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[Humdinger]

Fifteen years ago, I played Dreamfall: The Longest Journey on the Xbox 360. I loved it.

Two days ago, I bought Dreamfall Chapters for six dollars on PSN. I am not loving it.

I think it's mostly me, not the game. Fifteen years ago, I loved immersive story-focused games. These days, I realize that if I want a good story, it's a lot easier to find one in a book than in a videogame. I still value a good story, but I don't have any patience for games that are mostly about the story and only incidentally about the gameplay.

This game, at least so far, seems that way -- more story than game. The game elements seem very simple and rather dull: some point-and-click, "combine the things" type puzzles, which get annoying. Add in long stretches of walking around and clicking on stuff, to get random information.

Even the story, which I assume is the strong point, isn't grabbing me. It seems very slowly paced and disjointed. There is a ton of dialog, but it's very ordinary stuff, almost at the level of chit-chat. Plot-wise, I feel no urgency about anything, no interest in any particular outcome. I keep thinking, "Can we get on with it, please?" I'm impatient for something interesting to happen.

The tone also seems off. In Longest Journey, there was a palpable but subtle sense of melancholy, which I liked quite a bit, because I'd never encountered a videogame with that atmosphere before. That sort of tone is missing here, and in its place is an amalgam of heaviness and affected flippancy that doesn't quite gel.

I'm about two hours in, so maybe this changes over the course of the game. All I can say is, so far, I'm not feeling any sense of engagement or interest. I'm close to giving this one up and turning to a different game. Before I did that, though, I thought I'd post and check to see if anyone thought I should press on. Do things shift and become exciting in hour 3 or 4? 5 or 6?

I think my taste in games has changed, and I just don't enjoy these types of games any more.

Anyone play this? Thoughts?

 

[Amiga]

the gameplay didn't age well, P&C were good in their time. needed to adopt the Telltale style.

 

[Paulistano]

.

 

[Humdinger]

the gameplay didn't age well, P&C were good in their time. needed to adopt the Telltale style.

They did some of that. They signal important choices and display a big notice after the choice: "The Balance Has Shifted." I don't remember choice & consequence being a big part of the previous games. I assume that's an attempt to incorporate the Telltale style.

Since the nature of the choice isn't explained (e.g., balance between what?), it didn't feel impactful to me. However, I'm probably not in a good position to judge, since I haven't played much of the game. Maybe these choices become significant later in the story.

 

[Susurrus]

Hey I actually just started it a few days ago too and just started Book 2, I think I got the game under PS Plus at some point because I don't remember buying it, but I could be wrong.

I also played TLJ (PC) and Dreamfall (Xbox, but on 360 BC) back in the day. And ya I enjoyed those. I'm playing Dreamfall Chapters (PS4) and I kind of agree honestly. Even the exploring part there really hasn't been much so far, just go from point A to point B, listen to some people talk, go to point C, listen to some people talk. Sometimes make a decision. Even less times, use and/or combine an item or discover a clue. Pretty much a visual novel at this point. I know the games have pretty much always been about story telling, but this might tip it too hard against gameplay. As far as choices go, at the end of each book they review the choices you made and how it could potentially impact the outcome, though sometimes it is even as vague "something down the line, maybe far away" and tell you how the % of people that made the same decision.

Gonna follow this thread though to see how it is, please no open spoilers though anyone.

 

[Denton]

Chapters start weird, but ended up being my favourite TLJ game. Really enjoyed the character interactions, atmosphere and gorgeous visuals.

 

[ShadowNate]

Adopting the Telltale mechanics was a huge design mistake for this one. They did not have the know-how, nor the funds/resources, nor the experience to make it work and it was detrimental to their developing the episodes and their storytelling.

We ended up with at least a segment that was almost fully removed (the prologue puzzles/mechanics), horrible intrusive gong sounds for "the balance has shifted" alerts, inane dialogue choices --and sometimes almost indistinguishable options that resulted in "He will remember that" (what?) which of course pretty much amounted to no significant change whatsoever.

It really is the weakest of the three titles (of course the first one is still by far the best one of the bunch). And it's just amazing to me, that this is pretty much all their own doing -- the game was funded mostly by a Kickstarter campaign (and then sales of early episodes).

I hated the UI controls and the stupid stealth sections of the original Dreamfall title, and the forced cliff hanger, but it still kept my interest throughout and I would say that I kind of fondly remember most of it.

DC ended up a big mess for my taste anyway.

 

[TheMooMan]

It's terrible.

Longest Journey - 10/10
Dreamfall - 7/10
Dreamfall Chapters - didn't even finish it / 10

 

[Humdinger]

Hey I actually just started it a few days ago too and just started Book 2, I think I got the game under PS Plus at some point because I don't remember buying it, but I could be wrong.

