You know that totally dreamy guy who you really want to get together with, but when you do; it turns out that he just doesn't meet your expectations of him, and no matter how much you want to love him, he just doesn't let you? Well, I know his name. He's called 'Dreamfall Chapters'.
Overview
Chapters concludes the story which began with the wonderful The Longest Journey, and resolves the cliffhanger left at the end of Dreamfall. We pick up where we left off, taking the part of Zoe Castillo, still in a coma; and will switch control during the game between her, Kian Alvane the “reformed” Apostle, and “Saga” - the girl who walks between worlds and appears to be disconnected from the main story until apparently completely unrelated threads finally intertwine as we approach the climax.
Gameplay
Controls are of the basic rpg style WASD, spacebar, and mouse combination; retaining those introduced in part 2 and therefore leaving the original point-and-click style long behind. Happily the cringe-inducing fighting mechanic from Dreamfall has been jettisoned; but in all other gameplay aspects, this release is much closer to its immediate predecessor than the series opener.
Fans of The Longest Journey who were less enamoured with Dreamfall will, therefore, likely be less than thrilled with their experience. Gameplay is essentially comprised of a lot of wandering around and talking to people, a little item manipulation, a few decisions (which affect story direction to significantly varying degrees – although the end will be the same), and the occasional fairly straightforward puzzle here and there.
Characters
There appears to be a crucial part of Azadi lore not mentioned within the game. It seems that they have perfected the art of surgical personality removal. It's the only possible explanation I can find for the reality that is Kian Alvane, the turncoat bad-guy come good and alternate protagonist. Whilst I am sure some people will like him, I found him to be the most lifeless, humourless, boring character that I have ever had the misfortune to play as.
One thing the whole series managed to retain throughout is the excellent casting and performances of the voice actors, who really bring to life many of the characters throughout the game, and it is these who help to keep interest when gameplay drags or the story feels like it's going nowhere.
Fans of the series to this point will be delighted, once again, by the appearance of Crow, arguably the best game sidekick ever. He has lost none of his humour nor persona that endeared him to players from his very first appearance in TLJ.
There are several other characters whose scripting and voice acting will amuse and entertain as you progress. Mira, Sh*tbot and Enu all spring to mind as being funny and endearing in wildly different ways; and having these characters to interact with is a reason to keep going through the periodic drudgery which damages the overall effect of the game's brighter moments.
Locations
Once Zoe is up and about, we discover that she has moved to “Propast” to try again at a relationship with Reza. I think Propast is supposed to be some kind of post-apocalyptic steampunk type area; but in gameplay terms it is just dull and miserable – the type of place one might expect Kian Alvane to consider fun – and I found the section of the story there, built upon a political election with a very thin thread to the main; to be the least enjoyable in not just this game, but the series.
The story only really kicked in for me when Zoe finally made it back to Marcuria; and you will be a LONG way in before that happens. Graphically this is much more detailed than seen previously, and while this is an obvious improvement, it also removes the quaint feel of the old town.
At the end of the first four of the five “books” within the story, we are transferred to “The House Between Worlds”, where our third protagonist Saga lives. We visit her life at various stages from a baby to a young adult. These sections will seem totally unrelated and not a little tiresome when first encountering them, and though she does get to play an integral plot part, I could not help feeling that her involvement in the gameplay was unnecessarily excessive and served to diminish enjoyment rather than enhance it.
Experience and verdict
Generally I like a serenely paced game where there is no pressure to rush or to have lightning quick reflexes to be able to progress; but even I found the sheer snail's pace of character movement through the landscape to be stifling. There is a run option (which you can only use when not involved in an exchange with another character) but even that doesn't help to push things along.
In spite of this, many of the interactions with others are undeniably entertaining the first time around, and there were certainly a few scenes that had me giggling with pleasure. Chapters also has Steam achievements added for the first time in the series, which some will see as a bonus, although it is also a huge bug-bear if you want to find them all, or even merely see the different scenes available from making alternate choices... and this brings me to a major fail. When replaying the game for these reasons, I found there to be an abject inability to skip previously played scenes. Yes, occasionally you can press space to speed up some conversations, and very occasionally a brief cutscene; but outside of these you will have to grind through everything that you've seen before all over again just to experience the results of different choices. Painful.
To return to my opening analogy, Dreamfall Chapters really is the epitome of the archetypal bad boyfriend: a very attractive proposition before you meet, and will be responsible for several moments of pure joy; but these won't make up for his behaviour for the rest of the time; ultimately turning out to be a disappointment.
It feels very harsh to give this a thumbs down at the top of the review, as it IS quite a good game; but Steam's verdict is either recommendation or not, and with player experience being everything; I cannot feel justified in advising people to spend their money on such an unsatisfying mix of pleasure and pain.
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