Dreamfall Chapters: The Final Cut

So this review is only based off the first book. If I can I may change my review after further books. I'm also going to avoid spoilers. So how is it? In a word bloody good and yes it really is worth two words. Story hasn't really begun to unfold in book one though there is definitely a good setup, plenty of interesting new characters and plenty of juicy intrigue to tie you over/torture you relentlessly untill book 2 come out. (don't know when, supposedly 2-3months but could be more) The story pretty much seems to start off where Dreamfall left off, though there do seem to be subtle changes. Also the answer to that one question everyone really wants to know is maybe or maybe not. Yeh still haven't fully cleared that up yet (in my opinion, others may interpret it differently) Voice acting is fantastic across the board with maybe one or two exceptions, that said the exceptions are mainly because I just personally didn't like their voices much, the actual acting still seemed pretty good. Writing is equally great and still contains that slightly sarcastic sense of humor from the previous two games. So why only 4 stars? Unfortunately gameplay is nothing to write home about. They seem to have dropped the stealth/fighting sections from Dreamfall (which is good) but it still seems to contain some of that bizarre adventure game logic that plagued The Longest Journey (though to a significantly lesser degree). This doesn't affect it too much though since, let's be honest, we're here for the story. The other problems are technical. I didn't run into and major bugs, just one invisible bin I think, but graphics (while very good) are very poorly optimized and have both aliasing issues and some lighting issues (because they're pushing the Unity engine to it's limits). On top of this I felt the audio mixing was a little off with some dialogue being a little hard to hear over the background noise. Overall though this is an absolutely great game, looking forward to the next book.

Dreamfall Chapters is the last part of a trilogy of titles spanning the better part of 2 decades. While I would recommend it to anyone just looking for a good story driven adventure, this goes doubly true for someone who has been there since the beginning, or even just the second game. You are finally getting to see the end of a rather epic story that has likely held you in wait for a long time... and unlike many things, I have to say this time the wait was worth it.

It is definitely a good story. Original Dreamfall game didn't have an ending. This one does. It concludes the story and does it quite well. Not flawless, but well. Dialogues are decent, music is awesome, artwork is great. Unfortunately, I can't tell the same about the actual "game" part of the game. If you played the Dreamfall and you liked it (as did i), then you'll probably like the Dreamfall Chapters as well. The gameplay is almost similar to original Dreamfall (minus clumsy fighting sequences, there are none of them here). You walk around, talk to some people, look at things, pick them up, combine them and use at some places later. But there are very few actual puzzles in the game, so for the most time you'll be doing the walking around and looking/talking part. And there are also cutscenes. Lots of cutscenes. The last chapter is almost one huge cutscene with almost none interactions. On the technical side, the game was really buggy after the initial release, but it much better now. Switching to Unity 5 made it run smoother and look a little better. Character animations are terrible, but I think, I can forgive that. So, in the end, we have a good story with quite a little game to actually play. If you're fine with it, you should give it a try. If you're searching for something like the "rubber duck puzzle" from original TLJ, you'll probably be disappointed. This is indeed a conclusion of the Dreamfall dilogy. And it also can be considered as a conclusion of The Longest Journey trilogy, but I still hope, that they will make the sequel to the TLJ itself some day.

I played the first game 20 years ago and the second one 10 years ago or so. Very satisfying experience in all of them. I like this kind of games where you can enjoy it without feeling stressed out, you can screw it up and it's ok, I felt stress-free just enjoying this beautiful world. Fantasy + relatable characters and moments + humor + touching moments remembering things from the past and connecting them in the story (if you have played the other ones). I love it!

I won't dwell too much into the details. I'm too lazy for that. Similarly to its previous Dreamfall title... I would call it as stretch to say that this is a game. It is an interactive movie with very brief and scarce moments when it can feel a bit like a game. Gameplay is close to horrible. Clearly optimized for console gamepads, using gamepad instead of mouse+keyboard will improve the experience, but it doesn't completely fix it. The "game" parts feel slow, I spend most of my time walking and/or searching for things. Almost no puzzles, and the few ones we find are extremely bland and boring. And... that's when we get to play, because most of the relevant parts of the story are just unplayable cut scenes, where one has to sit and watch, but not participate. The story is nice... but it's not properly polished. I understand that there are many uncovered aspects of the plot to make space for new titles, "just in case" (although it is clear that they didn't want to keep working on this series after this one). However... this does not justify AT ALL how the story is presented and developed. As an example, what they did with the Saga character is close to insulting. It could have been a very interesting plot line... and they disgraced it completely. I'm not asking them to reveal all the mysteries, but she was just used as a plot device to fix the unfixable plot holes that were being created along the way during that story.