff– most of the time, I had to completely focus on a single task to get it done which… honestly isn’t very fun. Especially when it’s like sell 200 of some item you probably have sold enough of already if only you had that task up when it came around.

The only real positive I have for how tasks are done is that there’s no time limit– you have the entirety of the Star Path to get it done. You don’t need to worry about getting close and then it rolling over when the day or week ends.

As for any other monetization, we won’t really know until Early Access is further along. The Premium Shop is supposedly not coming during Early Access (or at least not until closer to the end of Early Access). All we know is supposedly it’ll just be some cosmetics which hopefully won’t be too expensive and Expansions, though, it’s mixed on if those will only be new Biomes or if they will be Realms as well, so we just need to wait and see.

At the very least, since they seem to be listening to feedback, I’m going to keep my fingers crossed it may not be too bad. It’s entirely possible to make something that both makes money and doesn’t completely break your consumer’s wallets, so…

I do think the Star Path could work really well with just a few more adjustments. At the very least, it doesn’t feel as exhausting as most other games’ do for me.

I hope that gives you guys some idea of what I’ve thought about the game thus far! I guess the shortest way to explain it is I am mostly happy with it, but the grinding at certain points (and right now as repeat memories make me cry) is really exhausting. The Monetization also seems okay so far, but I could see it causing issues for those who choose not to play during the Early Access period/may play solely free to play.

Hopefully they’ll continue to consider feedback in the future though and it can continue to improve on some of the parts that really frustrate me in other Life-Sim games. I’m keeping my fingers crossed at least and looking forward to seeing how the story unfolds when we get the next update.

Tokyo Game Show VR!

I had initially planned to write about this last year in the wake of various digital events having ways to participate/interact online being really nice both for accessibility reasons and to give more people options to be part of a Video game convention/event and is something I’d love to see more companies do, even as we get back to live events, but for various reasons, couldn’t really figure out the best way to explain it. There was even Pokemon Virtual Fest back in 2020 which was a lot of fun.

The big highlight for me last year though was Tokyo Game Show VR where they made a whole VR world (and you can check it out without VR– that’s how I played) for you to explore and check out to see things available in Tokyo Game Show alongside earning special items as you played. I did a whole gameplay video of it:

And some of the many pictures I took:

With Live Events getting such a focus again, I figured this would be a one-time thing. To my surprise, they announced it would be returning with a whole new website set up for it advertising a whole Quest System. To say I was excited was an understatement and I had been looking forward to it since I found out… so obviously, as soon as 8PM EST was hit, I was ready to go.

Right from the get-go, I was impressed. It’s only been a year, but it honestly got such an impressive make-over.

It took us about 90 minutes to get through all the quests and check out everything and honestly, I enjoyed it every single second.

There’s a really neat story mixed in with everything as you go and while you can finish without doing all the quests, I’m happy I took the time to do everything. I’ll definitely keep an eye out incase more quests/content gets added during the event.

I have a full video up on Youtube as well:

But if you’d rather just see pictures, I have all the photos, that I haven’t already shared in this post, I took below!:

I think the only other thing I could ask for is more rides because the Boat Ride was so much fun.

Edit: Some more fun photos from when hanging out during Diggeh’s stream!

Disney Dreamlight Valley – Finishing up my current goals and some loose ends!

So, this is an overview of the last few days and may include a few future things until the next big update comes out. As for why, well, I’ll explain more later in the entry.

I finally managed to finish Mother Gothel’s quest. Unfortunately, I didn’t actually take any screenshots… I was expecting another step or having to head over to the tree in the Glade of Trust to do something, but instead, Mother Gothel apparently took care of the Mid-Day Shard and the quest just… kind of ended anticlimactically.

Despite some frustrations, I did get some very nice new items from Scrooge’s shop.

There’s a few items I’m still impatiently waiting to show up such as the shirt and jacket I really liked in the ADT and some furniture items I’ve seen other people get. Hopefully they’ll show up eventually…

I also spent some time upgrading my house, even though I have only 2/4 rooms on the first floor fully decorated and have no clue what to do with everything else. There’s apparently even more floors I can get which is kind of crazy. At the very least, I could have fun with themed rooms in the future.

I also finally figured out what to do with that book I mentioned last entry. Turns out it can be used on the Bookcase in the same room you found the book in. It unlocked another hidden room including two gems we can’t actually get in the game yet.

I decided to decorate the right room in my house to kind of a weird Fancy Study-Guest Room type thing? Since I put some of the leftover items in the Safe there. It looks kind of cute.

I also continue to add things to the Kitchen.

Speaking of Kitchens, all recipes officially learned! At least, until they add more…

I also spent some time fixing the pathing in the Plaza. It looks a lot neater now. And as you may notice, I’ve gotten a lot of the other items I liked from the ADT so far.

I also did a few more adjustments to the front of my house for now and added a bit more food in the Kitchen.

Plus, I added a little more to my custom dress as well.

My next goals are primarily going to be working on getting as much done as I can with Collections, especially Critter-related stuff. I’ve also set up a Tips & Tricks page which I hope can help people out a bit.

As things will be a bit slow, I’ll probably edit this with some smaller goals as I complete them, but stay turned to my next big DDLV post whenever the next content update hits :)

Disney Dreamlight Valley – Getting everyone else to Friendship level 10!

So, as I said yesterday, my goals for today were:
-Getting everyone to level 10
-Catching a Fugu
-Figuring out all the recipes.

For the most part, we got really close! We just… ran into a small number of caveats. I did succeed in getting everyone to level 10! And even finished all their quests! The problem is I’m still waiting to finish the step I’m on of Mother Gothel’s quest and apparently it takes 24 hours for the Crystal/Shard/Fragment to… feel like coming out of the ground so uh, tomorrow we should finally have it done and then, all quests will be complete!

