Short Review: Stunning setting (visually and thematically), great voice acting, story is top notch, but gameplay is a little lacking. If you're someone that plays games principally for story and setting, then this is for you. If not, and it breaks my heart to say this, then I would avoid this as it is narrative heavy. If you've played previous Dreamfall/TLJ games then this is definitely a worthy successor. If you haven't, then this review might not be helpful for you but give it a shot anyway.

Long Review: This is a difficult game to review. The first in the series, The Longest Journey, was released around fifteen years ago. The second, Dreamfall, was released eight years ago, and was riddled with cliffhangers that are only now being resolved. I honestly couldn't tell you whether someone who hasn't played the earlier ones would enjoy this, so I won't bother. This is a review for the original fans of the game.

The game is visually stunning. It's not next-gen graphics or what have you, but it's modern and the love and care the team at Red Thread Games put into making Europolis feel like a 23rd century proto-dystopian city which still manages to look fantastic and somehow make me wistfully want to live in such a place. The darkened, rain filled, sky with neon all over the place and an odd mix of 19th century, 21st century, and 23rd century architecture is fantastic, with neat little details. You'll walk past a big modern skyscraper and see parts at the base which are crumbling and showing brick walls or the original iron supports.

The voice acting and story is great. The voice acting is phenomenal, and in all characters you can feel the genuine emotion and thoughts running through their dialogue. Better than most AAA games. The dialogue system they've set up should be the gold standard in games, where you can mouse over each of the answers and hear the protagonists thoughts on why that would be their answer. We only see a small snippet of the story in the first episode (called a 'book'), but already you can see how the threads are beginning to weave together into a coherent whole. And when I say a small snippet, I don't mean that it's short. My playthrough lasted four hours (it flew by so fast, I could've sworn I wasn't playing more than an hour), so in total this is looking to be a 20 hour game of pure content, and not achievement hunting, or pointless side missions, or collectibles. It's certainly got me itching for more. There appears to be genuine choice and consequences as well, though again - it's still too early to tell before the other books are released. That said, this is where one of my main concerns lies. The game has the option to track your decisions, and the majority of decisions I made, so too did 80%+ of other players. Hopefully they address this in future so there's more genuine choice, instead of obvious ones.

The gameplay, sadly, is a bit lacking as well. Which is understandable, this is essentially one of the old 1990s adventure games, transplanted and moderately reworked to fit a 3d setting and is a bit lost as a result, but there haven't been any sections that have been unenjoyable as a result, and it hasn't detracted from the games main strengths. Fortunately, they haven't included combat (thus far) as they were forced to do for Dreamfall, but so far there have been none of the 'impossible puzzles' that were common in so many such games if only because there have been few puzzles full stop.

I was in my early 20s when Dreamfall first came out, and it's probably the game that's moved me (emotionally? spiritually?) more than any other game. I say this with considerable relief, Dreamfall Chapters evokes the same kinds of feelings now that I had when first playing Dreamfall back in '06. If you're a fan of the series, or of top-of-the-line storytelling, this is a must-buy.

Important: The following is just a statement about the first book (or episode), as played on the first day of release. As soon as a new episode comes out or something gets fixed, I will update.

A (so far) great continuation of a decade old story that was left on a cliffhanger, with a lot of heart that is just still a bit rough in places.

The bad:
-What seems like really poor optimization right now. Constant fps drop in busy areas, even on a high-end gaming PC. Checked with multiple people that suffered from the same.
-Occasional bugs every now and then, including some really weird graphical bugs and strange light textures appearing across the screen.
-Very noticeable difference in quality and polish between models. Some textures look really good, some look pretty damn dreadful. Some character models are really good, some just fail to impress in comparison.
-Animation, although sometimes relatively solid, at other times just seems very weird and especially walk cycles of some characters as well as how they rotate and/or talk seems very out of place.

The good:
-The game looks really nice. The art style is really good, it has a really nice range of colours, and some areas like the main city you explore in the first episode are insanely detailed and look alive and believable.
-Really interesting characters, both from older games in the series as well as new ones. Mostly good voice actors, although some sound a bit amateurish compared to others.
-For only the first episode being released so far, it holds a nice length of around 3-4 hours, and can be easily pushed up higher if you engage in all conversations and explore a bit.
-The story continues right off of the last game and brings a slow but interesting new start to the series.

