Dreamfall Chapters: The Final Cut

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.

I backed the campaign and didn't expect too much but surprisingly, Dreamfall Chapters ended up absolutely wonderful. It not only tries to tie up all the loose threads that Dreamfall left open but it's actually a very good game on its own. It's a beautiful modern adventure game with large locations to explore but doesn't annoy you with pointless collections tasks, inventory puzzles or hidden objects. Most riddles are exploration based, which is a good thing as you want to explore the wonderful environment. Almost everything bad in Dreamfall was improved: the locations are larger, no more stupid fights or logic puzzles and this time the mouse/keyboard controls work perfectly. The graphics are more or less state of the art with nice shaders and lighting. However, the quality of facial details varies a lot. While Zoë looks stunning and Enu or Saga still look great, some important side characters like Hanna or Nela lack any detail and look cartoonish. And some characters like Commander Vamon or Warden Murron have exaggerated facial features that make them look like caricatures. There are also some issues with the shadows and I had a few crashed while loading new chapters. Even worse, there are story bugs: e.g. though the player decides to kiss Anna etc., the game concludes that Kian is gay. That makes the player's decisions feel somewhat worthless. Also displaying names of backers for extras felt wrong and distracting - especially in Marcuria. Anyway, my main point of criticism is the lack of any kind of save or sub chapter restart system. The people of RTG should take a look at the outstanding "Life is Strange" to see how to implement a sensible chapter/save system that allows you to revisit parts of the story without destroying your main save game. But well, despite of these points, I still had a lot of fun playing Chapters. I'm so happy that this Journey has finally come to a good end and still hopeful that I might return to the Dreamfall universe with Saga one day.