I DID catch a Fugu! It seems they may only be able to be caught in the rain (in gold bubbles) which is… frustrating to say the least.

As for Recipes, I only have four left to figure out: Mushu’s Congee, Pan-Fried Angler Fish, Steamed Fugu, and Walleye en Papillote. Hoping I manage to soon T~T

But now, onto the tasks of the day! I decided to start on Elsa’s yet as she was pretty close and I was really curious what the door would open (I also took Eric along to help level him up as we went). That said, I ended up being a bit disappointed as it only really made the ice melt for a chest and there was no secret door opening or anything. It felt kind of anticlimactic– we did get some lore though! Elsa is the one who made the Frosted Heights… well, Frosted.

While working on leveling Eric up through some extreme mining, I realized there was actually a path down from the Forgotten Lands to the backside of the Sunlit Plateau for Ursula’s quest, so I didn’t need to move the well at all.

Eric’s quest was neat, but I was thinking we’d get to explore the Skull Cave due to some hints of him interacting with it over him just… going diving offscreen. I do like the ship model we get as a gift though.

I wish he’d stock blueprints more, however. It feels like he only stocks one a day thus far, which seems odd as he clearly has slots for more and it seemed the upgrading just came from finishing his friendship questline.

I decided to work on Ariel’s next, while having Anna tag along, if only because since Ariel can’t hang out, I just need to spam her with gifts and Ariel’s has been fun with each of her quests kind of affecting her house’s interior and I didn’t see much coming from Anna’s. We essentially got more lore, but also some hints to possibly Atlantis maybe appearing/being part of where we initially found Ariel. I’m really excited how this could tie into future content. I want some of the items she collected for my own house, honestly.

I did kind of hope to find more puzzles over just a crystal, but it was still neat if only for lore reasons. That said, I have no idea why we went to Ursula for the Anger emotion over Donald??

Anna’s quest was just about cheering up Elsa and giving her some gifts. My favorite part was making the Snow Family and it’s probably the only commemorative photo I haven’t ruined…. but I’m really sad because for some reason the Snow Family disappeared after :( I know you can make them all individually, but I really liked the group of four.

With all the quests done, I did a little more crafting and decorating by making a Zen Garden and placing the Couch I got from Ariel in my character’s room for now.

That said, there is still one mystery left… What is with the book I found in the secret room at the end of Mickey’s quest? Maybe it’ll be used with Mother Gothel’s? Or is it something for the future?

Disney Dreamlight Valley – The Extreme Friending to unlock more quests!

As I mentioned at the end of Day 3, Day 4’s main focus was extreme friending so I took the advice of someone in the Discord and just started slamming them with as many gifts as possible, but I also noticed that they seemed to get a lot of experience when doing whatever skill you gave them (IE: So a character who you made good at mining seems to get more expensive when you’re mining) and I ended up going back and forth between the two.

Before I started though, I noticed the game switched over at 4AM today so I stopped by Scrooge’s Shop and was VERY excited to see this item finally in stock. Plus, a cute pink couch! It’s a bit overly big though… I don’t think the long couch usually stretches that long.

If you’re wondering why these are just in my home, I was so excited I bought them immediately before even considering screenshots.

I also finally crafted the pink stove.

As mentioned, my main goals were friendship related– both the Characters and the Critters. Questing is always my favorite part of these types of things and I love collecting pets, so it’s not too much a surprise.

Despite not really being a fan of the villains, they seem to hold the most lore of the valley and considering Mother Gothel’s questline so far, it feels important to complete for when Rapunzel and Flynn may end up being added. Her next quest was one of the first I had that was actually time sensitive, needing to find three Fragments all locked to specific times of day. The Dawn Fragment available in the morning at Sunlit Plateau, the Noon Fragment available mid-day in the Glade of Truth, and the Dusk Fragment available at night in the Forest of Valor.

As I looked more into Critters as well, I noticed some were only available certain days and a handful even just select hours. I’ve been doing my best to document favorite foods for them, but with Sunbirds seemingly to have different favorites based on their colors and Ravens kind of MIA, it’s still been a bit tricky to find out.

Favorite Food Observations thus far

  • Squirrel – Peanuts
  • Rabbits – Carrot
  • Turtle – Seaweed
  • Raccoon – Blueberries
  • Crocodiles – Lobster
  • Foxes – White Sturgeon
  • Sunbirds: Seems to be flowers that match their color?
    • Golden Sunbird – Orange Houseleek
    • Emerald Sunbird – Green Passion Lily
    • Orchid Sunbird –
    • Red Sunbird – Red Bromeliad
    • Turquoise Sunbird – Pink Houseleek
  • Raven –

Be sure to check out this page for more Critter information

Squirrels are definitely the easiest to try and feed. You literally just go up to them and they let you. Rabbits and Foxes, however, like to play 3 quick games of tag before you can approach. Sunbirds can also be a little tricky– you essentially need to approach them while they’re flying in place. Turtles are probably the second easiest– you just need to approach them and be patient until they pop their head back out of their shell.
Raccoons, Crocodiles, and Foxes are frustrating to say the least. Raccoons and Crocodiles both work with a game of hot and cold– you need to run towards them and pause when they stop or look at you. If they are standing up/have their head up, stay still, if they are leaning down, move closer, until you are close enough to get the option.

I’m hoping to get all of them befriended ASAP if only so I can never do this again. Alas, I’ll still have to for Dreamlight Tasks at least, but honestly, it can be such a pain to find them sometimes and exhausting just repeatedly failing to approach them. It’s very finnicky, even if you know what to do.

Regardless, I ended up working on Mickey’s friendship next. His level 10 friendship reward was the very first I really wanted, due to my love of fountains, so it was nice to finally focus a bit on him. As an aside, I really want a furniture item that is essentially a waterfall-pond like this part of the Forest.