Dreamfall Chapters is almost a game that should be recommended to every fan of modern adventure games. It is very slow paced, and it completely consists of walking around and talking with people, with little variation and very simple puzzles in between. Taking all of that into consideration however, it does manage to (so far) tell a really interesting tale with fun and colourful characters, and has a beautiful art style as well as decent length and structure to it. The only thing holding it back are the poor optimization and the few bugs found every now and then. Even though players new to the series should have no big problems getting into the game, they might be left a bit confused at the start, and it does seem to target older fans more than anything. Everyone who loved the last Dreamfall game should also be in for a treat with this one, anyone else who is new to the series should still risk a look if they are primarily interested in good story telling and a slow atmosphere-focused game with little action, but a lot of wonder to breath in. The lack of polish is the only thing keeping this game away from being as good as its predecessors.

Book One:

It’s been almost a decade since the ending of the previous installment left us with an abrupt cliffhanger while making us eager for more ventures of Zoë Castillo.

Ever since then, the future of Dreamfall was uncertain, with Funcom shifting its focus to online games before finally being salvaged with successful Kickstarter funding. So how does the first episode hold up after all those production perils and is it a worthy successor of the Dreamfall series?

For those of you who just tuned in and are unfamiliar with its predecessor (shame on you!), this story-driven adventure game takes place in two worlds, technology-infused Stark and magical land of Arcadia. Our heroine Zoë will start the journey by investigating the disappearance of her ex-boyfriend Reza Temiz, before unraveling a global conspiracy led by Japanese toy manufacturer WATIcorp. As you would assume, their real focus is far from making toys for kids and more on delivering a new, vastly damaging lucid dreaming drug to the market, something which will have dire consequences on both Stark and Arcadia in later events. Slowly you are introduced to new characters and find yourself jumping between worlds following the WATIcorp trail before realizing how small of a cog in a story they are and that much more is at stake.

The story picks up several months after the Longest Journey ending with Zoë still being stuck in a Storytime limbo. It is an otherworldly realm now swarming with Dreamachine addicts and other trapped souls. Following the gloomy finale in The Longest Journey, WATIcorp has gained even more power and influence by openly selling dream consoles from previous game labeled now as “Dreamachines”, a device marketed as a tool for enhancing lucid dreaming while making most of its users highly addicted in the process. You will get to witness that side effect firsthand while roaming through the streets of Europolis later, tripping over many of its comatose inhabitants in street corners.

At first, you will get a glimpse of storyline by helping other trapped souls and Dreamachine addicts in Storytime and later reconciling with our old mysterious friend Vagabond, who will inform us that both of the worlds of Stark and Arcadia are in great danger and Zoë’s help is needed once again. Before finding ourselves in Stark again, the game will briefly reunite us with another familiar face Kian Alvane, where we also learn more about his fate after the events in The Longest Journey. Along with Zoë, he is one of the three playable characters in the first episode of Chapters (I don’t want to spoil who the third protagonist is but let’s just say it is someone who I found quite charming and took me completely by surprise).

Seeing how this episode mostly acts as something to entice new and returning players of Dreamfall, I can understand the lack of challenging puzzles in game for the most part. Usually you will find yourself merely repeating what the game asks of you or just combining items on few occasions but sadly that’s all there is to it. Luckily, that would probably be the only flaw that you might see in game, since everything else has been polished to the perfection. From the soothing scenery of Storytime (but only if we ignore that nightmarish wardrobe with slimy tentacles coming out of it) to the luminous and lively streets of Europolis – it is quite clear at first glance to where most of the love for the game went.

Some older fans of Dreamfall might be displeased with the new voice actor for Zoë Castillo but frankly, that is something you might notice if you finished the previous game in the series only recently. And I assure you, beside that minor change the game does not hold back when it comes to delivering some quality voice acting. I can safely say that now we have a strong contender for one of the most adorable voices for a repair bot in video games ever.

Speaking of Europolis, it is one of the few locations in first episode where you will spend most of the time and for a good reason. The whole city is gorgeously designed, highlighting the contrast between rich and poor on every corner. One moment you might find yourself gazing at the beautiful skyscrapers in Sonnenschein Plaza before stumbling over one of the many slumbering Dreamachine junkies. And let’s not forget our old pals from EYE, a global police agency who will watch over your every move, creeping on you and thousands of other citizens in Europolis.

In most games and movies, I always found the inclusion of lens flare nothing more than a cheap gimmick and what developers tend to incorporate when they run out of any other creative additions. But in this context, it is a feature which works incredibly well and adds something new to the whole dreamy (wink wink) undertone of the game. Dreamfall Chapters also does a remarkable job in pushing the capabilities of Unity engine to the sheer limits. Often i found myself going on short breaks from whatever game was asking me to do and decide to take an excessive number of screenshots instead. Even some seemingly bland section such as medieval prison complex makes up for an interesting and enjoyable location in the game.

