This game comes from a time in wich adventure games were trying to figure themselves out in the 3D era. I'll sum up the game in pros and cons. PROS - Great story, great characters, interesting and thought-provoking themes - Graphics are pretty good considering it's a game from 2006 - The acting is solid almost across the board - The soundtrack is really good CONS - The world is fleshed out, but without playing the previous installment I feel you could feel kinda lost sometimes when it comes to the lore, the terminology, etc. - It's more movie than game, there are really annoying bits in wich you basically have to run from one point to the other just to trigger a cutscene to advance the story, or fetch-questy equivalents - Puzzles are ridiculously easy to the point I have solved a couple before even realizing there were puzzles to solve. There's this one puzzle though, it's terrible: at one point you'll have to remember a tune, problem is you get no hint or anything that would make you think that tune is important and you can only hear it once during a cutscene. No musical memory? Maybe you were not paying attention to the music? You can't solve the puzzle. I've had to look up a walkthrough after wandering aimlessly for 40+ minutes. - The stealth sections range from annoyingly easy and tedious to one example of truly rage-quitting awfulness (I'm talking about the Troll's Cave, when you reach that bit look up a walkthrough or load a save game from later in the game, trust me) - Combat is super janky and unresponsive - The game ends on a bunch of cliffhangers. You'll get little to no resolution without playing Dreamfall Chapters. OVERALL It's boring, it's janky, it's tedious, it's not well designed in many spots, but for me the quality of the plot and the writing makes a playthrough worth it (if you don't want to watch the game on Youtube), especially for fans of the previous installment. If you're a "gameplay first" person, stay away from this game.
I don't own a gaming PC, but my laptop is fairly decent and can run stuff like The Witcher 3 smoothly (not maxed out, of course). My specs are: Intel i7-5500 @2.40 GHz 2.39GHz, 8GB Ram, Nvidia GeForce 940M with 2GB of DDR3 Vram. This game is apparently very taxing on the CPU, to the point it is the only game that overheats it to the point my laptop shuts down. I managed to solve this problem by lowering the CPU power intake, but the performance is terrible. As long as I'm in enclosed spaces, I can reach the 30fps mark, but as soon as I step into an open area... welcome to chugtown! Keep in ming it chugs like crazy on the lowest settings too! The game looks cool, but if you really want to play it, buy it on console (it runs like crap on Switch too, so go for the PS4/Xbox One version).
Long story short: if you're looking for a good point and click in the style of Lucas Arts' games, buy Thimbleweed Park. Pros: great graphics, great music, great dialogues. Cons: the game is far too easy; the second half fails to expand on the first half and instead recycles screens and shifts puzzles from lucasarts-style to logic puzzles; the game abruptly ends when it feels like it should start shifting gears into a third and final act with a climax (which is explained through still drawings during the ending credits).
This classic game is awesome today as it was 20+ years ago. I'd rate it 5 stars, but it's disappointing to see that the release is english only. Personally I don't really care, but it would be nice to have the old multi5 dubs. I don't know if this is a case of Disney being lazy or if the dubs are gone forever, but since Grim Fandango Remastered had them... come on, find them and patch them in asap!