Focusing back on Mickey’s quest, the final part had us opening a secret door behind a curtain in the Castle. I knew that curtain looked suspicious. The room was pretty neat and I found another suspicious item in it that I’m curious what it could be used for in the future…

It actually took me quite a while to earn Tourmaline– I’ve been trying but had only gotten the Shiny version once. At least when I DID finally get it, I got three, so I was able to both complete this and have some for the future. I also finally unlocked this flooring I’ve been eyeing only for it to apparently require a gemstone we can’t even access yet T__T

I was pretty disappointed with the Fountain though… There’s no actual water flowing so it just looks like a fancy water pond. The Castle fountain doesn’t flow either.

Next up, I ended up getting Maui to 10. Partially due to all that grinding for Tourmaline. What was very surprising about this quest is that it really had nothing to do with him at all. It was about restoring the Heart of Dreamlight Valley which honestly, I wish I could’ve just kept for my house, but I suppose it looks nice with the fountain in the Castle too.

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday were essentially the unvisitable houses– while the one in Sunlit Plateau isn’t too surprising with all those rocks in front of it (I really would’ve considered it just scenery if it wasn’t for the map icon), the one in Forgotten Lands is especially suspicious to me.

Alongside all the friending, I also had been leveling up. Most of the Thorn stuff isn’t really my thing, but I really loved this Fireplace.

Moana’s quest ended with me needing to build something for the Leader Shards we’ve been finding and when she brought up the idea of these shards paired with Shells, I expected something a lot prettier. Apparently, it caused a new constellation to appear, but because the camera zoomed into a tree, I didn’t get to see it. We also got another commemorative photo that I am still really bad at taking.

Next up was Donald’s where I got to help build a fountain with actual flowing water!! Not sure why it’s also on fire though.

After the worst commemorative photo yet, because I placed the item facing the wrong way, I decided to bring the fountain back with me. I really wish the group photos were an auto set thing our character was just placed into over us having any control over it because I’m horrible at it.

I decided to work on Ursula’s next as hers was how we unlocked Eric. It also gave us the information on how her memories were kept intact.

I had to find three more crystals for the suspicious area I noticed in the Forgotten Lands. Of course, we ran into one small issue with the one in Sunlit Plateau being across the bridge. I ended up moving the well temporarily to access it.

This is the end of Ursula’s questline, but it feels like there’s still a lot happening here.

Regardless, we succeeded in getting Eric… after some trials of getting him to be a human again. I love his house and interior a lot– may be my favorite house layout so far. I want to combine his and Remy’s house and make them pink for my character’s house.

And with Eric’s questline, we finally made it so Ariel can walk on land or swim whenever she wants.

Eric still had one last questline for us before hitting another wall– one that further emphasized our place in the valley. I know some thought Mother Gothel was lying and Ariel just assumed with what we said, but I think Eric pretty much confirmed it.

I’m really excited about his new Blueprint station. I’m curious how often it’ll get new items. With that, Eric was added to the “needs to be level 10 to proceed” club.

Meanwhile, in the home-decorating section, Scrooge got in some nice new beds and while it was a hard decision between the Beauty and the Beast and Wreck-it Ralph one, I decided to go with the latter one for now. I also realized that by dropping food, you could then move it around, so I placed some around the Kitchen and Dining Room. Unfortunately, the cheese plate wouldn’t let me place it anywhere nice :(

To finish off, I did craft one new item I liked as I managed to get more diamonds. The Gazebo is really pretty.

Our goals for tomorrow:
-Getting Anna, Elsa, Ariel, Eric, and Scrooge up to level 10 and finishing all quests
-FINALLY CATCHING A FUGU T___T
-Hopefully figuring out the other recipes! I have less than 15 left.

Disney Dreamlight Valley – Days 1, 2, and 3!

If you’re wondering why there’s two days, well, as part of the Dreamlight Creator’s Program, I was able to start playing yesterday :) So, first things first, my very first day in the Valley! You can also check out my Youtube channel for the video versions as well.

Day 1

So, I played around 10 and a half hours of the game and honestly, there’s probably a lot of things I could have done better. I will say the game has a lot of grinding and sometimes, things aren’t super clear. Regardless, here is a full overview of my very first day in Dreamlight Valley! (You can also find my entire playthrough for the day here)

Immediately upon getting into the Valley, I did notice one tiny issue– my outfit’s designs were gone! It was just a blank dress and a blank set of ears. It felt as empty and awkward as the inside of my new house (but it was still… cozy in its own way).

Thankfully, once I actually unlocked the Wardrobe not too long after the conversation, my Touch of Magic outfit was there safe and sound for me to change into. I also had fun decorating the room with some of the items. I couldn’t fit everything I wanted to as the room was rather small at the moment, but I did my best.

After that, I pretty much was in pure distraction mode as I searched for all the Magic Tools. I didn’t expect the Time Trial mode when pulling thorns which was pretty nerve-wracking. While I managed to complete the coin one, I ran into a glitch with all the crop/forageable ones I ran into, unfortunately.

I did eventually manage to get all the Tools though.


One thing I’ll say is the game always has tasks for you to do, but I think that can be a little overwhelming at times. I barely did much with customizing things because most of my focus was the story and upgrading things. I would say my biggest issue right now though is that upgrades get expensive very quickly. There’s many that maybe start at 1K-3K for the initial cost or upgrade only for the next to be 20K+. There are some that do start at 5K and then jump to that 20K-30K and a few that go from like… 2K to 10K before having 20K+, but it just feels really extensive and most of your gameplay will be grinding for Dreamlight and Star Path Currency and using those tasks to earn Star Coins for use in everything else. At times, the grind did feel a bit tiring for me, even on Day 1, but there’s so much charm that it makes me want to play still anyway.