Another thing on what developers focused more in Dreamfall Chapters are choices. Just like in a certain Telltale’s post-apocalyptic zombie game, you will now be notified with a large text prompt whenever you make an important decision while having an option to see the percentage of selected choices from other players online which might significantly help you in making a decision. The real question here is will these decisions result in greater variety, establishing a different image of the world for each player or are they nothing more than templates merely guiding us to one of the few prearranged endings of the game. For now, I believe it could go either way. One of my decisions in prologue during the second playthrough resulted in having a completely different job and doing business with a new key NPC once I found myself in Europolis again. Every other choice implied we might only see possible results of them in upcoming episode(s), especially when I played with Kian Alvane. To be fair, I am still a bit skeptical on how my choice between pork sausages or cheese soup for boyfriend’s dinner might leave a significant impact on the future of both worlds but i guess only time will tell.

Abstract:

Despite the serious lack of challenge in puzzles and relatively short length (although this point might prove invalid later with the release of new episodes), Dreamfall Chapters is quite deserving of your attention. With its superb voice acting, stunning locations and captivating story which will only leave you counting down the weeks for the release of the next episode, I will say we have a rewarding sequel for the Longest Journey. After an intro as good as this one, it’s hard not to expect only the best from the next episode.

8/10

If you have never played The Longest Journey or Dreamfall, be warned that this game is dialog heavy. Like its predecessors, Dreamfall Chapters is an interactive story.

The Good:
- After eight years we are FINALLY moving forward toward a resolution.
- Beautiful graphics. The city of Europolis is huge and feels like a real city. You can eavesdrop on conversations! I loved just poking around the city looking at everything (remember to look up at the sky).
- Protagonists are interesting and relatable. Zoe's journal is a nice addition.
- New, fantastic characters introduced. I can't wait to learn more about them.
- Some new, imaginative ways to interact with the environment.
- I love the costuming - even the NPCs. Really well designed and I can tell a lot of thought went into every outfit.

The Bad:
- The controls were almost unbearable for me. I really couldn't get used to them and I got very frustrated at times trying to click on elements to interact with them. Some puzzles took me a long time to solve purely because had no idea an item could be interacted with, despite moving it into the centre of the camera field. Moving around felt very slow and clunky, even after several hours of playing.
- My computer has above the recommended specs and I got some brutal fps drops.
- Some ham fisted dialog and story elements. I get that Ragnar is trying to make a statement about the political situation in the West at the moment, but really. Lea Uminska's campaign posters are exactly the same style and colour as Obama's "HOPE" posters. Konstantin Wolf's posters have a Futurist/Constructivist lean to them like old Soviet propaganda posters.
- I noticed quite a few small errors - maybe some were intentional? They were distracting. A jellyfish is *not* a cephalopod!

If you're reading this review and you haven't played The Longest Journey and Dreamfall stop right now and buy them. There are both here on Steam as well as on GOG. If you have played those two already then I’m sure you’re curious if Chapters lives up to being the long awaited third game in The Longest Journey series for almost a decade. The answer is a resounding yes, heck yes. Chapters is already pretty great one episode in and I’m really glad I backed it.

Chapters is just as well written as its predecessors but one thing that really stands out is how freaking beautiful and immersive it is. After the first two parts that show what Zoe and Kian have been up to since the end of Dreamfall, Chapters puts you into Europolis, the huge megalopolis that’s Zoe moved to, and for an adventure game it’s a lot bigger than I expected. It’s also really dense without a lot to see and conversations to overhear. It’s really great and something that TLJ and Dreamfall didn’t achieve as well.

The gameplay takes a lot of inspiration from Walking Dead and it honestly suits it well. A key difference is that instead of timed dialogue segments that force you make decisions on the fly, Chapters is a lot more contemplative, you're not timed and the characters will actually think about the dialogue options to themselves when you mouse over them. The gameplay is also your standard adventure game point and click fare but the interface is now extremely streamlined and minimalist in all the right ways, especially compared to Dreamfall’s clunky ♥♥♥ interface.

It's still early to really tell if your choices really make some changes (Though as the game hints, your choices are going to affect the journey, not the destination) but there is a nice substantial deviation from one decision that you can make early on that can lead you to meet different characters unique to the path you choose. So if they keep that up it will be really neat.

