Dreamfall Chapters: The Final Cut

I got the occasion to get the game free in 2016 during a gog sale and since i always remember with pleasure the series, i grab the occasion. At the time, only 4 books were released, i wasn't aware of kickstarter situation (let's be honest, RTG has done the same marketing and development mistakes with the previous games) and i didn't have the hardware to play it and "close the circle" started in 1999 with TLJ, a milestone born in the swansong age of adventure games. On late 2020 DC comes out from backlog Don't do my mistake, play or watch the first two games, expecially if you played a long time ago like me. Even if you got a prologue with summarize at big lines where we left and despite the presence of different sections aimed at introducing characters and situations to newcomers to the series, the feeling is that the new work by Ragnar Tørnquist is nothing more than a continue quotation from past adventures based on a complex narrative background (expecially in the big rush at book 5) DC is more an interactive film, where at some point there'll be some important decision wich affects the first 3 books and partially the last 2. Those decision should be the core of replaybility, but i wasn't caught for a second run. Puzzles and interaction are simplistic and during first 3 books it'll be go from A to B and do the task. The game music is absolutely valuable and inspired, even if only in a few decisive cases they manage to affect and rise from a simple appreciable accompaniment Graphic wise is pleasant, focusing more on dialogues animation (even if sync lip is not always perfect), but after book 3, i got bored during book 4 (a comprehensive compendium of clichés), get caught again at the end and became bittersweet with the big rush of book 5, wich let me unsatified under some aspect wich looks fundamental until book 3/4 but they don't have any explaination at the end (the midiclorian effect) and they were maybe saved for the nevercome The Longest Journey Home

Pros: - great visual style - 3d Arcadia! Yay! - 5th book actually has few cool moments Cons: - no interesting characters - awful animations. And it is a huge lack - boring gameplay. Even in culiminating moments you won't feel any tension. I don't hate interactive movie genre, but this game is bad even for it. I finished it only because I in love with first two games.

At first I have to say, I really liked The Longest Journey. Dreamfall Chapters however drove me nuts because of the dialogue style. Especially Zoe is talking like most people would do to small children or puppy-dogs. All the time! It was bothersome right from the start, but drove me more an more crazy the longer I played. There comes a longer part where Zoe is talking with a little robot and that was so extremely annoying that I quit the game and uninstalled it. Even my girlfriend hated the dialogues. I think the overall story is good, but I was so concentrated on the dialogues that I couldn't manage to enjoy the game anymore.

Completely unsuitable for anyone not familiar with the first two games. For the rest, it's a mixed bag. Fans will probably get something out of it, a conclusion of sorts, if nothing else. Others may find the game lasts too long and offers too little. Mechanically it's barren and inconsistent; gameplay rules change, the puzzles feel like busywork instead of an integral part of gameplay and a lot of them rely on walking around a lot or retrying several solutions until one sticks, sometimes with no hints or information. Visually it can be glitchy and the texture-work is shoddy, to say the least, but it's a kickstarter-funded project, it was never going to look good. The sound is alright, the voice cast is solid, even if Mark Healy plays 80% of the characters and you can't help but see Vernon Roche all over the world. The story is subjective. As I said, fans will get something out of it. For me, it was a disappointing slog of too many threads that barely tied to one another, characters that barely broke away from their archetypes and a resolution that made me stick to my stomach. Script editors exist for a reason, incidentally. It's better than "Dreamfall: The Longest Journey", but the original game in the series remains the only really good game that's easy to recommend to everyone. Tread carefully with your curiousity.

When I started playing Dreamfall Chapters, I had expected challenging puzzles, interesting storyline and explanations to various questions, which has remined after Dreamfall: TLJ and amasing The Longst Journey. Instead I have got a movie like story with a lot of walking, easy puzzles and even more non-resolved material than before. Don't take me wrong, the storyline is quite good, characters are fleshed much better than in the second installmment of the series and overall the game is very much worth playing, but it's not a classic point and click adventure game and it feels a bit rushed. It's ending is too fast, some characters are discarded with barely explanation. Some charactes narrowly avoid being simple plot devices (Yes, I'm talking about you, Saga)... and some not (Well, what about you Balsey?). On the other hand, I like how Zoe and Kian has changed from a naive girl and a clueless zelot to much more matured versions of themselves. It is certenly enjoyable process even if some tropes used to achive it are a bit overused.