That said, the game is truly very friendly with stamina regain. You regain it SO quickly in your house and a decent amount with food that grows back pretty fast, so I never felt worried about it. You also regain all your stamina upon leveling up.

Despite my critiques, I actually managed to do a lot in these 10 hours. Such as:

  • Fully upgrade Goofy’s Stall in both Peaceful Meadow and Dazzle Beach
  • I managed to unlock 2 biomes: Dazzle Beach and the Forest of Valor (I suppose technically Peaceful Meadow too, but that just uses the Pickaxe)
  • I hit level 15
  • I upgraded my house and its room size to the biggest size
  • I got Goofy to Friendship level 10 and got most friendship up to about 4 or 5. WALL-E is at 7 and Remy and Maui are 2 or 3.
  • I managed to start my descent into the mysterious cave… I’m up to the second puzzle.
  • I unlocked all 3 bottom floor realms and have enough Dreamlight to unlock the Frozen Realm for Day 2. Remy, Moana, Maui, and WALL-E are all moved in.
  • Scrooge’s shop has been upgraded once already.
  • I already got most of the items I really wanted from the Star Path

I liked that moving characters in let you take a cute commemorative photo.


The Star Path actually has an interesting system in the sense that you just need 3 items from each “page” to unlock the next and that the Premium gives you additional tasks. The tasks can be kind of tricky at times (some are definitely harder than others, or at the least, more time consuming), but none of them have time limits and they cycle as soon as you finish one. I would say my biggest advice is every time you’re notified you completed a Challenge, whether for Dreamlight or the Star Path, complete it immediately as most won’t carry over.

Of the Realms, Remy’s was my favorite to do. It lets you kind of experiment with cooking dishes with infinite ingredients (that he has, anyway) which is really cool. I ended up picking “Bell Pepper Puffs”, “Vegetable Casserole”, and “Apple Pie” for my dishes. I’d love to know how the other options go (Hearty Salad, Pizza Margherita, Banana Pie) and hopefully we can work together to figure out as many recipes as possible! I also want Remy’s house style for my own character’s house, honestly.

WALL-E’s was fine for what it was, but I had hoped for more from Moana’s considering the whole sailing thing, but you pretty much just needed to pick the right option (Which… I found obvious which is why I picked it last so I could see the others incase they had any neat treasure or surprises) and then go through the mist to catch a single fish. The scenery was nice though.

The only other thing I really did was adjust my room more after having upgraded it. I’m looking forward to getting more done tomorrow, but it feels like a lot of things depend on me just getting more Biomes, Mining RNG, and grinding up for more Star Coins.

I will say the thing I’m struggling with most is you can find so much new stuff per Biome, but your house storage upgrades fairly slow, and your inventory upgrade becomes very expensive after the first, yet the best way to earn more money is from removing Night Thorns and exploring other Biomes, but then you just end up back in the constant full inventory cycle. x-x I hope I manage to handle it all better.

Another situation is that it’s SUCH an advantage to hang out with whichever character will boost a certain thing you’re doing, but you also level up characters easily and get to pick which they help with and it’s just… a lot, honestly. There’s so many little things to keep track of and it really adds up. I just hope I manage to make a lot of progress tomorrow too.

That said, I had REALLY hoped to try and find Minnie today if only because Ghost Minnie is kind of terrifying.

Anyway, fingers crossed for finding Minnie and actually managing to give animals food they like tomorrow alongside everything else!

Days 2 and 3

So, Day 2 very much rolled into Day 3 to start. There were many quests done and a lot of revelations.

My biggest goal, more than anything, was to Save Minnie. At the very least, we were making progress.

I also unlocked this really pretty Circlet!

I then remembered I can make Chests which I used to free me from my storage issues:

But then… something strange happened. Despite not being able to find any Emeralds, the quest to save Donald suddenly updated. I’m confused why, but I was glad to just be able to save him. This was pretty nostalgic for various reasons, but I’m glad we found Donald and managed to get the Orb of Courage thanks to him.

Next, I spent a lot of time grinding. I just wanted to get things done. I also finally unlocked WALL-E’s garden as well. Key to Seaweed: Fish when there is no circle of bubbles/outside of the circles.

There’s also Moana’s Boat I finished up and it expands so much. Definitely helps with fishing, but also it feels up your inventory so fast.

I fully upgraded my house as well and am much anticipating house skins because… the Yellow house isn’t really my thing.

My main goal, thankfully, was completed! Minnie was successfully saved! Minnie really got the short end of the stick to some extent… I felt so bad for her.

I also finally got to continue the story– turns out I needed to redig the holes for the seed to do Test 2 again. The whole thing kind of bugged for me a little, but I was happy to finally get it done and get the Orb of Power.

I finally finished the Frozen area as well (which I had opened up earlier, but didn’t really take pictures in for some reason? It took me a long while to make those Windchimes) and Anna came! It was nice she remembered so much.

I didn’t expect the crazy adventure and what we had to do for the Orb of Trust though. It’s also kind of never explained if Kristoff was okay? Hopefully he did get his love for Anna back when we put in the Orb since it has yet to be brought up again.

In the process, we also had something very important confirmed (as hinted to when we first ran into Mother Gothel with the start of getting this Orb), we WERE the previous ruler… So, what happened? Why did we become so sad and lonely? Did we need to move and lashed out? Or did we lose someone? There’s so many questions here.

Ariel as well, who we found after fixing the raft with Goofy (I figured it would lead to her), hinted as much that we’re much older now. Maybe we were a teenager then? Or a kid? It just leaves me with a lot of questions. Plus, how some characters seemed to manage to keep their memories regardless.