The end of the first episode also has the best run animation for a video game character I've ever seen.

The only negative is that looking at other reviews it seems it's not only me and that the game isn't totally well optimized, the game can suffer slowdown in Europolis and there are graphical glitches. But that's something that can be fixed with a patch so its far from a dealbreaker.

Chapters is shaping up to be truly great and potentially the best game in the series. It has all the heart and wonder that the previous games had and then some. Backers have no need to fear and those who didn’t back it definitely need to check it out.

*EDIT*
New patch rolled out and its definitely improved performance. Now this game really doesn't have any real flaws!

Whether you're new to the franchise or familiar with the previous titles, all that matters is that Dreamfall Chapters is a rich, enthralling story set in breathtaking environs where the choices you make on behalf of the protagonist have consequences. As a returning fan of the series, I'm eager to see where my choices will lead. It took me about 8 hours to get through the first chapter, but I took my time and enjoyed the story. I let myself get lost in the city. When there was dialog I listened, and written materials, I read them. I eavesdropped on the vibrant conversations of no consequence, I took in the sights, poked around the dark alleys, perused seemingly useless wares in shops, and listened to the music and chatter. Because of these choices, when the credits rolled, I didn't feel cheated by a short chapter, I felt introduced to a whole new world. I feel like I just read a great choose-your-own-adventure, saw a great movie, and played a great game all at once.

It's great being back in the Dreamfall universe! Absolutely gorgeous graphics, wonderful, engaging music that fits the context, great stories, good controls (at least for me, using a mouse and keyboard). I thoroughly enjoyed this first part and I cannot wait for the next part! (Ok, I CAN wait, I would just have loved to continue straight away :P) The team has done a wonderful job!

Just to sumarise what I'm about to say, everything about this game is high quality in terms of graphics quality, sounds/music, art style, story, voice acting, controls, creativity, basically anything one (or me at least) can think of about a game that's story focused, the game has it all in great care.

The game has gorgeous graphics in terms of technical power (effects, textures, animations) and art direction, with smooth high quality soundtrack that conveys an epic sense of journey, also the great voice acting for the game that's almost fully voice acted with a ton of different types of accents.

The story is interesting and compelling, with different scenarios happening that goes alongside with how you play with different characters other than the main character in a different world and time, and these worlds are believable ones to be in, especially the city where you mainly play in as the main character with how one can tell and differentiate one area from another, and so memorising the city slowly becomes accomplished, looking at a map becomes a useful tool to check where you're going rather than using it as a guide for the rest of the game.

Although at a certain point in the game i found myself where i couldn't find the place where the game told me to go, while this annoyed me a bit i found it enjoyable to go and find it myself, thinking that the city is an area where i can see myself go to in real life, and that's kind of a great feeling to having while roaming the city, trying to find the place you want to go to. I guess instead of thinking this as a negative, I'd go with 'bitter-sweet'.

The choices the game presents you with are vague but described correctly and not falsely, in which case it falls back to the person playing on which of the choices is the best one to choose, putting serious thought into a choice keeping in mind that something might happen later on.

And so at the end of the game, book one out of five, the game reminds you of the choices you made and how each one will effect the story and character(s) throughout the next chapters of the game, with a "what other players choose" which is neat. Having the game push the idea of how the choices you make or have made will have meaningful changes or consequences later on, and whether that's true or not, having you believe it, believe in the idea that you're choices actually has an impact, is a great point for a story focused game to have.

Overall i love the game, from the technicalities like the graphics, sounds, level design and controls, to the design choices like the art style, level design, characters, to the story and how there's a lot of mystery to it. If you want the full package with the full story and content, then wait until all of the chapters are out, but i do recommend getting this game, saying it's well worth the asking price on PC digital stores, and really can't say no to it, heck I'd say this is a GOTY contender in my book, but let's see where the rest of the game goes in the remaining chapters.

Shamless link to original post.

Howdy guys & gals, i was a ''little'' girl (a teen to be more precise, 16-ish years old) when i played Dreamfall: The Longest Journey and oh my gosh was that an amazing game.

I spent like countless hours playing it......It was a one of my favorites of all time so needless to say i was so hapy when i learned that Ragnar and the company are working on a sequel but enough of that, lets get to the real thing.

So i don't know about you, yes you the readers but i am so tired and bored of all thous cliche and repetitive games like Call of Duty, Battlefield, Counter-Strike and the like, i mean once you played one of them you played them all.

