You honestly don't need my review to know this game is good so I'm just going to add some minor points to what every review is already saying. First, the game has some amazing expansion mods for those who want them, the best of which is Stardew Valley Expanded (SVE). Second, my only complaints about this game are that the days feel really short so if you have any kind of timer anxiety that can be rough, and if you play on multiplayer there is no pause when you enter a menu. Although there's probably a mod out there for both of those things. Anyway. Buy, play, enjoy :3
I at first had a little trouble getting the hang of the quick-time event/puzzles, but after I got the feel for them in the first 5-10 min of gameplay then they started to grow on me as a unique way to keep the story movie without needing to revert to the standard 3D action-rpg trope of shooting lots of stuff (which isn't necessarily bad, but this was a nice change of pace). The story was excellent and intriguing up until about the last 10% when it went off the rails a bit. The characters were believable and strong. The tutorial could have been better at introducing you to how things worked, but honestly you kind of get the feel for it as you go so it wasn't that big of a loss. I wouldn't put it as a 5-star just because the story degraded towards the end, but it was enjoyable and I wanted to finish even up to the ending. Recommended for anyone who likes story-driven games.
An endearing point-and-click game with a story told completely (and wonderfully) through visuals. Sometimes the puzzles can be a little tricky and there were a few times where I got stuck and had to look up a walkthrough, but for the most part just exploring and examining things led me to the correct answers. The world is enjoyable to explore and is populated with a myriad of other creatures that add more depth and character to the world. I actually laughed out loud at multiple points when a new creature appeared or when an event in the game happened. I love this game and heartily recommend it to anyone who enjoys point-and-click adventure games, anyone who likes things that are different from main-stream, and anyone who likes exploring game worlds and finding all the hidden secrets.
TLDR: If you can get past the controls/combat and enjoy a good story, play it. Dreamfall: the Longest Journey is not a direct sequel to the original Longest Journey (apparently that is planned for later release after Dreamfall Chapters) but is set in the same world(s) ten years after the events in Longest Journey and involves some of the same characters. It's also a departure from the original in that it's not a point-and-click - it's 3rd-person over the shoulder. The conversation system displays a series of one-word dialogue choices which when moused-over, often indicate a direction that the conversation should follow (aggressive, friendly, tell the truth, etc.) rather than a specific sentence or phrase. I recommend always mousing over the options before selecting to make sure that you don't miss a branch. The story itself is fantastic and will send you on several twists and turns through the game world, and getting to see the game from different perspectives. At some points there are mini-games to hack or unlock things. They are fairly simple but fun and do not interrupt the story much if at all. The same cannot be said, sadly, for the combat and stealth sections, but again there thankfully aren't very many of them - or at least not many of them that will be hard/annoying. Hint: characters always block after you hit them, and you happen to have an attack that always passes through a block... you're welcome! Overall, I think the Metacritic score (75%) is almost spot-on, but for me personally I absolutely loved this game despite its flaws. If you enjoyed the first game and want more of the same style of story, or if you enjoy great story-telling in general, definitely play this game. If you haven't played the first game and enjoy point-and-click adventure games though, I'd really recommend playing the original Longest Journey first. It isn't required to play Dreamfall strictly speaking, but you will enjoy Dreamfall a lot more if you do.
The Longest Journey was an old game when I first played it and that was probably about 6 or 7 years ago. Then and now the graphics don't hold up terribly well, but considering that it was launched in 2000 I'd say it's not that bad. However even now the voice acting, story and dialogue are still fantastic after all this time and it's in these areas that Longest Journey truly shines. Like a good book you can't put down, I was sucked into the story immediately and hardly noticed the time passing until looking at the clock to see that it was the middle of the night. The themes are mature and intelligent, the dialogue extremely well crafted, and the characters believable. I almost feel like I need to exhaust all dialogue options because I want experience all of it and to see what the characters say and do in each situation. It still has faults in the same way that point and click games usually do - the solution for the puzzles are sometimes opaque, or sometimes you know what you need to do but you're pixel-hunting to find where exactly you're supposed to click - but these are problems with the genre and not this particular game. However, there are relatively few of these genre-related problems given how long ago this game was launched. The one glaring problem that may make this game unplayable for some people is the graphics - if you can't stand fairly blocky character models and low-res textures then this may not be the game for you (just check out the screenshots on the store page to get a good idea). Out of all the re-make games coming out, this is a game that deserves an HD remake. Once you look past the aging graphics however, you will be transported to an incredibly detailed world with an inventive mixture of fantasy and sci-fi in this excellent story. 9.5/10
I played through the whole remastered version, and it wasn't terrible, but I'm not sure I can recommend it wholeheartedly. The ending of the story could have been a lot better, and it was sorely lacking an in-game hint system since quite a few of the puzzles were really opaque. It should be noted that since this is an old game, this is more the style for older games so it may not necessarily be a failing of this particular game as it was a problem of the industry that later games improved on. It was entertaining and, barring the cheesy and mildly confusing ending, the story built up very nicely.
