Dreamfall: The Longest Journey is set in Arcadia and Stark, two
parallel worlds where magic and technology hold the grasp of one world
respectively. You begin your journey in Stark - which is sort of like a
futuristic version of our world - as Zoë, an unemployed and unmotivated
young woman who is stuck at the real-life puzzle most of us get stuck
at – and it’s really easy to relate – the one where you’re trying to
figure out what to do in your life. So one day, as a favour to her old
boyfriend, she heads of to pick up a package. In true adventure game
fashion this whole thing obviously turns into something much more
complicated than that. What needs to be said right away is that the
voice acting is simply put astounding. That's the thing I felt right of the bat, and it really helps in bringing the characters you
meet to life, and not only does it make them memorable but you also get this
emotional bond with them and can really feel their connection with each
other, the world and you. This is something very rare, even in games of
this type. But it’s really the smallest and simplest of things though,
such as messages on your characters cell phone, that give them a unique
deepness that truly sets this game apart from the rest.
Now, the
people who were familiar with the games predecessor obviously wouldn’t
settle for less than all this, either. But what’s really good about
this game is that you don't actually have to play or finish the
predecessor in order to understand what’s going on. It also has this
way of just sucking you right in, leaving you playing well into the
late hours of the night wanting more. Should you be familiar with the
games predecessor, one thing you would most certainly notice right away
is that the controls have evolved since the days of The Longest
Journey, and you will find the classic point-and-click interaction
replaced by the more intuitive WASD-key movement. And for the most part
the way you control your character and the way the camera follows you
around works out great, but in some very cramped areas you might find
yourself staring at the (albeit pretty) face of your character instead
of what you’re trying to look at, and in some case you might even get
the camera inside the skull of your character which isn't really that enjoyable. These parts are luckily
few and far between, and as said, the character models do look really
good so when it happens it’s not really that much of a big deal. You
can also customise a whole lot when it comes to the controls, and how
the camera behaves so you might not even notice these minor issues.
At
its core this game focuses heavily on the story and storytelling, which at this point could be expected from Funcom, and it becomes almost cinematic in some spots. That said, hard core adventure
game fans looking for really hard to beat puzzles might not find any
real challenge in this game, but that really isn’t the point of the
game either. You will be spared from getting really stuck or
frustrated, and instead find yourself not skipping the conversations
you have with other characters and simply explore the different places
the game takes you. While I would want to just reveal this story, It is
simply best untold. As I already mentioned, you start the game as Zoë,
but you’ll also play the game as the hero from the previous game, in
addition to someone else. All that stuff is done really well, and the way you get to
observe these characters (and in some cases even have them interact with each other) gives you many different perspectives on things, and that stuff is pretty neat.
The game also has
this small layer of action combat, but those sequences really feel more like a
rite of passage - things you just have to get through to make it to that next stage of the story.
Obviously, being an adventure game, not all battles have to be fought, but in the ones you do it can sometimes get frustrating. Maybe it's the in-combat controls - maybe they just don't work for the PC - but all I can really say is that the combat doesn't feel quite right.
With all this talk about the story, one simply has to point out
that although the story unfolds in a classic slow adventure game style,
you’ll soon start getting this feeling that you just don’t want it to
end and it suddenly does, and it leaves you there ending up wanting
more with a ton of emotions going through your head. So, while you get the conclusion on some
parts of the story, many others are left untold. Good thing is that the
journey itself makes up for all of that, and it is one journey worth
taking.
I realise now that I haven’t said a word about the
graphics yet and while the game isn’t exactly a technological masterpiece,
the visuals and presentation feel just right - and the style is something that grabed me and really helped in making me want to explore the world.
Bottom line
is that your game experience will really depend on how much you allow
yourself to be affected by this games story, and how much emotion you
are willing to personally invest in its characters, to get the full
feel of the game and let it send you on the emotional roller-coaster
ride it is. You might find yourself angry, joyful and even sad to the
teary eyed point, if you just let yourself go and (as cheesy as it sounds) get embraced by the
game. All in all, you could expect well about ten to twenty hours of game
play depending on your playstyle.
