Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

I bought this game thinking it was going to be an action game or an RPG, at the time I didn't know about the prequel, "The Longest Journey." Though it is an RPG in the literal sense of role playing, there are no level ups or stat points. The game play is mostly puzzle solving with some wonky combat thrown in, neither of which I found enjoyable. Although I did not enjoy the game play as a whole, I did like that I felt like a vulnerable human rather than an invincible superhero. Where this game really shined for me was the characters and the atmosphere, I really felt like I could relate to them. The environment and atmosphere were well done too. When I was sneaking around I felt like I was trespassing, I felt afraid I was going to be caught. I won't give away too much of the story as it's one of the best parts of the game, however.. You start off playing as the mildly depressed Zoey who is losing interest in everything she was once passionate about, until her friend who is working on a big secret story, suddenly goes missing. This game is linear, and is more comparable to "Heavy Rain" or "Myst" than "Oblivion" or "Alan Wake." If the game sounds remotely interesting, I recommend you try it. I hate the game play and still love the game.

Dreamfall is one of those games that suffers from trying to do too many different things at once, and doing none of them particularly well. If you really loved The Longest Journey, you won't find that Dreamfall is a really comparable game, or a good game in its own right. People expecting a pure adventure game in particular will be surprised and disappointed, because this game is not that. Most of the puzzles are of the stupidly easy "Go to a place, talk to a person, and bring back their item" variety, and the only puzzles that aren't are terribly counterintuitive (like the one puzzle in a cave that requires you to remember a sequence of musical notes that some of the cave beasts periodically whistle... if they're not attacking you). There is also a (poorly implemented) fighting mechanic in this game, and many fights are totally unavoidable. There are also mandatory stealth sections that are similarly unavoidable. There is no exploration to speak of; the game is more or less entirely linear, and going to locations out of the plot-dictated order is neither beneficial nor interesting. The game uses a checkpoint-based saving system, which is a bane to all gamers. It also inherits a flaw from TLJ, in that it takes a very long time to walk anywhere. Tack on a few quick-time events, and overall the gameplay becomes very unsatisfying. The continuity with TLJ is mostly quite weak. Some of the characters you'll remember from TLJ are present, but they are not given nearly as much screen-time as the new heroine, Zoe, and the characters she interacts with. The plot is oddly disconnected from the events of TLJ; the plot hooks left over from that game are mostly unaddressed in this game. For that matter, the plot and writing in general are a bit on the weak side, and the game ends on a tremendous cliffhanger. The visuals are reasonably good, but NOT for the time this game was released (2006). In particular, the character animations are sub-par; spend some time looking at Zoe's waggly pony-tail waving around like some kind of tentacle and you'll understand the problem. The music is unmemorable, and so is most of the voice acting. As I played through this game, I found myself thinking that it was much more like an interactive movie than an actual game, but it didn't have the sort of strong story that a interactive movie must have in order to be entertaining. I found myself annoyed whenever the game prompted me to do something, feeling like I was jumping through hoops to advance the plot instead of having fun with the gameplay sequences. In short, this is not a good game. The positive reviewers clearly had a very different experience from me, but I do not think my impression is a unique one. Do not pay any amount of money to play this.

Summary: This is a series of cutscenes (where the plot and character development happens) connected by fetch puzzles, stealth puzzles, or 'fight scenes'. I loved the continuation of TLJ's world, this time with new protagonists, and where the world has moved on in the intervening 10 years. Get it on sale if you liked TLJ, but be warned that it's not as good as its predecessor. Positives: - There's a lot of plot - Multiple protagonists, each with their own quests - Character development - no-one ends up where they started, and I like the common theme of 'faith' - 3D scenes stand up quite well given the game's age - Some of the voice acting is excellent (e.g. Crow) Negatives: - Lack of real puzzles - Combat is actually comically bad, and utterly pointless in the plot - The story seems like it ends when the writers got bored; there is no resolution, no cliffhanger, and various threads are plainly forgotten about - The third-person camera is nauseating; I couldn't see where I was going half the time - Zoe's voice actor sounds like she was bored throughout

It's actually a movie and lacks the charm of point'n'click adventures although some areas do look nice although quite dead. Rails... moving around... combat (dafuq?)...stealth... rails... endless cutscenes... combat....no immersion... untouching artificially sad scenes... open end.... "buy the next part to see the end, maybe"... Controlling it with mouse and keyboard was so terrible (btw: Inverted X axis? Seriously?), that I switched to a gamepad and it was indeed designed as a console game which becomes obvious from the very beginning. The "puzzles" are disiculously easy, you only have 2-3 items in your inventory most of the time and if you missed the musical notes played in one moment in the game, you can't solve a puzzle and have no chance to hear the notes again. The German voice-over was one of the most terrible I've ever encountered. You are reminded all of the time, that nobody knew what they were actually talking about and which expression to use when reading the script. The Characters are not very well written overall but the main character Zoe is the worst. She is a pampered rich girl that aborted her studies, does not work, abandoned her boyfriend without any real reason (and he is not even mad) and complains about her not knowing what to do with her time while watching TV most of the days, partying and being extremely unreliable which for some reason nobody really minds apart from her female martial arts trainer that in the end only complains a bit about it. If it would have been a guy, the father would surely have minded that "his little prince" is a lazy bum and thrown him out of the apartment. It was a waste of time and I hope that Dreamfall: Chapters is way better then this.

As a big fan of The Longest Journey, I didn't hesitate to buy this game, too. At the beginning I've been busy with getting familiar with the new control and I was stunned of the graphics that was fabolous and even in 2020, it's okay. But this is a genre that is not always about the perfect graphics, I also had high expectations on characters, dialogs, and a good storyline. The funny thing is that the game met my expectations - Guys, this game could've been a masterpiece! However, as I proceeded with playing, I realized that for me this third-person control is a bit annoying, versus the normal point-and-click find-the-hotspots style - but I accepted it, though. Also I'd have accepted the always-run style plus use Shift to walk; if Caps Lock would've work as I'd have expected (I thought if I turn caps lock on, it would always walk, but it doesn't work). Also, during sneaking the body posture is so lame I laughed. Also, I like to use/combine objects and doing puzzles (those kind that make sense) instead of actions and fighting (and, honestly, I'm not really good at fighting so I had to repeat the fighting parts 5-6 times that made it very irritating), but I wasn't satisfied. I also expected more interactions and dialogs, but this was also a disappointment. in some chapters I could barely do anything but listening to the spectacular scene videos. During others, I had limited possibilities to change how things are going. The game firmly guides me to the end. If we're talking about the 'end'... Others mentioned it already, it's indeed unpleasant and I don't think we fans have deserved it. But, money talks... I finished the story using my imagination. And I definitely won't buy the further parts in the sequel.