Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

The Good
Unlike its predecessor The Longest Journey, which was more like a sleeper hit at its time, the release of Dreamfall was surrounded by big hype. It's obvious that the developers of this game came under much more pressure than when they were making The Longest Journey. The latter's success put Dreamfall into a difficult position. It had fairly large shoes to fill, it had to deliver a story that would match its predecessor in quality, and it had to do something about the dead end adventure games found themselves in.

The much-famed story of Dreamfall has a good pace, and the dialogues that advance it are well-written for the most part. The initial introduction of the mystery is indeed impressive, captivating the player from the very beginning. It's of those stories that doesn't let you go until you finish it. You'll want to play the game until the end. So many things in it annoyed me, yet I always kept pressing forward. If you compare Dreamfall to a book, it would be one in which you keep turning the pages feverishly, trying to swallow the whole story in one gulp - regardless of the actual quality of the narrative or its conclusion.

The short gameplay time is only very slightly compensated by the variety of locations. There are sharp contrasts between Stark and Arcadia, and also between different parts of them. The switch between the sunny Casablanca and the depressing Newport in the initial part of the game is just the beginning of location-jumping that will accompany you till the end. Dreamfall still feels like a journey.

The Bad
Everything you've heard about the thin gameplay of Dreamfall is unfortunately true. First of all, it has no puzzles. None at all - neither good nor bad ones. If I had to choose between cat mustaches and the barely existing, ridiculous kindergarden-level exercises you have here, I'd be collecting feline fur for the follicly challenged in no time. I admit that even Dreamfall's own predecessor had its awkward moments when it tried to impose old-school comical inventory item-juggling on the serious story. But that is still thousand times better than a game that basically plays itself.

The absence of puzzles is not the only thing that hurts the game badly. There's precious little interaction in Dreamfall, and I can't help feeling terribly disappointed when I think how enormously enriched the game would have been if the developers added more accessible locations. In Marcuria, there are three or four taverns, but you can only enter one. There are plenty of houses, but you can enter none. When you arrive to the Dark People country, all you can do is run in a straight line from the ship to the library. You can't do anything on your way. Mind you, the location is beautiful; you want to explore it, but you can't. Even as Zoe, you can't explore much; so what is left to say about Kian? The most enigmatic of the three game protagonists barely gets game time anyway. But when he is finally on stage, he is confined to tiny areas where cannot do anything but run to his next objective.

You can feel the developers' intentions behind many actions you must take in the game all too clearly, and that is a bad symptom. They might have discarded the typical complexity and lack of logic found in adventure game puzzles, but they haven't got rid of their artificial nature. And it became only more obvious since the tasks you have to perform in the game are now stripped of challenge to obfuscate their true nature.

Instead of enlarging its world, Dreamfall attempts to bring some variety into the gameplay with its fighting sequences. I think you've heard enough about those. But you must experience them to believe how bad they really are. They make absolutely no sense. If you can win a fight, you will win it. Just press the "strong attack" button several times. If you aren't supposed to win a fight, you won't, no matter how hard you try. The opponents' behavior is idiotic beyond belief. If, for example, you fight two people, one of them will patiently stand and wait till you hack his friend to death before he attacks you. You can't move normally during fights, and the awful camera doesn't help much, either. And yet, the fights you are supposed to win are still pitifully easy.

Which brings me to the next point: why let the player choose if all the choices lead to the same result anyway? You'll be often given several dialogue options, but they are merely cosmetic. No matter what you choose, the result will be the same. Only on one or two occasions, you'll have a "wrong" dialogue choice that will lead to a fight you won't be able to win. Which is just a fancy way of saying "Game Over". I was really angry when I saw how blatantly unimportant those choices were. I could have halfway accepted it if Dreamfall was honest in its linearity, but why deceive the player like that? The most infuriating "dialogue choice" came near the end of the game. You must decide whether to kill a certain character or to spare his life. Out of understandable curiosity, I selected the "kill" option. The protagonist said something like: "Yes, I'll have to kill you", and after a short break: "No, I can't do that!". Really, I'm not joking. And this is supposed to be a choice?! It's like in Japanese RPGs, where you can select "No" as much as you want, but will still be forced to accept every quest you're given.

