Cyberpunk 2077 rides on a lot of goodwill from the incredible Witcher 3. Without that goodwill the hype would not be there. Unfortunately, I can't say that it has lived up to the hype. Everyone has talked the bugs and performance issues to death so I won't repeat them. They're bad, really bad, but probably fixable. What isn't fixable is the game itself. There's no RPG to this RPG. The story railroads you from one mission to another, the three starting prologues all lead to the same place with the same beats, no matter if you're a Corpo or a Nomad your V will act like the same streetwise edgelord so it doesn't matter. There's no real dialogue choices, you have one dialogue option and some optional chit chat below it. The characters are all forgettable and it's often unclear why you're supposed to care about the missions. Person X wants item Y but Person Z wants you to screw over Person X etc etc. At no point did I feel any connection to anybody or any sense of why I'm doing what I'm doing. It's all edgy but shallow characterisation. The dialogue is also wooden and gives me no reason to care. The world is impressive... at first. Then you realise it's all an elaborate shallow stage. You can barely talk to any civilians and they just mindlessly walk straight ahead. No interactions or cool moments like in GTA or RDR. If you shoot your gun dozens of NPCs go into an identical crouching animation forever. The cops can be defeated by standing against a wall as they always spawn behind you. It never feels like you're in a living world, more like a heavily choreographed stage surrounded by lifeless robots. The gameplay is also unsatisfying. There's a heavy focus on gunplay but none of the guns feel satisfying. Enemies are bullet sponges and you barely react to being shot. Ironically swords break the game by stun locking enemies. Stealth is almost impossible to pull off and hacking is clunky so they're rarely viable options. It hurts to admit but this is a bad game.
Thinking back on The Longest Journey, I still have that lingering sense of awe, of wonder at an experience so expertly grafted. It's still one of my favourite games of all time, one of the best experiences of all time. Dreamfall, though, only brings back lingering feelings of frustration and sadness. Everyone else has delved into the flaws in Dreamfall's gameplay. I won't bother. The cardinal sin that Dreamfall committed, for me, was to completely butcher a world I loved and characters I hoped to spend more time with. When I first played through Dreamfall, I felt something was wrong. Zoe's story wasn't engaging. Kian was forgettable. Still, I loved seeing Newport again, loved seeing the Victory Hotel again. When I reached Arcadia, I felt goosebumps recognising landmarks. But despite all the nostalgia, I knew exactly what I wanted to be playing instead. I wanted to be playing as April Ryan. When you are finally re-introduced to April, her personality has changed completely. She's brooding and violent, bitter at people from her past for no real reason. This change is only explained in poorly written monologues about events from the past which we never see. I expect for those who have never played TLJ, April is just a brooding goth girl with issues about her past. That's the real crime here. April Ryan's character arc is so wonderful in TLJ because it takes her from a lost art student dealing with the responsibilities of adulthood to finally becoming proud of herself and her role in the world. TLJ let you read April's diary entries, which gave you a glimpse into the intimate fears and doubts April has along her journey. Despite the cliches in TLJ's plot, and there are many, April Ryan's characterisation was stunning and made the original trip through Stark and Arcadia unforgettable. Dreamfall throws all of that away and, worse, makes April a bit player. Even worse than that, Dreamfall is unfinished and April's role seems like it will be diminished even more on the small chance a further sequel is made. I hope Ragnar Tørnquist comes to his senses, sits down, and writes a lengthy novel which corrects the failings of Dreamfall. I hope he will, but I do not expect it to happen. Like it or not, Dreamfall is a commitment to a failed experiment. I will continue to pretend it never happened.
The Longest Journey is excellent value for money. It has a lengthy story, dozens of characters, imaginative locations, a protagonist you'll fall in love with and an ending that will stay with you for a long time. Not a fan of Dreamfall, the sequel. It's kind of unnecessary and messes with the characters you love. The original stands alone though and, like me, you can pretend Dreamfall never happened if you want!
