Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

THE BAD:
Not much actual gameplay. A bit too short. Horrible, horrible fighting sequences.

SUMMARY:
Although I only first played it recently, I'm a big fan of the original game, The Longest Journey. So hearing a sequel was coming out so soon after i'd played the game was great to hear. After playing Dreamfall though, the honest truth is that The Longest Journey was MUCH better. It isnt a bad game, it just fails at delivering an experience anything like the original.

The first thing to remember while playing Dreamfall, is that you need to focus on the story. Because if you lose track of whats going on, all you've got is the gameplay - and there isnt much of it. You'll spend most of your time watching cutscenes rather than walking around and doing stuff. This is, in a way, both good and bad. Its good because the game has a fantastic story, so the cutscenes are interesting and enlightening. Its bad because it CAN make you a little bored, and your fingers will twitch toward your right mouse button probably more than once to skip through what people are saying. "People" talk a lot in dreamfall. I'm sure some conversations lasted more than 15 minutes. (i'm serious ) But if you can appreciate a great story, and dont mind watching and listening, this shouldn't be much of a problem.

As I said earlier the gameplay is a minor part of the game, and strangely, seems like an afterthought. To be honest, this game would have better as an animated movie. The story is obviously the focus of the game, the actual gameplay is poor on its own, so why make it a game at all?
Basically, the parts of the game when you have control of the character usually involve walking through one linear path to the next. You dont do much in terms of adventuring, and its not very often that you have to pick up an object and combine it with another, or find an object in the environment, like classic adventure games make you do all the time.

Dreamfall also has a fighting system. During about 4 parts of the game, you will have to fight off some enemies - and the fighting system is... awful Its unresponsive, its difficult to hit anything, its slow, its limited, and its boring. Its possibly the worst fighting system ever made on any game, ever. Period. So its a good job that you only fight easy enemies, it doesnt happen very often, and its over pretty quick.

The graphics in Dreamfall are cartoony, but quite pretty and vibrant. Voice acting is top notch which helps the story even more and keeps you gripped into it, and the music does the same thing.

So, what do I think of this game in one paragraph? It needs a lot of work gameplay-wise. But if you can just forget all that, and concentrate on the story, you can get very immersed in this game, and will want to 'play' it until the end. The ending leaves an opening for an expansion pack/new game - but I wont be one of the people who buy it if its ever released. I like a great story as much as the next person, but I also want to actually DO something during the course of a game. And those silly fight scenes NEED to go. Until these things are ironed out, im afraid The Longest Journey will remain incomplete for me. Because I wont be getting the next one!

xx