As for the story, I didn't find it great at all. Good, but definitely not enough to make up for all those gameplay deficiencies. Many times I felt that Ragnar Tornquist was suffering from a "Hideo Kojima syndrome". You know what I mean - when the writer can't resist the temptation of using his story as a receptacle for his ideas. Many times these inclusions are too obvious, and then the quality of the story suffers greatly. What happens in Dreamfall is that its message is too obvious. The writer makes the common mistake of spelling out things for you instead of just indicating them. He tries very hard to convince you that religious intolerance is bad and that you shouldn't trust big corporations - messages that have been done to death in various works of fiction. But even those messages would have had more weight if the writer let the players come to conclusions instead of putting them in plain view.

The story is also blatantly underdeveloped and lacks detail. What do we learn about the Six? Nothing. We just realize that they are obviously evil. But what is their motivation? We don't know. Much of the characterization is flat, descending into cliches, generalizations, and trivialities that even Japanese RPGs try to stay away from. The motives of the characters are often poorly explained; for example, there is nothing convincing in Kian's ideological changes, and the whole thing feels awfully rushed.

The writing can get corny. I found the comic relief largely inappropriate, especially the pop culture references in Crow's dialogues. Anachronisms should also be done with style, as early Monkey Island games showed.

The story of Dreamfall is also clearly unfinished. It's true that Zoe's story is more or less resolved in the end, but we are left with so many unanswered questions that you want to scream "Where is the second part?!" after you finish the game. You'll begin doubting whether they sold you all the game discs when you have completed it.

The Bottom Line
Dreamfall is a disappointment on all fronts. Its gameplay is disastrously shallow and unsatisfying. Despite the strong beginning, the story fails to reach the expected quality. Any adventure classic of the past will provide more compelling gameplay; and if you are interested in "philosophical", larger-than-life melodrama... well, there are always Japanese games out there.

The Good
The story was interesting. Not quite as epic as The Longest Journey, nor as long. It was a valiant attempt to expand the universe beyond the first game, which told a self-contained story. The graphics are excellent for both the fantasy world of Arcadia and high science world of Stark. They also brought back of the original voice actors for the English release of The Longest Journey, April in particular. The music is top notch and the voice acting generally is professionally done.

The Bad
The story "has a message", wants "to be relevant to our times" and drives it home in a very unsubtle fashion. The game's length is heavily extended due to the all the voice acting. It would be a lot shorter if you only read it.

The actual gameplay is very weak. The adventure gaming is mostly of the walk and talk variety with few puzzles. I recall there was one chapter without any actual puzzles. None of the puzzles are as intricate or as maddening as The Longest Journey.

Before the game's initial release, there was some controversy as the developers included fighting and stealth elements into the game. Some of these can be avoided, but these features are amateur hour at best. The fighting is only slightly more complex than the game Urban Champion for the NES, and the stealth elements are scarcely more advanced than the original Metal Gear for the MSX/NES. In 2006, these felt like such an afterthought or a weak attempt to get the game onto consoles where a pure adventure would have no chance.

Almost seven years later and this game with its cliffhanger ending still has no sequel. One does feel cheated after spending a not inconsiderable period of time with this game. However, thanks to Kickstarter and the Norwegian Film Institute, a sequel is finally going to be made.

The Bottom Line
A fine example of digital storytelling, with the occasional nuisance of actually having to do something.

The Good
The plot is rather good, but while playing the game a perceptive person cannot avoid noticing the similarity between this game and others famous gems. While this doesn’t make the game less enjoyable at first glance, it's rather dull, when you stop and think: haven’t I played this before? Fortunately, as the plot is very straight, you may hang for a while without thinking this too much. The graphics are also very good. It’s clear that they put a lot of effort in them. You probably will stop some times just to look at the surroundings. The cutscenes taking place during the dialogues are entertaining too, even though the facial animations are not as great as the graphics in general or the voice acting, that is terrific. The descriptions you receive from your current character (there are three that you must direct through the game) when looking to something are fantastic, they are the main mechanic that reveals theirs full personality, without any long introductions or such. Making the player take attention to them is a great way to attach the player to the characters, making the plot significantly more interesting.