They are so linear and they all revolve around same thing.....mindless , endless, shooting/killing same stuff over and over and...over again. They have short predetermined linear story on which you as a player can't influence no matter how many *bad* guys you end up killing along the way, campaign will always finish in a same way
, same ending.

Now when it comes to Dreamfall Chapters (and previous parts) this game has a soul and games such as this one are extremly rare on the market these days. Things i love about this game are :

(PROS)

- STORY- I can never get enough of it, i mean come on, it is like real life where each and every decision you make will come back at you and haunt you at some point in the game. Story is fun and it always leaves you wanting for more, it has many twists.

-VOICE ACTING- It is marvelous , i love it how characters speak, they are all unique, Zoey has that ''unsure'' feeling to her in most things when you catch her off guard , warden character has that distinct ''ahm/mm'' pause when he speaks (like clearing throat), Kian Alvane has that manly terminator/Conan like stile/voice. All this things make characters more believable and easier to like (or hate ;-p).

-GRAPHICS- Now i know they are not latest Crysis or Star Citizen like but come on.....They are way better then most ''adventure'' games. They are a big plus and a step forward when compared to older instalments or up to date *similar* to Dreamfall games.

-MUSIC/AUDIO- I mean how can someone not like this ( listen from 0:40) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o-PfK9imOE , or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_eKwP64_Sw <3 .

Other then this when talking about audio in general it adds to the feeling of ''really being there'' while exploring the world speaking of which......

-WORLD- When it comes to areas and the like this is the only *adventure* game that is actually open world-ish, i mean city of Propast in Europolis is larger then any area/region in other adventure games and its fully explorable with many interesting stuff to see that bring this game to life, like strong police presence/patrols, citizens moving about doing their stuff....you know...living!

(CONS)

-Now when it comes to downsides only one i can see is lack of ''side quests'', i can't do stuff for random people on the side while exploring the city or other areas at least in book one, that may change with upcoming releases thou. Take for example the Witcher game or Mass Effect even thou they are a different genre, in thous games as you probably know you have both main quests and side quests, in Dreamfall Chapters you only have main quests as it is...for now anyway.


All this being said i must point out that overall i am extremly pleased with this game and i have been looking for a sequel or alternatives since the time i played Dreamfall TLJ and i am happy that this game is finally here and i can only hope that there will be sequels to it. :-)


-Even if you are not into this kind of games i really think its worth trying out, if nothing else then to break monotony of constantly playing cliche games like zombie survival, shooters and endless strategy games.....This game is one of a kind.

Sowwy in advance for any possible grammar mistakes, English is not my native and no Google is not my friend, we had a fight recently when it refused to find a movie i wanted to watch. Maybe i will do a video on Dreamfall Chapters but then most of internet would make fun of my accent ⊙▂⊙ , but will see, until next time have fun, try the game out and take care.

*Waves*

o (◡‿◡✿)

The writing is impecible, hilarious, and at times moving. The images are colorful, artistic and wonderful for an indie game. The music is very atmospheric with some good mood elements. The gameplay itself could use a little harder puzzles but this first episode kept me busy for quite some time, so when the entire game is finished it will be a decent sized game. All in all it's a worthy sequel and adds to the wonderful univers of The Longest Journey. I look forward to more.

This review is written after completing book 1, and comes from the perspective of someone who hasn't finished any of the older games. Yes, in my opinion, this game can be played if you haven't played any of the others. It'll take you some time to get into it, but eventually events and things will make sense to you. Obviously it'll be easier if you did play the games though. (I won't discuss any specific spoilers.)

I've heard many good things about the games, and when I found out that this game was coming out, I decided to check it out. I like games with an interesting story and choices that will affect how you as a player will experience it.

The first thing I noticed about the game before I played it, is that two of the three playable characters are poc, persons of color. Now that wouldn't matter so much if they weren't good characters to begin with. Fortunately, Zoë and Kian are interesting characters. I have more to say about Zoë since the focus of the game was more on her in the first book, but from what I've seen during my time with Kian, he'll have to make tough decisions in later books.

The intro chapter of the first book (which I will refer to by its title, Reborn) was amazing. It (re)introduces you to Zoë, what happened to her, where she is, and where she wants to go (which is a decision made by you). In the first chapter, it already becomes clear that she's unsure of her path in life, which makes her a believable protagonist if you ask me. She loves helping people, finding a good cause to work for and she's witty. Additionally, she struggles, just like you and me.