I also played TLJ (PC) and Dreamfall (Xbox, but on 360 BC) back in the day. And ya I enjoyed those. I'm playing Dreamfall Chapters (PS4) and I kind of agree honestly. Even the exploring part there really hasn't been much so far, just go from point A to point B, listen to some people talk, go to point C, listen to some people talk. Sometimes make a decision. Even less times, use and/or combine an item or discover a clue. Pretty much a visual novel at this point. I know the games have pretty much always been about story telling, but this might tip it too hard against gameplay. As far as choices go, at the end of each book they review the choices you made and how it could potentially impact the outcome, though sometimes it is even as vague "something down the line, maybe far away" and tell you how the % of people that made the same decision.

Gonna follow this thread though to see how it is, please no open spoilers though anyone.

Oh that's right, I played it on Xbox, not 360. It was actually the last game I played on Xbox. It was released right at the end of its lifecycle, iirc.

That's interesting to hear, that the mechanics I've seen in the first couple hours -- walk from point A to B, listen to some people talk, sometimes use or combine items, sometimes make a decision with vague consequences -- continue throughout the first episode. I assume that means they continue through the rest of the series, too. Disappointing. I was hoping that maybe that was just the equivalent of a slow tutorial section, and that the game took off soon.

"Pretty much a visual novel" sums up my impression, too.

Adopting the Telltale mechanics was a huge design mistake for this one. They did not have the know-how, nor the funds/resources, nor the experience to make it work and it was detrimental to their developing the episodes and their storytelling.

We ended up with at least a segment that was almost fully removed (the prologue puzzles/mechanics), horrible intrusive gong sounds for "the balance has shifted" alerts, inane dialogue choices --and sometimes almost indistinguishable options that resulted in "He will remember that" (what?) which of course pretty much amounted to no significant change whatsoever.

It really is the weakest of the three titles (of course the first one is still by far the best one of the bunch). And it's just amazing to me, that this is pretty much all their own doing -- the game was funded mostly by a Kickstarter campaign (and then sales of early episodes).

I hated the UI controls and the stupid stealth sections of the original Dreamfall title, and the forced cliff hanger, but it still kept my interest throughout and I would say that I kind of fondly remember most of it.

DC ended up a big mess for my taste anyway.

Yes, and I've also heard -- and this is connected to the Telltale model -- that adopting the episodic framework also hampered the game. It required the story be shaped into periodic "cliffhanger" moments, rather than attending to the overall narrative arc.

Too bad. Even Telltale wasn't successful with the Telltale formula, although I guess at the time this game was being developed, everyone thought they were.

I used to be into Telltale games, too. Not anymore, though. Well, they don't exist anymore, lol, but even if they did, I doubt I'd be interested.

 

[D.Final]

the gameplay didn't age well, P&C were good in their time. needed to adopt the Telltale style.

THIS

 

[Elpidio Valdés]

I feel pretty much the same way as OP! I played Dreamfall on the 360 and I loved it. Then I went back and played The Longest Journey and I loved it too. I loved the games so much I even started to lurk on their forums.

Dreamfall Chapters didn't do it for me either. Maybe I'm like OP and my tastes in games have changed over the years. Maybe I had built up a different game in my head. I finished Dreamfall Chapters but I don't remember much about it. Yet I still remember TLJ and Dreamfall perfectly. It's just one of those things.

 

[D.Final]

I feel pretty much the same way as OP! I played Dreamfall on the 360 and I loved it. Then I went back and played The Longest Journey and I loved it too. I loved the games so much I even started to lurk on their forums.

Dreamfall Chapters didn't do it for me either. Maybe I'm like OP and my tastes in games have changed over the years. Maybe I had built up a different game in my head. I finished Dreamfall Chapters but I don't remember much about it. Yet I still remember TLJ and Dreamfall perfectly. It's just one of those things.

True

 

[U n i o n 0015]

Necro-bumping this thread. I just finished Dreamfall Chapters after playing TLJ, and then re-playing Dreamfall. So like, 65 hours over the past few months.

Honestly, these games were of declining quality, and that's me giving a lot of leeway to the fact that these are basically just walking story simulators. There's less and less gameplay in each subsequent game. The first game is easily the best, and I'm happy to say that mentally, I'm just going to forget about Dreamfall and Dreamfall Chapters entirely.

The overall story just got worse and worse and led to an ultimately unsatisfying conclusion. The Saga BS was probably the worst of it. Introducing a character, who is a reincarnation of a beloved character, but not explicitly saying that's the case, is just beyond stupid.

And just like Yu Suzuki did with Shenmue 3, shame on these creators for taking a bundle of money to "finish their saga" and then creating games that have a bunch of plot holes or introduce new storylines that will never be resolved.