Ariel and Elsa then moved in. (Ursula also has a place now too, though, her house kind of scares me)

And I finished Goofy’s Scrapbook quests… I think I would’ve picked a nicer area if I realized it’d set up a group photo.

Finally, we left off activating the very suspicious structure I noticed in the Cave. I’m very curious where the story will go next.

I really only stopped there as we hit an issue where Elsa was in the place we needed to clear the way to and others I needed to see were asleep so… Break time!

I popped in later than I would’ve liked, but at least I was finally able to finish Elsa’s quest. And I can see there’s clearly more to it already.

I also decorated a little more outside my house but haven’t really done much. There’s barely anything I actually plan to keep where it currently is, but I need to see all the different furniture we can get before I really know where to start with decorating.

I didn’t really end up taking any other screenshots– the Forgotten Lands is kind of terrifying, but it feels like I can’t actually do anything there yet. Even the Critters that are supposed to spawn there haven’t yet. It’s also kind of hard to see, but at least I got the final flowers I needed.

I did figure out favorite food for Critters though! Now, if only I was better at finding and approaching them…
Squirrel – Peanuts
Rabbits – Carrot
Turtle – Seaweed
Raccoon – Blueberries
Crocodiles – Lobster
Foxes – White Sturgeon
Sunbirds – Orange Houseleek

No clue on Ravens though as they don’t seem to be spawning yet.

Kristoff’s situation also got brought up with Anna’s quest, but his dialogue kind of expresses otherwise so it’s still odd. Regardless, I’m sure we’ll restore his memories.

My next goals are just extreme friending to get more quests unlocked. The number of items you need for quests feels way too much though… I’ve also hit the issue I was worried about with the Star Path where it’s large numbers of things I don’t have interest in bothering with… like catching 20 Tuna. I’m glad I at least got most of the things I wanted already.

I also hope it rains so I can finish Elsa’s quest already…

Gamescom 2022 Thoughts!

I’m not entirely sure what changed, but Gamescom feels bigger than ever this year so I figured I’d do a thoughts-related post similar to what I do for E3! As per usual, I’ll only bring up things I had thoughts on over everything (and usually just new stuff unless I feel like I have something worth saying on something I already know about). I’ll be updating this post each day as stuff happens. Be sure to check my Youtube channel for Steam demo playthroughs as well :)

Opening Night Live

Everywhere looks interesting, I guess? But I have no idea what it is exactly.

Moving Out 2 looks fun, but I was never able to finish the first game T~T

Even though I’ve never been super interested in Harry Potter, I just enjoy games with a story where I can customize a character, but honestly, I think this just goes too much into combat for me.

Sonic Frontiers got a new trailer which actually felt speedy and was the first trailer to make me actually want to get the game besides the fact that it’s Sonic. I’m not sure if I’ll get it Day 1 or not (Still upset about the lack of Chao. I’ll buy a Chao expansion, Sega!!), but poor Amy :(
I love the little rock friend. Will also take a little Rock Garden. Still want Chao.

The open world segments and enemies themselves just still don’t look particularly fun to me.

Goat Simulator 3 looks so incredibly chaotic in the best way. I had a lot of fun playing the first one, so part of me really wants to play this one too.

I’m not sure if Moonbreaker is really my thing, but I do like miniatures and the painting looks fun.

The song for Friends vs Friends is… very catchy, but honestly… I kind of hate going up against my friends. I just feel bad.

We’ve been playing Genshin pretty often in the last year and Sumeru looks really neat. It’s crazy to think it’ll be up in a few hours at the time of writing this.

Park Beyond looks really neat, though, I’m not sure how much is actual gameplay. I always kind of suck at Park Tycoons, but I always feel tempted by them anyway.

It’s been a while since we’ve last since the Pokemon Concept Car. I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about it, but it is very cute.

I really need to get Dorf Romantik at some point.

Future Games Show

There’s been a lot of “play a game as a cute animal” and I am happy to see playing as a Raccoon get added to that list. Snaccoon looks very cute. I’m just curious if you need to be stealthy or if you can just go wild.

Still very excited for A Little to the Left. Finally got a release date: November 8th, 2022!!

Xbox

Flight Simulator always makes me wish I could travel more and miss Wii Aports Resort.

It’s always nice seeing new stuff for Disney Dreamlight Valley. Not too much longer until Early Access starts. I’m genuinely really excited for it despite some worries.

One of the people in the official Discord has been sharing things from the demo at Gamescom too and it’s been really exciting. It sounds like there will be a lot of ways to customize including at least 8 floors of 4 rooms each for your house along.

It seems there will be no way to change the exterior style/colors of your home though, but hopefully that can be added in the future.

One day, I’d really like to get back to Sea of Thieves now that I have a better idea on how to play.

Nintendo

I kind of wish you could go through Splatoon’s story quest with a friend. I also wish it either was the same Agent 3/your character throughout or that the number changed with each iteration.

I appreciate Small Fry’s help at least.

I just really love the locker customization feature a lot. I will say knowing I will miss out on catalogs though makes it unlikely I’ll ever get the game in the future once the first one is gone.

Awesome Indies Show

Lou’s Lagoon looked interesting, but I definitely need to see more of what kind of game it is.

I really like the exploration aspects of Sandwalkers, but not sure if the battle aspects are really my thing.

DREDGE looked really intriguing as well, though I can’t tell if it could veer into a more horror territory or not.

I’m not sure if Blooming Business Casino is my type of game, but I love the art style.

As an aside, I genuinely love when we get to see the showfloor. I really like seeing all the booths. Would watch a showfloor tour/showcase video.

The graphics in Kimgdom Eighties: Summer of Greed looked so pretty. Not really sure how I’d do with the Defense part though.

I’ve been waiting for Mineko’s Night Market for such a long time, so it’s always nice to see more of it.

