As someone who has put in hundreds of hours and been a player of Dreamlight Valley since Day 1, I have to say that the Apple Arcade version is truly a breath of fresh air! I may be in the minority here, but I am actually RELIEVED that the Star Path is gone from this version! On the PC I have been stuck on the same quest for months. Why? Because a Star Path comes out and then I spend WEEKS grinding doing pointless and mundane tasks over and over and over again because of FOMO. By the time I finish one Star Path another one has just dropped. So I’m not actually making any progress in the game because I’m constantly doing trivial and monotonous tasks. I am actually really excited to just play the game on the Arcade version and not have to worry about any of the nonsense. Not to mention I can play on my phone, iPad and Mac and not have to buy the game 3 times and all of my progress is synced! Yes, I have to start over, but I’m actually fine with that. I’m looking forward to experiencing some of the earlier quests again. Honestly, for a diehard D.V. Fan like myself, it would be worth the cost of Apple Arcade even if this were the only game on the service! The only thing that makes me nervous is if one day Gameloft decides to pull it from the Arcade and we lose everything. (WE WILL NEVER FORGET WHAT HAPPENED TO COZY GROVE). If Apple is listening: If I invest hundreds of hours in this game and it gets pulled without any way to transfer our save to just a standard iOS app…I will never pay for Apple Arcade again!

So, I’ve heard about this game for awhile and decided to give it a try when I noticed it was on IPhone and for only 7$ a month to play where as any other platform it’s 40$?! I signed up real quick and been loving it more than I expected ever since. Not to mention; the game surprisingly runs fantastic on my IPhone 12 Pro Max.My girlfriend has it on her Switch and even tho her graphics are very slightly better, her game lags and takes longer to load than mine lol.Which is honestly a bit of a shame for people paying 40$, however it is what it is.Anyway; It’s legitimately Animal Crossing but Disney and it works great. The game is also cross platform which is also great, however as of right now the Multiplayer isn’t anything but checking out other player’s town & their clothing/furniture store which you can also buy from.You can also trade items as well by dropping which is also alright. I do wish you can help friends with mining, fishing and their missions but sadly you can’t and I suppose it also is fine.Game is fun but be aware you WILL NOT have access to the “Battle Pass” as well as the “Events” that actual game owners have. That I will say is the only downside because there is a lot of cool stuff and you also get the currency by doing quests. However, it does make absolute sense due to the ARCADE edition providing the DLC (Rift in Time) for FREE. Where as if you bought it anywhere else, it would be an extra 20-30$.PS; you can use a controller to connect and play & it also works well.

After my girlfriend getting on my case for however long it has been since this game first went into early access on consoles and pc I finally decided to download this thanks to it being available on Apple Arcade. I get that this “Arcade Edition” might not be the highest priority as it is not really generating revenue due to the lack of access to the premium shop and season pass, but I’ve noticed some truly baffling decisions. First off I’m having performance issues on my iPhone 12 Max. I suppose this shouldn’t be a surprise considering how I’ve seen it perform on my girlfriend’s Nintendo Switch, but I still expect more polish out of this especially when I’ve played more impressive games on this phone that run significantly better. But even more baffling is the fact that there is no option to name your avatar upon creation (at least that I could find) and that there is no option to rename once created. My avatar is stuck with the name “player”. This was automatically applied. It didn’t even take my Game Center name, which I’m assuming possibly is due to it being too many characters as looking online the console versions allow up to 12 characters and my Game Center profile is 14. This is really an unacceptable oversight. All other versions apparently have a change name option within the help menu in the settings. Please update this with this simple feature.

This is a strangely addictive game, either nice graphics, considerable content, and mostly simple game play. Most quests are completed more by following instructions than by having to solve puzzles. My eldest enjoyed the game until she finished the main story line, but didn’t find it as interesting to continue to level up characters. My youngest is too young for the game itself, but uses it as a dress up game then runs around looking at the scenery and Disney characters.The game has the feel of a freemium game converted to the Arcade, which appears to have been the original concept for the game. As a consequence, some aspects of the game and some missions require far too much grinding, storage space is inadequate and the work-around of storage furniture is cumbersome, and some content is excluded from the Arcade version.I would like to see the developers correct the compatibility info for the game, to save people from downloading then discovering that the app won’t run. I would also like to see them add all content to the Arcade version, something that might draw my eldest back into the game. And I would like better inventory management, a reduction of the demands for the grindiest missions and crafting, and a button to place furniture for touchscreens.