Summary
The cozy genre allows for comfortable and low-stakes play where you often get to build relationships with neighbors and farm to your heart’s content. From indie adaptations to triple-a projects, cozy games have grown exponentially in recent years. When life becomes stressful, you’re able to always return to your little town and find encouragement from the friendly faces that inhabit it.
So, with cozy games constantly releasing, there are two that have emerged and pull upon nostalgia. IsDisney Dreamlight Valleyyour favorite because you can live out a fantasy life, or isAnimal Crossing: New Horizonseverything you’ll ever need?
10Role-Playing Elements - Disney Dreamlight Valley
If you’relooking for a plotto drive you forward, Disney Dreamlight Valley is the way to go. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is cute, butlacks a compelling narrativethat prompts you to act. In Disney Dreamlight Valley, you’rethrown into the chaos of the Forgettingand are tasked withhelping restore the village and the villagers memories.
This continues throughout the game as you unlock new biomes and characters. As the ruler of Dreamlight Valley, youtake on more responsibilitiesto help lead. Animal Crossing has similar goals, but not to the same effect.
9Time Traveling - Animal Crossing New Horizons
With games thatrevolve around real time, it’s easy to want toskip around with your system settingsto experience more. However, games like Disney Dreamlight Valley arenot designed for that, and you can easilycause bugs or corrupt your save data. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is more forgiving in that regard.
While theturnips you buy will wither and die, you canaccess holidays and missed daysto progress through the game by time traveling. This is sometimes frowned upon (depending on who you ask) but theend result is far less devastatingthan trying it elsewhere.
8Multiplayer - Tie
When it comes to multiplayer modes, cozy games tend to focus less on story-based objectives and more onsharing your creations with friends. Both Disney Dreamlight Valley and Animal Crossing: New Horizons allow you toopen your village to friendsso they can see all the work you’ve done.
Additionally, you cantrade items from your inventoryand have friends collect items they need from around your own village. Multiplayer is a wonderful addition if you have friends to play with, but it’snot always the biggest focusfor a cozy game.
7Farming - Disney Dreamlight Valley
Cozy games areknown for the capability to farmand live out a domestic life. With Disney Dreamlight Valley, you cangrow all sorts of cropsin different biomes and even build relationships with other villagers by bringing them along. These crops are thenused for recipeswhich can beused to complete quests and replenish energy.
Animal Crossing: New Horizonslacks the diversity of growing various crops, which is why Disney Dreamlight Valley shines here. However, you’re able to cut down trees andterraform the island, which is missing in the alternative.
6Events And Holidays - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
WhileDisney Dreamlight Valley has Star Pathsand seasonal events,Animal Crossing: New Horizons makes them more engaging. Everyone participates in these events and talks about them, whereas your Disney villagers won’t do much outside of their normal routines.
Star Paths are a great addition to the game, but they don’t do anything aside from provide new decorations. A few seasonal themed quests are not enough to beata season full of Animal Crossing eventsand scavenger hunts. In addition to widely recognized holidays, there aresmaller events in betweento keep the community lively.
5DLC - Disney Dreamlight Valley
With DLC, Disney Dreamlight Valley takes the cake. The first Expansion Pass include a completelynew map, characters, and many more detailsto indulge in, in addition toupdated story content. The DLC alsoadds minigames and allows for more craftingand exploration.
While Animal Crossing: New Horizons has DLC, it’s not to scale with the amount of content within the alternative. If we include Disney Dreamlight Valley’s Star Paths and bundles, there’seven more content to enjoy. Both big and small DLC can be purchased to expand your game.
4Gardening - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
While Disney Dreamlight Valley excels at farming (though it’s called gardening), Animal Crossing: New Horizons developsa strong connection with flowers. You can plant them all over your island anddevelop hybrids through cross-pollination. This takes adetailed level of planningto determine which flowers will create the desired outcome.
Disney Dreamlight Valley allows you to collect flowers, espeically withthe Beast’s Greenhouse, but youcan’t plant them or create hybrids. You cancraft arrangements with themthough, but it’s not the same as growing them yourself.
3Music - Tie
Who can comparereimagined Disney musicwith theiconic Animal Crossing music? We can, and we’ve determined it’s a tie. Bothsoundtracks are colorful and catchy, and you’ll find yourself humming along even when you stop playing.
WhetherK.K. Slider’s performancesmove you to dance or you enjoy hearing analternative version of your favorite Disney song, you’ll have a great soundtrack to listen to. Both games have tunes that will promote a positive atmosphere as you get cozy and explore. Theycompliment their respective games welland encourage you to keep playing.
2Customization - Disney Dreamlight Valley
Both games haveextensive catalogs of clothing and furnitureitems to browse, yet despite this, Disney Dreamlight Valley emerges as the winner here. There are several stalls aside from Scrooge’s Store, and you cancreate your own itemswith the Touch of Magic tool.
While Animal Crossing: New Horizons allows you to customize as well, there aremore options and possibilitieswith the alternative. From customizing your character to your home, and the village at large, you’re able to have a say in almost every instance. You can alsocustomize your village with more than one housefor yourself.
1Neighbors - Tie
Both games havelarge casts of charactersthat we know and love, so it’s a tie! Each game handles characters differently. While Disney Dreamlight Valleyallows you to collect every characterand place them in your village, you alsoneed characters you may not want if you want tocomplete certain quests.
In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you canonly have a select number of characterson your island, but you can change them by evicting ones you no longer want. However, there’sno guarantee you’ll run into your favorite characters.
Conclusion
Disney Dreamlight Valley is the game for you if you’re abig fan of the charactersand want a lot to do every day. There’s more to do day-to-day and there areplenty of quests to completeto progress the story and build relationships with other characters.
Events and Holidays
Music
Neighbors
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the best if you’re looking for somethingmore focused on cozy elementswithout a series of quests to complete. If you want tounwind and spend time with cute animal characterswithout expectations, you’ll love it.