And that’s it! It’s nice getting to hear more stuff coming out of Gamescom and I’m glad we had some of the Showfloor shown during everything too. Next up is Tokyo Game Show, though, unless some big things happen, I may just talk a bit about that on Twitter.

Disney Dreamlight Valley – Day 0: The Avatar Designer Tool!

To start, for full transparency, I am part of the Dreamlight Creators Program! Because of this, I had access to the Avatar Designer Tool yesterday. All thoughts are my own as always! If you’d rather watch than read or just want to see everything the ADT has to offer, feel free to check out my video on Youtube! For those unaware, today the Avatar Designer Tool released on PC for Steam, Epic, and the Microsoft Store. While the ADT is only for PC users, the ability to transfer your Avatar over will still work for ANY platform the game will be available on. So, you can absolutely play the ADT on Steam and then have your Avatar transferred to the Switch version.

In general, I was so excited about just getting to make my avatar that I had to rewatch the trailer multiple times for everything to fully sink in. For one, it’s pretty exciting I can transfer my character over with essentially whatever I decide to have her wear and we even get a bonus item as well.

We also got our first look at the Founder’s Pack contents– there will be three: Standard, Deluxe, and Ultimate, plus two special rewards for anyone who plays the game during the first week of Early Access. Pre-ordering a Founder’s Pack also contributes to the Wish List Goals for the Community Challenge happening right now until Early Access officially begins (more information on that at the bottom of the post).





That said, more details and prices weren’t revealed until today: $29.99 for the Standard, $49.99 for the Deluxe, and $69.99 for the Ultimate.

The Standard will include: 3 Design Motifs, a Furniture set (9 items), a special jersey and Mickey Ears, and 8,000 Moonstones
The Deluxe will include: The Furniture and Clothing items from the Standard Edition, a Furniture Set (10 items), a Celestial Turtle Companion, a Clothing set (5 items), a special jersey and Mickey Ears, 3 Design Motifs, and 14,500 Moonstones
The Ultimate will include: All Standard & Deluxe Cosmetic items, a Furniture Set (15 items), a Regal Fox Companion, a Dress, a Suit, a Jersey and Mickey Ears, plus 3 Design Motifs and 20,000 Moonstones.
You can find more details of everything on the official FAQ page and by watching the official Founder’s Pack Trailer.

Of the items, the pets are obviously my favorite. I also love the Ultimate furniture set a lot, especially the Piano, Chandelier, and painting. I also really like the Starry Sky motif in the Deluxe Pack and the Golden Pumpkin motif in the Ultimate pack. The dress is very pretty too… but it lacks sleeves and isn’t pink so :P Other item standouts for me are the Mickey lights in the Standard Pack, the Windows and TV in the Deluxe Pack, and the fancy pillars, wallpapers, and tables (both big and small) in the Ultimate Pack, in addition to the items I mentioned earlier. I sure hope I can have all three pets (Ultimate’s, Deluxe’s, and the first week pet) out together though because it’ll be a very hard decision otherwise…

In general, I’m still just hoping there could be an option down the line for people to still access these items, even if they may cost more (or to begin with in regard to items that are essentially free gifts). I know they are currently planned to be exclusive, but honestly, in this kind of game, I don’t think making it so some cosmetics are just permanently out of reach for players that come later is a good move and is something I wish would stop happening. Things can still be special and meaningful without them being made super exclusive.
I’m also really disappointed about a premium currency considering it was initially said there wouldn’t be one (though, supposedly you WILL be able to earn them in the game itself which may not be too bad then). Not to mention the confirmation of a Star Path/Premium Mission Pass-type system and I feel like that is the last thing the game needs :( It’s not relaxing or a go at the pace you want if you need to constantly do things for the pass. I’ll refrain full judgement until I see how the Star Path progresses, but at least right now, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed with that. In general, they are just systems that I have trouble completing to begin with, let alone something that makes a game feel more like a subscription-based game. That said, while I’m really concerned with the Star Path system, I am glad the Founder’s Pack prices are pretty good.

Once the initial surprise of seeing Founder’s Packs being shown off in the opening trailer though, especially after many months of “soon”, it was time to actually make my character!

I will say one thing I’m kind of surprised with is that rather than sliders, it’s 6 body types between one taller body and one smaller body and I’m not sure if everyone will manage to really get a body type they’re happy with. I managed to find something I was mostly happy with, but there’s definitely a few things I’d have adjusted if there were sliders. At the very least, I was happy with pretty much all the other options and considering you can change your physical appearance whenever in the game and everything is unisex, I’m hoping they may even add more options down the line. I also hope we’ll eventually see all color options available for each option as some had less than others.

In the end, I ended up with this look for my character before my journey into the Touch of Magic tool:

The hard part was deciding between the shoes (not only tons of great boot options, but also those adorable Pink Dolly Shoes) and backpacks. I pretty much just went with the boots I initially picked first, but as for why I chose them over the Pink Dolly Shoes… it was simply as there weren’t any Socks/Tights options and I thought they looked weird with the other layering. As for what I’m wearing under the skirt then– you can actually pair pants or shorts under a skirt which is really nice.

The backpack situation was similar where I had already been stuck between the Pink Ita Bag and Brown Artist’s Satchel from their initial previews, but I also really liked the White and Pink Minnie Backpack. I mainly ended up deciding against the last one as I didn’t really like its smaller size. The Pink Ita bag won out in the end simply due to matching more, but I really hope I can get the Brown Artist’s Satchel in the future.