I thought the last chapters of Reborn were a little dull. It involved running around the town and finishing objectives, and when I realized I was about to finish the chapter, I felt a bit relieved. However, that's not to say that the entire chapter is dull. [Zoë Castillo voice] "Nope. Nope, nope, nope." Like I said, the beginning of Reborn was amazing to me, and throughout the chapter, I've found many little things I thoroughly enjoy. I won't address them here, since I was surprised by them and that's the best way to enjoy something.

The voice acting in this game is mostly right. The protagonists have good voice actors, so I don't have anything to complain there. Here and there, there are characters in the game who have questionable VA's, characters who have voices that don't suit their look. But these are small things that won't bother me in the long run.

I don't know what happened with these games, and how Dreamfall Chapters came to be. All I know is that the community wanted it to be a thing and it absolutely deserves the praise it gets. Set in a beautiful world you can (mostly) interact with, believable protagonists, an absolutely enchanting soundtrack... if you like this sort of game, please don't hesitate. I believe in the choices I made so far, and Dreamfall Chapters did a good job of reminding me that they will all have consequences... and that I will have to face them soon.

I can't wait.

10/10 I've been following this series from the beginning and ever since I learned of the kickstarter I've been eagerly waiting for this installment. Finally, some of the worst cliffhangers in all of gaming history will be cleared up. As the entire game hasn't yet been released it is hard to write a complete review. However, I love how they added a feature where decisions actually impact the game. This has been one of my favorite stories of all time.

I honestly don't believe that I am actually writing a review for Dreamfall Chapters! It's been such a long wait! After playing The Longest Journey and Dreamfall so many times, finally, finally, the third game in this saga is here.

Any true fan of Adventure games should buy this right away. Game is beautiful with a story so rich and voice acting and dialogue so perfect you just don't want to stop playing. It took me twelve hours to end Book One and that's mostly because I spent hours just wandering aimlessly through the main hub, not wanting to start a mission for the "fear" it might lead me elsewhere. The world Red Thread Games had created is so vivid and alive you feel like you belong there. And I'm not talking about visuals only, music and ambient sounds are terrific, as well.

The puzzles are neat, funny, story-driven and they make 'sense'. The dialogue "choices & consequences" is something I was pleasantly surprised by. It was done beautifully and I'm looking forward to see how it will all play out in the following Books.

I'm anxiously waiting for the continuation!

A huge THANK YOU to the devs that made my dreams come true <3

10/10

10/10

Loved the first 2, and this one as well. As a kickstarter backer that contributed $250, I am extremely satisfied with this game. The graphics are great, dialogue is amazing (hilarious at times).

Very mixed feelings on this one.

+ Very pretty at times
+ Music and visuals fit together nicely (atmospheric)
+ Dialogue can be very frank and natural
+ Interesting dream world (but very little of it)
+ Promising choice system (One my choices was picked only by 1.9% of players. A different choice that was seemingly cosmetic changed my character's career.)

- Overtly and self-righteously political (I sincerely hope there is a plot twist coming and it seems like it really might be, because thus far it felt more like really bad propaganda than a political commentary [or a game about dreams for that matter!]. It's two-dimensional, militant and above all unpleasant. There is no middle ground.)
- Terrible performance on modern hardware (main hub)
- Nothing of essence happens in Part 1 (even the cliffhanger is a little dull)
- Dialogue can be really bad and both the main character and her boyfriend sound like incredibly pretentious holier-than-thou types

Maybe it would be better to wait for more parts to come out. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't spoil anything because nothing really happened.

FINALY, after so many years of waiting, the 3rd part of the best adventure saga begins with Dreamfall Chapters: The Longest Journey - Book 1.

Featuring a beautiful graphics and a vast enviroment to explore, Dreamfall Chapters, the much anticipated sequel to the 2006 Dreamfall: The Longest Journey do not disappoint one bit, a well written story by Ragnar Tornquist, difficulty level that is perfectly balanced, interesting puzzles & covnersations and much more.

A true gem from new software house Red Thread Games, highly recommended for both old time fans of The Longest Journey saga as well as newcomers to the series.

On a personal note: I already finished book 1 no less than 3 times, the choices & consequences system in the game makes it very replayble, don't miss out.

Book One
=======

The long awaited 3rd chapter of The Longest Journey series has arrived albeit in the somewhat unfortunate episodic format.

