Ahh, The Longest Journey… Despite the original and Dreamfall being pretty flawed adventure games in their own ways, there was nothing like it in terms of stories. Mix of cyberpunk and fantasy in such a magical way that feeds your imagination. A tale that feels so unique, doing “it’s own thing” and in such a good way too, despite some clear influences. These worlds of Stark and Arcadia, technology and magic, were always something I wanted to see more of. Besides, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey didn’t really have a proper ending, with Dreamfall Chapters being planned from the start to continue from when that game left of. But those plans were shelved for… how long was it? Almost 8 years? And if you count the release of the final chapter (released just a few months before me writing this), it’s been 10 years since Dreamfall was released. And it’s such a strange feeling that this continuation is a tighter budget, community funded (via Kickstarter) project too… So, then, how is it? Is it a proper ending to all the story threads that were started before? Let’s find out.
First thing that I want to mention is – how the game plays. Mostly due to how controversial the half-arsed fighting and stealth and what-not mechanics have been in Dreamfall, after the fully point and click TLJ. And for better and worse, Dreamfall Chapters goes with a modernized point and click approach not entirely unlike what you find in Telltale games. There’re different ways of interaction, inventory and items and multiple choice dialogues that can lead to some huge consequences or just minor things. On one hand, this allows the game to be something that Dreamfall wanted to be, but without that horrible no mouse-pointer selection that it had. On the other, it often feels limiting or underused in a truly good way.
For example, and to get this out of the way from the start, game has absolutely dreadful puzzle design at times. From horrible pixel hunting chores to just weird half-stealth sections where it’s simply impossible and illogical to understand when the game wants you to do something or what the game wants you to do in the first place. Some things are done in a very pro-player way with you just doing one step of something and other things done automatically, while some require some rather stupid one-by-one things to do. And while the game no longer has any action sequences, with few action timed puzzles instead, it does have a couple stealthy parts and those simply feel jarring, sudden, non-compatible with what the game is usually all about. Which is a shame, because it could’ve been that game to push the action adventuring with dialogue and puzzle focus into modern age, but wasn’t probably just due to the budget limitations.
Thankfully, this doesn’t hurt what’s good about the game – the world, the story and the characters. At least not much. Despite liking TLJ and Dreamfall a lot, I still didn’t expect just how nice it would be to return to the two worlds of Stark and Arcadia. To see this amazing non-cheesy or pulp mix of magic and cyberpunk. To see the old characters again and meet new ones. To experience a conclusion to this saga. And it’s really interesting to use this word – “saga”, – about the series too. Because unlike a lot of recent examples of where this word was used to describe the series, kind of like Ubisoft’s use of “iconic”, the word ‘saga” seems fitting to The Longest Journey. In more ways than one, too. After some on-off moments with the story in the opening bits, final Books truly bring the entire journey to a very fitting conclusion. And despite that conclusion, the world of the series still feels so ripe, so full of unexplored other stories that we don’t get to see. It’s truly magical that Dreamfall Chapters, despite a lot of changes, doesn’t lose that feel of touching something great, something real.
And there are some more changes. The game is considerably darker than even Dreamfall was, for example. It rarely tackles themes and topics in a clumsy way or do stuff for the shock value alone, but there are several missteps. Some character changes are also a bit strange – I did love new major characters from Arcadia’s side, but it’s still strange how they feel like an updated versions of characters which were already playing a big part in Dreamfall, with whom they switched places. Some characters are also introduced in such a dramatic way as if they should’ve played a role in Dreamfall as well, despite this being their first ever appearance. And some behind the scenes story points that Dreamfall clearly hinted upon seem to have been altered and downplayed in the sequel.
They also don’t actually hurt the game and the story and usually instead enhance the themes and character elements that the game wants to show. What does hurt the story, though, is the very Telltale-ish “will remember that” approach to in-game choices that is even more open to the player. I get it – it’s there to show the players that they can definitely change the story and all, but… The way it shows not just the choices and in such a huge way, but also that it breaks down every choice after each chapter in a very “in your face” way makes the actually good story feel a bit more like a flow-chart with choices instead. Which ruins the flow a bit. You can abstract yourself from it, sure, but this should’ve been done behind the scenes, to be a pleasant surprise to the player who gets invested in the story. Not scream THE BALANCE HAS SHIFTED at you every time you pick “something important”. Is everything else not important then?
But that might’ve been a choice done out of budgetary constraints. To “show that the game has more value” or something. Because despite all the efforts, the beautiful art design, amazing worlds, fantastic soundtrack and voice acting. Despite the touching story, you feel that this game had a rather low budget, compared to the previous ones. It’s in the crappy animations for everything that’s done once or twice. It’s in the eerily silent secondary characters when they appear in the Book they don’t have any other lines in. It’s in the episodic structure itself, that sometimes hurts the structure of the story and makes the opening 3 Books feel longer than they really should’ve been.
The developers tried and tried a lot. A lot of bugs have been fixed, yet… The game still has some and stutters pretty horribly in big open locations no matter what hardware you run it on. Most likely thanks to Unity engine that seems to always have that issue. Yet, they did optimize it – I remember launching the game when only two Books were out and being horrified how poor the framerate was on the streets of Europolis’ Propast. Yet by now it runs much better. Even more, rather slow and long introductory section of the first Book has been restructured into something shorter and better. I can only hope that developers have time to give the same treatment to all other parts of the game some day. Check if something else can be improved and improve on it.
In the end, as a full experience, Dreamfall Chapters is not as good of the game is it could’ve been, no. But then again, neither were Dreamfall or The Longest Journey. All three games have their own issues and problems. Yet, all three have something special about them. They do something that only good stories do – they activate your imagination, motivate to believe in their world and think of your own stories. And this story has come to an end. Should Dreamfall Chapters be the last game released about this world, I’m fine with that. It was a long journey and it’s a journey I feel I will want to take upon again.
P.S. Video review: