With the release of Storybook Vale Part 2, the second major expansion for Disney Dreamlight Valley is officially complete — and it’s time for a full review! While the base game offers an ever-expanding amount of content, the two expansion packs add even more: more characters, new tools, big regions, and new crafting and decorating opportunities.
They’re all also quite pricey, with a base cost of $29.99.
In our Disney Dreamlight Valley 2-in-1 expansion review, we’re reviewing both completed expansions, A Rift in Time and Storybook Vale, and comparing them directly with each other. Which one gives you the more useful stuff, more interesting world, and more enjoyable characters? Let’s find out!
The Characters
One of the most important and long-lasting additions from the expansions are the new characters. Each expansion adds five new Villagers who will permanently join the Valley, with their own selectable role, Friendship Quests, and rewards.
A Rift in Time adds Eve, Gaston, Rapunzel, Oswald, and Jafar.
Storybook Vale adds Merida, Flynn, Hades, Maleficent, and Aurora.
A Rift in Time’s characters are a little too random, as if Gameloft just selected an assortment of characters to throw in there. The obvious exception is Jafar, with whom the entire DLC revolves around. Why is Gaston in a desert, and Rapunzel in the jungle? Oswald, the original Disney cartoon icon that predated Mickey Mouse, is especially egregious and random, and I found his zany personality entirely off-putting.
In terms of homes, Rapunzel features her signature tower, Oswald has an ultra-cool black and white movie theater, and Gaston has a surprisingly charming cottage. Unsurprisingly, their friendship quests revolve around gathering items and materials from Eternity Isle.
Meanwhile, Storybook Vale’s characters make a lot more sense and more directly feed into the story and biomes. Mythopia’s golden fields and marble statues are based on Greek Mythology, while Everafter is a mysterious fairy tale forest right out of Sleeping Beauty. Merida acts as an important guide throughout the Vale (and her hunting skills pair well with the new Snippet catching), and the Vale features not one, but two fan-favorite villains.
Merida and Flynn add to the cottage-core style, while Hades includes a rather unique skull-shaped mini-mountain. I also appreciate how relatively quickly and easily the first three characters, Merida, Flynn, and Hades, are found and recruited when starting the expansion. Plus, Flynn and Hades reward ultra-cool level 10 outfits that look fantastic on my male avatar.
While I find Gaston’s writing and quests completely hilarious and delightful, and Rapunzel is a major favorite for many Disney fans, my vote for best overall characters ultimately goes to Storybook Vale.
The Story
A Rift in Time’s story centers around Jafar’s plot to acquire a powerful lost treasure. Unfortunately, his schemes have caused some serious problems in Eternity Isle. What makes the story compelling is Jafar’s delightfully duplicitous nature. Players actually begin A Rift in Time by following Jafar’s quest to acquire the Jewel, including a fun trip into the Cave of Wonders, before his inevitable betrayal.
I particularly enjoyed the finale sequence inside Jafar’s Palace, and the puzzles that involved warping time between two different eras.
Disappointingly, Storybook Vale retreads the same basic plot structure: a scheming villain has broken this region, and it’s up to us to restore the world and eventually make nice with the villain(s).
Storybook Vale’s main quest is punctuated by Trials, one in each area. These Trials are partly inspired by the Shrines from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom — miniature areas that feature a series of connected puzzles. They’re fine, but with Dreamlight Valley’s limited Tool interactivity, they’re also not terribly thrilling.
Both expansions require grinding out the region-specific resources to unlock additional areas within each Biome: Mist for Eternity Isle, and Storybook Magic in Storybook Vale.
At least with Eternity Isle, players can gather Mist through Timebending, and by removing the swirling sands that frequently spawn throughout the region.
But in Storybook Vale, the critical Magic needed to unlock new areas (and thus, progress the story) is found only through completing Vale-specific duties. Unlocking new areas in the Vale becomes a more laborious process, and that ultimately slowed my enjoyment of the DLC. Plus, part 2 of Storybook Vale is shockingly short compared to part 1.
Jafar’s sneaky shenanigans gives the win to A Rift in Time.
The Biomes
Both expansions add large new regions consisting of multiple Biomes entirely separate from the base Valley. These Biomes feature their own unique look and flora, which are immediately unlocked upon purchase for decoration.