The majority of the first 'book' (Episode) in Dreamfall: Chapters is played as Zoe Castillo, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey's protagonist and the game does a reasonably good job of recalling some of the finer moments from the previous game, however during the 8 years since, you'd be easily forgiven for being confused after the games opening cutscene and it's not till about an hour in that the game starts to fill in some of the blanks. This could have been avoided by the promised Journey: Graphic Novel which was due to be released beforehand to recap the previous games stories - sadly this was nowhere in sight for those who backed the game on kickstarter in the $75 and above tiers which has left a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth and ruined some of the experience for me as I was not able to go back and play the first two games before playing chapters.

Moving on from this - chapters has started a whole new story in the TLJ universe and one that I'm ready to get involved in, the first episode is clearly aimed at laying the ground work and some will be dissapointed by the fact that half of this episode is spent running around the same environment completing quests that will clearly become big story beats in the future. After a few quests in the main area the game began to feel a little stale and almost like the developer needed to provide filler by making you run around a lot to lengthen the episode. I'm hoping that this doesn't become a common sight as the games remaining episodes are released.

One feature that is new to the TLJ series is The Walking Dead style choices where RedThreadGames promise that choices made throughout the game will have consequnces in future endeavors, it's not yet clear if they'll pull this off as well as TellTale(The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us) but it's certainly something I'm excited to see as the episodes get released.

In terms of puzzles, Dreamfall: Chapters contains everything you'd expect from an adventure game of this type, from inventory based puzzles (Combine everything!) to puzzles based purely on a piece of dialogue you had with someone an hour ago. I didn't find myself ever getting frustrated with any of them and they all made logical sense unlike some of the series early work(Fans will remember a certain rubber duck puzzle) however some may rightly criticise them for being a bit too easy, which is slightly alarming considering this was the main complaint fans had with Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

Overall if I had to be honest with myself as a massive fan of the previous games, it's really difficult to recommend Dreamfall Chapters as an episodic game and personally I'd wait for the full series to be released, however if you can't wait to continue the story then by all means Book One is still a solid game with solid mechanics that you'd expect from this kind of adventure game and I've come away with a definite interest in seeing how the story develops going forward.

I'm going to be talking about the immersion/atmosphere/mystique in Dreamfall Chapters as it appears in Part 1 and appears to be the trend for the currently unreleased parts, i.e. the quality of the writing and the mechanics of how the game conveys you that writing. See other reviews for stuff like graphics and whatever. I played TLJ and Dreamfall in like 2012 or something and loved them so those don't really matter to me too much.


The expansion from point-and-click 2.5D static background in TLJ to the simple 3D corridor in Dreamfall survived decently well, but Dreamfall Chapters just drops the ball on the atmosphere as far as I'm concerned.

With TLJ the technology limitations and game type worked fairly well together. Fixed background allows easily for design to really make it feel more like an art piece and really define what it is that the player sees. The nature of clickable things being part of the fixed background though kept it on the game side via interactive exploration. April growing and shrinking also gave a more effective sense of distance than I think game developers these days are willing to admit.

Dreamfall managed to keep the transition to 3D decently since 3D world capabilities were probably fairly limited back then. Our world's cities were fairly narrow without too much "open world", but there were enough things to interact with to not feel like it was simply a walking simulator. Marcuria's city was the same way.


What happened in TLJ when you clicked on things and they had no purpose in the story or its progression, it simply gave you no response. There were things here and there you could look into, but there weren't that many and they gave you a feel of the situation, things that felt like they were there to speak for the music, the art style, and the premise of the story.

Dreamfall somewhat removed this with its eye/highlight system, but it was a reasonable system. The system had a very narrow range of view when selecting things to highlight, and although scanning was a lot easier than running a tiny cursor over the whole screen, it retained enough of the TLJ spirit to it to feel like I was still exploring and finding things out. The world shown was fairly small, but the way things were talked about made it feel fairly big and alive. Sort of like Remember Me, if you played that. The small corridors with glimpses of a huge world behind it are pretty good design choices. Creating a desire and hinting at it is often stronger than fulfilling a desire that one is unaware of; see skimpy clothing on women and basically any PR/hype for any product before it's out.

The population of the world in Dreamfall Chapters completely reversed this. I can remember the look of some people and some of the things of TLJ and Dreamfall. The autotaxi I thought was super neat, and the space station scene and the type of people in it have been strongly imprinted in my mind.

Whereas the technological limitations were implicitly acknowledged in TLJ and Dreamfall by its design, Dreamfall Chapters makes it way too obvious to the player. Now instead of a few things that you really pay attention, there's a torrent of repetition. In Europolis no matter what I higlighted in the market I heard the same things over and over again. Why are there 20 or so market tables but only 2 or 3 messages I hear about all of them? What is the purpose of 10 selectable trash cans? The adbots of Dreamfall Chapters nowhere near compare to the Screens of Dreamfall. There's a bunch of people now walking around that I really don't care about, and a lot of things strewn about that I don't know if I should really care about.