Of course, that’s not the only item I’m hoping to get– so many great items are available through the ADT and due to going with my Touch of Magic Tool outfit, I’ll need to get most of the other items I still liked as well. It might sound weird to be going with the Touch of Magic outfit, but honestly, it took me so long to make it and I don’t trust myself to be able to remake it in a way I feel I’d be happy with. I’m just thankful we can transfer our character’s over at all. I do wish we could’ve had maybe one regular outfit and one Touch of Magic outfit as well though…

It’s definitely not perfect and there’s a lot I’d like to adjust or do better with once the layer moving works properly for me and if I get a better handle on the tools. I’d love to add more of a gradient (and make it pinker in general– I wish there was a nice pastel pink too) and try and shape it out more, but I do think it came out mostly okay at least. I hope we’ll get more options to use the Touch of Magic Tool within the future as well.

Regardless, here’s hoping it doesn’t take me too long to get the Pink “Enchanted Rose” Top, Pink Cropped Cardigan, Red Skinny Jeans, and the Burgundy Gold Lock Skirt. Other clothing items, I also really liked, besides the Pink Shoes and two backpacks I mentioned above, were the Lacy Pink Coat, Gold Rose Earrings, Silver Rose Earrings, Classic Gold Hoops, Simple Gold Bracelets, Fancy Gold Bracelet, Red Reindeer Cinched Scarf, Golden Treasure Medallion, Pink Pleated Skirt, Pink Candy-Laden Skirt, Brown Lace-up Boots (And really… many of the boots), White and Pink Floral Gown, Pink and Purple Long-Sleeved Gown, Rapunzel’s Summer Sundrop Gown (though, I’d love a long-sleeved version), and the Pale Pink Cottage Dress.

There’s also tons of cute furniture items we could check out already as well in the pre-made rooms.

And this isn’t even everything! While there are tons of options with items in the ADT alone, we’ve definitely seen more items in all the footage shown as well, so there’s a lot I’m looking forward to getting still that we don’t see here.

I spent a lot of time making sure I could get a picture with all 8 Characters you can find in the ADT (You can also see a video of my character with each character here too):



How to get each of the 8 Characters:
(Keep in mind, this is likely NOT the only way– this is just how I personally unlocked them)

  • Mickey will show up pretty much with anything, but generally just not wearing something that causes one of the other characters to show up. He’s the default. A quick easy way is to just wear a Touch of Magic outfit.
  • Minnie will show up if you have on Minnie Ears.
  • Ariel will show up if you are wearing either an Off-the-Shoulder Shell Shirt or one of the Officer Jackets.
  • Remy will show up if you have on Remy’s Chef Hat
  • Buzz Lightyear will show up if you have the Cowboy Hat on
  • Anna will show up when wearing Cozy Blue Sweater (under Coats)
  • Simba will show up when wearing a Time Flies shirt
  • Moana will show up when wearing a Heart of Te Fiti Shirt

As cute as it is that a character is picked based off your outfit which kind of encourages a fun experimental thing, I do wish we could just… pick. It’s not as fun for me to put on an outfit I maybe don’t even care for just to get certain characters to show up which kind of ruins half the point of wanting to take a picture T~T Regardless, I still had fun, even if I am absolutely terrible at taking pictures.

Either way, I can’t wait to transfer my character into the full game and finally be able to play ^_^ In the meantime, as mentioned earlier, if you’d like to help get more content into the main game, be sure to check out the Community Challenge! We’re very close to both the Instagram/Twitter Combined Followers goal and the second wish list goal. Every bit can help! As mentioned earlier, pre-ordering the Founder’s Packs ALSO counts towards the wishlist goals.

And to finish this off, here’s a couple of my other pictures I really liked that I took:

Final Community Challenge Update!: Not only did we hit 250K, we made it all the way to 350K! In addition to unlocking all goals, we’ve also unlocked “Housing Skins” which I’m pretty excited for as the lack of house exterior customization was one thing I was worried about.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – A summary of the last several months

In general, New Horizons entries will probably be a bit few and far between due to a combination of my general bummed out feelings with New Horizons, but also, I mainly just want to do HHP stuff which gets exhausting in and of itself due to the lack of any search feature and when you have a full catalog, most of the time spent is just scrolling through items…

Since my last post, one thing I did was poke back in for May Day. Even though the game is no longer receiving updates, I thought it was possible there could be new mazes and dialogue programmed in already like how all the Chinese Zodiac items are for years to come. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The maze was the same as the first (I’m assuming it’ll switch back and forth between the two) with Rover’s dialogue being the same as the second time, making slightly less sense due to the fact that you don’t climb anything in the first maze. I will guess which dialogue you get is a matter of if you met him before or not.

Regardless, I’d be lying if I said his dialogue didn’t still make me rather emotional. I really wish he actually visited our island. I wish so many other missing characters showed up in the first place.

While I poked in a few times after (usually around every 3 weeks on average), I didn’t really do anything until July for my birthday. I had hoped to do a stream of my birthday in-game and some houses, but honestly, my birthday is just a rough time nowadays and I wasn’t feeling well, so I ended up just recording a video instead.



I was also only able to do one vacation home which made me really sad.

Pango – Ultimate Beauty Salon

Regardless, I did my best to make-up for that with my recent stream where I did 11 Houses and even hit the 60 milestone. Of these, I think my favorites were Caroline’s and Melba’s. There’s definitely more I wanted to do for certain things if it wasn’t for the lack of search function.

Dom – House of Gizmos

Octavian – A Window to the Sea

Caroline – Dreamy Country-Ranch Home

Shari – House of Perennials

Melba – Fairy-Tale World

It was here that we hit the 60 Milestone. I’m curious how much more special dialogue there could be. I wonder if anything special happens if you do manage to make a Vacation Home for every character.



