Dreamfall: The Longest Journey review

Fanboys. Funny things really, aren’t they? The kind of people that will praise a game (or system) overly despite any problems. I seem to consistently find myself dangerously close whenever a sequel to one of my favourite games is released, and The Longest Journey was a stunning adventure; detailed in its engrossing and lengthy story while providing a large number of brain taxing puzzles and cinematic glory (yes, I enjoyed it).

Dreamfall is however a completely different ball game. Dropping much of the item puzzle fandango and adding in a combat system as well as a whole load of (three guesses) sneaking sections. Ragnar Tornquist, the game’s auteur seems to be expanding the genre and direction of the mythology but is it for the best?

Shifting Character

The game starts with very little relevance to the original game and it does take a good while before you realise any connection beyond the overall world and your previous Longest Journey experiences. You take the role of Zoë Castillo an English accented resident of Casablanca living with her father and having a rather unfulfilling life. Naturally she is thrown into an epic tale of cataclysm and intrigue that spans both worlds of the balance.

With such a strong focus on story it would seem rather silly to come into Dreamfall without any experience of the prequel. Perhaps a replay would be more useful than you can imagine when it comes down to recognising the locations and characters especially as they have now all been transferred to 3D graphics rather than pre-rendered splendour. The truth is that the locations all look pretty good with some nice fancy graphical effects, water and heat shimmer being the best of the bunch.

As for the characters they remain relatively detailed with Zoë being the best of the bunch sporting far more facial detail than the minor characters you will come across (a remarkable number of which return from The Longest Journey). While speaking the lip synching is adequate with limited facial movement; certainly nothing close to Half-Life 2’s still premier system, but where the visuals fail to convey an enormous amount of character emotion the sound is where it all comes together.

Come back April, all is forgiven

Many of the original voice actors have returned to perform superbly in the sequel. When you do finally come across April Ryan (yes, finally) Sarah Harrison performs her lines with exactly the same naturalism and perfect attenuation as in the former game which is almost completely consistent throughout Dreamfall. If anything it pains me to say that Zoë the lead character is frustratingly voiced. Certain factors such as using the Americanism of pants meaning trousers using a strong English accent do not come across very well despite the fantasy environment, leading to a lengthy process of getting used to the character and voice.

The music and sound effects are superb though especially the former. Potentially my favourite game soundtrack of the past few years, Dreamfall’s blends orchestral magnificence with some brilliantly timed modern tunes that create some of the most cinematic moments in gaming history. Even the little touches like certain musical cues blending through the loading screen, which thankfully never lasts very long, keep you involved in a constant fashion.

The dialogue is well written and while it touches on many adult subjects, swearing at some moments, it is nice to see that it hasn’t been overused this time around merely proving the kind of audience the game is aimed at.

Building on the success

There is no doubt in my mind that the concept of the game probably worked better in the developer's minds than it has turned out because through the majority of the experience (to rightly call it so) I was struggling to find much of a game.

Instead it felt rather like an interactive movie. The best gameplay factor about The Longest Journey was its puzzles and these remain far too few and far between during this game. It seems a rarity to have to use item X on Y, instead being more about exploration and the painfully woeful action segments, not to mention the fact that I didn’t have to think about any of these item puzzles once during the game.

Broken Sword 3 had a similar fate; in an attempt to breathe life into the genre (why?) Charles Cecil and his team at Revolution created a far more action based gameplay with running, jumping, climbing and many fewer puzzles. Dreamfall has it too, but with even fewer puzzles and less enjoyable action. A rudimentary fighting system is forced upon you occasionally, with a hard attack, a soft attack and a block button complimenting your movement keys. The idea is to attack hard when you think you have enough time to pull off the attack and to attack soft if you think you can get a quick hit in. It is rubbish. A meaningless mini-game which unfortunately seems necessary to boost the playable sections in-between many lengthy cinematics that do vary from stunning and powerful to flicking cameras back and forth between two people standing still with their lips moving.

Fortunately, that is not all they have added. Perhaps to keep a puzzle element a couple of simplistic puzzle mini-games present themselves while breaking locks or hacking into computers that are a fun little task for the few times you actually have to do it. Any more and perhaps they too would have become frustratingly dull.

The End

The main reason why people will buy Dreamfall: The Longest Journey is to find out what happened next. Unfortunately, not many questions are answered and certainly many more are posed, climaxing in a finale that both satisfies certain plotlines and leaves you completely decimated at most of the rest. A fairy tale this is not. It seems now not just a hope for a third part of the trilogy, but almost a necessity.

I feel a strange ambivalence about Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. There was so much missing from the gameplay that I wanted in an adventure and so much rubbish for which the time could have been better spent and yet I really did enjoy the experience of revisiting the world that Ragnar Tornquist has lovingly created for us. His is clearly a master storyteller, which is ultimately what keeps you playing, but I hope for any future incarnation of the series someone reminds him to do puzzles well rather than sacrifice them for a shoddy bit of action.

Dreamfall is still a fantastic experience but has fallen short of what I expected from the game after The Longest Journey’s item puzzle heaven. If you liked the world of the original, buy it, you’ll get a kick out of everything, but if you’ve not even played the first one, then buy The Longest Journey and see what Dreamfall should have been; like its predecessor, focussed on the puzzles.