And I know where every single one of them are because with almost no effort on my part any time I look in a general direction, I'm told exactly what is and what isn't selectable.

There's something else that causes this complete lack of atmosphere or mystique.


In the opening of TLJ and Dreamfall we're introduced to a bit of the mystery and the scale of the story we're about to uncover within the first several minutes of the game. TLJ opens with a girl in underwear clearly from a time and place we can relate to and in a world which is clearly not. Dreamfall opens largely the same way with some vaguely modern guy with a bunch of kooky priests doing kooky stuff.

There is none of this in the opening of Dreamfall Chapters. We're told everything matter-of-factly, Zoe Castillo seems to perfectly know what she's doing except when she doesn't, and whatshisface opens his mouth too much in too many stupid ways and there's nothing amazing about any of it at all. Storytime used to be this really unknowable timeless place, now it's, oh, it's basically just where dreams happen. And we have this guy who has a poor command of the english language who appears sometimes. And we have superpowers somehow. We're told that we need to go back and stop the undreaming or something, which could be great even if the intro was poor, but we don't do any of that. We go back into the real world and all we talk about is Zoe's feelings and politics. There's nothing tying this to anything at all.

Not knowing the whole story is integral for a story to move forward, but thinking you know the next step is necessary for a story to even happen. April knew what her next step was going to be at all times, even if it was wrong. Zoe Castillo in Dreamfall knew at all times what her next step would be, even if it was wrong.

Zoe Castillo in Dreamfall Chapters doesn't know jack about anything and any time she's about to reveal something important, we're told to decide what it's about instead.

What was the 20% point for the average playthrough of TLJ or Dreamfall? Surely it's different from this. Looking over various Steam reviews it appears the average time to completion of Book 1 was somewhere between 4-8 hours (mine was 6 at time of writing). I took 13-14 hours to get through Dreamfall and about 15-17 to get through TLJ. I've seen a lot of defenses about how gameplay time isn't representative or whatever and this is true but the flow of the story is undoubtedly different and whether by percentage or by absolute playtime (which cannot be completely ignored) and in basically any story you see by the 20% point or in any game/movie/TV series/book by 4-8 hours in (unless the story is several hundred hours long) you have a fair idea of what is going on. At any time the audience can feel disengaged and you always have to have something around the corner to keep them turning the page or whatever it might be in that medium.


I don't think it is reasonable to say that Dreamfall Chapters is good. I have no real reason to come back to it except for the fact that I backed the game and want to see how things turn out. I cannot recommend this game to anyone who has not already played TLJ and Dreamfall, and even to those who do I cannot really say it is a worth spending money on.

For all the reasons that can be said about releasing a game in chapters, it is undeniable that RTG thought that this first book/chapter/part of their game was worthy of releasing to the public and thus fair for any and all criticism. It is not an alpha or a beta or an early release. It is a public release of a section of the game.

Unless the design philosophy changes quite radically I don't think I will be changing my recommendation.


It's like RTG forgot "Show Don't Tell" is the key to immersion.

I've been waiting this since forever! Finally it comes!

Beautiful graphics, intriguing storyline. The only downside is that the frame rate drops in Europolis and Zoe's apartment. Episodic gaming is not really my cup of tea, but I guess I'll have to make do.

Very much story driven. You will have to play Dreamfall: The Longest Journey before this as it is a direct sequel. Can't wait for the next episode.

Dreamfall Chapters is the long-awaited continuation of The Longest Journey (1999) and Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (2006). If you are a fan of the previous two games, this one will not disappoint. The first book will take you about 5 to 7 hours to complete, depending on your play style. Several playthroughs are highly encouraged because of the choice and consequence system so you should get more than your moneys worth out of the first book.

The game is pretty nice graphically, but there are some issues with lighting and frame rates. The gameplay is what you have come to expect from this saga and mostly boils down to exploration, collecting and combining items and talking with all the different characters. There are occasional bugs but they are never game breaking and they don't take much away from the experience. The amazing sound design and the new choice and consequence system both increase immersion and Stark and Arcadia feel like living and breathing worlds, though the focus of this book is very much on Stark.

Most importantly the developers at Red Thread games have managed to create a deep, compelling and mature story filled with amazing characters. This first book will not yet give you all the answers you are looking for, but it does a great job of setting the tone and it made me very excited for things to come.