Drift – A Vacation Home with a Well

Prince – The Robot Arena

Fauna – My Piano Hangout

Ketchup – Tomato Paradise

Rosie – My Very Own Talent Agency

Nana – A Park for the Peckish

I’m not sure when I’ll play more next, but hopefully I can get more houses done.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus Thoughts Reduxe

So, with finally feeling a bit better and just wanting to get it over with, I managed to finally get back to the game. Some things I have learned are that you can aim your ball and catch without using the extreme target which is great if you’re not me and can actually aim with solely a target reticle. I will say, at the very least, I feel more in control to some extent now that I’m not feeling sick. It’s helped make certain things a bit less overwhelming, even if I’m still struggling a bit with it. Unfortunately, as the game went, it felt like each of my nitpicks became bigger and bigger problems and I genuinely stopped having fun. Getting through this game was a chore and I feel bad about it because I feel like everyone I know really liked it. I was repeatedly told how it gets better, it’s fun, and that maybe I’d feel better after talking about my initial thoughts.

I think my biggest issue is I really like to collect things as I go. I like to catch everything I can in that area before moving on. In this case specifically (at least for me), it’s just better to move on with the story and come back after you’ve unlocked more things. Even getting the wisps are easier when you can actually fly instead of finding some odd way up the cliff (and sometimes you just can’t). But as someone who hates backtracking, it kills me. I don’t mind it as much if things just don’t show up until you finish a certain point, but just having to hold off and come back later when it’s right there drives me nuts. It also makes it harder for me to focus on what’s to come when I can’t really do things in sections. Even though Pokemon had a tendency to spawn places, the more open world made it feel much more overwhelming for me and I just… did not enjoy it, even if it was technically more natural.

Similarly, I hate the distortions. I don’t like RNG elements when it comes to Dex completion, so needing to wait for these random spheres to show up where almost everything is aggressive and hope they spawn the Pokemon you need (and enough of them!) isn’t fun to me in the slightest. I hated a lot of the Pokedex completion journey in Gen 7 specifically because of the weird RNG with getting some Pokemon to even show up. And here where multiple Pokemon can be attacking you in these distortions as you hope what you need spawns… is not fun, at all. While I’ve found a way to somehow do them by using grass cover starting from outside and stealthing my way in– that’s not a possible method everywhere and there’s still the general RNG and catch percentages.

I think what really gets me is, like with Let’s Go as someone who really dislikes battling, I had high hopes for being able to just catch everything and it feels like there is always some ridiculous small text disclaimer about how “Oh, but because there are no battles, we’ve added some incredibly annoying features to make it take longer”. I already have Pokemon chasing and attacking me, I don’t need all this RNG on top of it. Let alone annoying grindy extra requirements to even finish the Pokedex page to 10. In the end, I decided to just catch each once and not bother with the 10 completion which does technically bother me, but I was just too disheartened at this point.

I also still find battles very frustrating. I hate the strong/agile mechanic so much and due to them both coming with cons, I didn’t really want to use them unlike ones like… Gigantamax and Z-moves where even though I disliked them, they were easy to just get over with versus here where “Oh, you can do agile, but your moves may be weaker” or “You can do strong, but you may not get another chance to attack” and I never felt confident enough to really gamble on those circumstances. Even when I used it and it worked out, I just felt stressed out about it. It really felt like battles were a trade-off of if you get knocked out or not because Alpha Pokemon do so much, trainers will use those strong/agile moves and even have you fight multiple Pokemon at once, and you don’t get an option to switch out per Pokemon (and it just felt too risky to even do that because next move, a Pokemon could use a Strong move and one-shot them immediately). Nothing felt balanced to me and even with overleveled Pokemon, it still felt like a 50/50 chance if I’d even succeed. I had Pokemon 20+ levels below me using non-super effective moves and still would lose at least half of my HP. It made battling even worse for me and considering how I’ve never even enjoyed it; I didn’t know it was possible to make me like it even less. I know some people enjoy this kind of difficulty, but as someone who doesn’t even really like battles, not feeling even over leveling (sometimes I was over twice the level and still got one-shot) can help me get through them quickly is really frustrating. I would absolutely play a Pokemon game on easy mode.

Meanwhile, having to deal with Space Distortions and Outbreaks for better (if any) chances for certain Pokemon meant a lot of just… constant Pokeball flinging and what was once a decent amount of supplies quickly started to dwindle which meant I had to specifically go looking for crafting supplies. Sure, I could buy some, but not only did the Stores not always upgrade immediately, the main way to earn money is catching things and you also need to buy moves and buy bag slots and things just would add up so fast. It also felt like I just got really unlucky with catch chances which didn’t help. But it’s hard to enjoy foraging when I have no clue where I am going and constantly have to keep an eye on my bag space. And at any time, something may decide I should die and start chasing me when I’m just trying to mind my own business. Eventually, I did get tired of crafting and did start just buying things up, but it always felt like a huge balance. I never felt like I had enough money to go all in on that and my issues with aiming meant I often wasted balls too.

I think the only reason I still kept playing is the story itself. I wanted to see where it went, I wanted answers for certain actions, I wanted to help poor Ingo also find his way back (which at least where I got to, didn’t even happen)… But wow did it not help make the game actually fun to play for me by the end of it. I didn’t even manage to finish all the requests partially because there was no way I was dealing with the battle ones, but I just got tired of it. I suck at exploring enough with a minimap, let alone without one. Part of me does want to try and go back for the post-game and certain collection-related things (The Poems, the last Unown, and the Wisps), but I’m just… tired. I don’t want to battle Pokemon again for the shards, I don’t want to deal with the ultra-hard final double fight in the end, I just wanted to witness the story and get my character home.

I will say while I do like the idea of a lot of the game and found the story intriguing enough, I still think a lot of the execution wasn’t super great for me. Obviously, judging by most of the reviews, I’m in the minority! But I do think I’ll end up skipping on future Pokemon Legends entries unless they manage to feel less grindy and/or I can have a less aggressive/RNG difficulty option. I just hope friends can trade me any exclusive Pokemon in the future because I sure won’t be getting them otherwise.