A Rift in Time’s Eternity Isle consists of Ancient’s Landing, the Glittering Dunes, and Wild Tangle.
Ancient’s Landing is the starting region, and notable for featuring piles of ruined rubble, and the entrance to the Sunken Ruins. The Glittering Dunes adds a muchn-edeed terrain type to Dreamlight Valley — desert! There’s an oasis, sandy fishing areas, cacti, and even the Cave of Wonders — a perfect area for the Aladdin crew that arrived earlier this year.
On the opposite side of Eternity Isle lies the Wild Tangle, a green jungle with bamboo walls, rivers, and adorable capybara.
Storybook Vale is structured in the same way, with a starter zone, and two other Biomes opposite each other on the left and right sides. Players start their Storybook Vale adventure in the Bind, which is meant to evoke a magical sunlit forest, with bookshelves interwoven with trees.
The two other Biomes are Everafter and Mythopia. Everafter is a much darker forest with large mushrooms, like something out of Alice in Wonderland. Mythopia is much brighter, practically saturated in the gold and yellow of a Grecian urn. Both zones also feature my favorite companions in the whole game: dragons and pegasi!
I love decorating the Glittering Dunes with all my Aladdin-themed decor, but overall Storybook Vale narrowly wins this category for its beautiful new Biomes and rich range of color.
The Tools
Each expansion adds a new Royal Tool with its own unique system of gathering new resources.
A Rift in Time includes the Royal Hourglass, which looks like a magic staff. With the hourglass equipped, players can activate the tool to seek out Mist in any Biome. The indicator pulses blue, along with a direction, then red once you near it. It’s basically like playing hide ‘n seek (or hot and cold). Materials include Mist (which is used for Eternity Isle-specific unlocks and crafting), as well as sellable treasures and crafting materials for Ancient gear and machines.
Storybook Vale provides the Royal Net, which should be immediately familiar to Animal Crossing fans. Although in Dreamlight Valley we’re not catching bugs, but Snippets. Snippets come in a variety of styles depending on the Biome, and must be chased down and caught.
While gathering Mist and crafting materials from Timebending is ultimately more useful than Snippets (see The Extras section below), Timebending quickly gets boring and tedious. Meanwhile, catching flying critters with a net is always fun, even if the Snippets eventually become obsolete. Point to Storybook Vale.
The Extras
A Rift in Time’s Timbending system eventually unlocks critical components for crafting Ancient Machines. These helpful machines automate mundane tasks, such as picking flowers and harvesting crops. They must be continually powered by Mist, making the Royal Hourglass and Timebending (which can gather Mist) an important part of daily activity. Plus, there are some spiffy furniture and objects that be crafted as well.
Most of the unique rewards in Storybook Vale are unlocked via the Lorekeeper Tales. The Tales are fun, well-designed puzzles of Disney films. By collecting certain kinds of Snippets, players can unlock new puzzles, and by completing the puzzle, you can earn a new clothing item, furniture piece, etc. Unfortunately, once you’ve unlocked and completed all the puzzles, there’s literally nothing more to use with the Snippets. Storybook Vale doesn’t have anything like the Ancient Machines.
On top of that, A Rift in Time adds an entire new board game mini-game, called Scramblecoin. Scramblecoin isn’t necessary to play, but it’s a fun little game with strategy and miniatures, and its own progression of unlockable features. Once again, Storybook Vale comes up short, without any fun new minigames.
No question that A Rift in Time wins this category.
The Verdict
Storybook Vale narrowly wins best overall expansion, 3-2, but it’s a close match-up. For the single most useful content added to Dreamlight Valley, you can’t beat A Rift in Time’s Ancient Machines. For expanding one’s decorative options, Storybook Vale is more impressive. Both expansions feature fan-favorite villains and heroes that Disney fans will want to add to their Valley.
And the ultimate caveat: neither expansion is necessary to enjoy hundreds of hours of Disney Dreamlight Valley. The live service life sim continues to receive large, quality updates in the form of new realms, new characters with quests, and objective-based Star Paths and seasonal events with even more unlockable goodies. One of our all-time favorite life sims just keeps getting better.
Disney Dreamlight Valley is available on PC, Mac, PlayStation, Switch, and Xbox. It’s rated E for Everyone.
