There’s something to be said about the format in relation to a tale like Dreamfall, though. What’s disappointing is that we have to wait for the next chapter-the downfall of all episodic games. Don’t believe me? Go back and play the original point-and-click adventure. The Longest Journey has never been one to show its cards quickly. It dangles just enough out there to get you excited and then pulls back. It’s slow and ponderous and you’ll spend much of your time just wandering the city of Europolis, listening to random side-conversations (the magical realm of Arcadia barely makes an appearance), but it’s a way of easing you into a world-of making this feel like a real place rather than Video Game City X-that I really admire. I can’t wait to watch things escalate, but I wasn’t at all let down by this opening episode of Dreamfall: Chapters. While there are seeds of a much larger conspiracy to unravel, and while we know that inevitably the other shoe must drop (and drop with what I assume is a world-threatening bang), it’s the way Red Thread and writer Ragnar Tornquist add life to liveliness to what should by all rights be boring that I find admirable. The Longest Journey and Dreamfallare fantastic at telling enormous, world-shifting epics, and I have no doubt another is in store for us with Dreamfall: Chapters.Īs such, we’re confronted with a Zoe Castillo who has a day life-a Zoe Castillo who goes to therapy, who delivers lunch to her boyfriend, who works a day job. ![]() The Longest Journey has never been a series content with the micro level, which is a bit funny because that’s where it excels. This is but the first episode of five, so it’s a bit hard to get a feel for where everything’s headed. And while two of those things change, it remains to be seen whether they’ve changed for the better. Zoe is still in a coma, April is still dead, and Kian still awaits execution. It’s bleak.ĭreamfall: Chapters opens with this bleakness. April Ryan is left with nothing, no purpose, as the game closes. ![]() I mean, the first game (again, spoilers) leads you to believe that you’re a long-awaited savior, that you’re the key figure in the world’s mythology, only to reveal in the last act that you were nothing but a side character the whole time. ![]() That’s part of what makes it so special-this is unapologetically an adventure game for adults. Yeah, The Longest Journey has never really been good at happy endings. The third protagonist, Kian Alvade, was captured by his own men on charges of treason and left in a jail cell to await execution. April Ryan, star of the original Longest Journey, was killed. In case you’ve forgotten the ending of the 2007 game, spoilers ahead: After discovering a global conspiracy to co-opt people’s dreams, protagonist Zoe Castillo was put into a coma and left to die.
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