The Bad
One major problem is the emptiness you will few when exploring a whole new city. You won’t be able to enter a single place that isn’t direct linked with your next objective. I know that a different approach could be a enormous task, however, I don’t think that would hurt the developers if they added access to at least all the taverns. That would have a good impact in the game, making it appears less hollow, like it does sometimes. Giving the player some options would be fantastic too. Dialogue in this game is pretty useless, as almost every option leads to the same place. In the entire game, there is just a couple of "wrong" answers that are pretty obvious. The linearity of the plot is awkward. In one part of the game you will be controlling one assassin named Kian and you will have to choose if you want to kill your target or not, but even if you want to, you really can't, as your character will refuse to do so. In the last part of the game there is an even worse mandatory action: while watching the cutscenes, your character chooses a to agree with a very bad idea, that if you were taking attention to the plot unfolding, you would know that this action is something risk and probably in vain. Would hurt the developers if they featured some "real" dialogue options? Would hurt them if they created some alternative endings? While these may look like petty matters, there would be a real difference in the game if they were well implemented. Still, due the lack of options (how many adventures released in late 00's, had so much hype?), it's a game that should definitely be played.

The Bottom Line
I could start this part of my review in a different fashion, however I can’t hope but to let know straight what I think happened when the game was been developed:

-Hey everyone, The Longest Journey was really good, but it didn’t filled our pockets with endless money, so we need a sequel, and it must be a real good one, in order to sell well. Does anybody have an idea?

-I do, sir. Why don’t we put a hot girl as the main protagonist? We could show her in the cover as well.

-But we had a sort of that in the last game, and what about the rating? If we push too far it won’t even be sold in most game stores, you know .But, eureka, we could just show her a bit underdressed sometimes, and in the rest of the time, the gamers imagination should be fulfilled with all kind of suggestive stuff, like “a boyfriend’s bed that bounces”, “the salty seamen”, “the cock and the puss”, "April's rod of Joie covered with scented lubricant" or "Reza's dreams with Zoe, naked, sweating and moaning". Yeah, that’s really good.

-And why not make every character in the game beautiful as well? More is better.

-That’s a good idea, in fact we could put two or three protagonists now. Anachronox did it, and did it well.

-So let’s just recycle that April, from the previous game, we could recycle a bunch of he story as well. Traveling between parallel worlds hasn’t been so cool since Outcast.

-Talking about Outcast, we should be aware of the combat system and it’s length. Back in 1999, Outcast was praised, but some guys hated it because of the huge amount of quests you can do at once and because the difficult combat for some. So let’s do the following: We take the Outcast gameplay, but this game should be linear and the combat very easy if the protagonist are supposed to win in order to advance the story.

-But let’s just add some conversation options, alright? This way the players will not notice that they will end in the same place no matter what they choose to say, and if anybody thinks it’s a bad idea, it is exactly what happens in the Lucas Arts adventures, like Full Throttle or Grim Fandango, no matter what the protagonist says, it will never make you become stuck. And above all, Manny Cavalera turning his head towards important items was quite a help.

-That’s right, but let’s just make a couple of obvious wrong answers in the game, so the critics cannot say the dialogue is useless. Getting rid of difficult puzzles should also be an important matter. If advancing in the plot is easy, I think non-hardcore adventure players may buy the game too.

-Good, that’s just something I think we forgot: Deus Ex. What can we borrow from it? That’s too great to simply ignore.

-I don’t know. Maybe we should just take the French boîte from Nicollet and place some other night club in this game, with the same atmosphere, preferably right before a major twist in the plot. Let’s also replace those UNATCO guys with something like it. I don’t know maybe “The Eye” is a good name. Every game should have a big and mean govern agency or corporation.Why not a core level too?

-This will do. Ok guys, I think we have enough, in fact this is enough to have our hands full, as I don’t think we will be able to release the game on schedule if we implement all these ideas and write an end for it. So let’s start the work, end if we don’t have time for a proper end, let’s just put a cutscene like there will be a sequel or something like this to be released soon. We already flooded the game with cutscenes with that Samara Morgan wannabe.

Well, that’s it. If you read everything until now, you should be aware of how the game is.