A Dreamfall Review

By toremygg

Into the Breach Once More

A sequel to The Longest Journey? Could it really be? I had taken to reading Ragnar Törnquist’s blog from time to time, and suddenly one day this, to some people, unimportant little tidbit met my eyes. To a hard-core fan, however, news of a sequel – sorry, spiritual successor – to game of such qualities as The Longest Journey, was no small thing. I’d been waiting to hear what happened to April Ryan since spring of 2000. As it turned out, I was going to have to wait two more years. Two long years I spent speculating and hunting for information. Finally, with my PC duly upgraded and the game in hand, I started playing. Would it live up to my expectations?

Character Assassination

Dreamfall is a very story-driven game, but even story-driven games need strong characters. Does Dreamfall live up to this, at least for its main characters? The one that interested me the most, was of course April. What happened to her those ten years ago? What kind of person had she developed into? However, the other main characters, Zoë and Kian, also warranted consideration. What did they bring to the game, for better and for worse? Zoë; a disillusioned, goalless Stark youth suddenly involved deep over her head in a worlds-spanning conspiracy. I feared for the worst as I started playing. Two reasons for this. First of all, I started playing with Norwegian audio. Big mistake. Sorry, but you could hear the line breaks in the script at times. Not good enough, Ragnar and Dag... I switched to English before Zoë left her bedroom (fully clothed, I might add). Another thing was that she initially felt a bit plastic-fantastic. The somewhat disproportionate mammaries and manga-eyes played a big part in this. As the story went on, however, my focus shifted from superficial flaws to the story and character development. Yes, this game actually has character development. Big plus in the margin, on the part of Zoë at least. April Ryan; a rebel with a cause – but is it her cause, really? Like an in-grown toe nail of sad back-story she appears as head of the Northland rebels. The idea that this was not April’s story was perhaps hammered through a bit too hard for me. And yet April is apparently the person to have her life turned the most upside down (with Zoë as a strong second) in Dreamfall. I suppose some of the reason why I feel April’s development before and during the game is not as logical and well-founded as Zoë‘s is that she has less screen-time. Still, for those of us who have played The Longest Journey umpteen times, her character seemed almost too changed from the upbeat teenager we once knew and loved. There’s probably material enough there for a novel, Ragnar (hint, hint)... Kian; not a rebel, but definitely with a cause. I have some of the same issues as with April in his case. Character development and motivations are forced into too little screen-time, and he becomes slightly Ken-like (but not more so than the Guardian...) in his pursuit of Right. With an hour or so more on screen, he might have been believable, but unfortunately his turn-around now just serves to make us blink and go ”What?”.

Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave...

All this brings us to the main feature of any worthwhile game: the story. What was I looking for in Dreamfall? Most of all a good story. Second, a story that would tie up some of the loose ends from The Longest Journey. I was also hoping for something that would expand and continue the universe of the Twin Worlds, Stark and Arcadia. And of course, what we ”all” wish for, the story that will save the Adventure genre from the scrapheap of gaming. Did I get it? I’m not sure yet, to tell the truth. Loose ends were tied up, yes. But the ones we were left with at the end looked decidedly frayed around the edges as well, and some of the fraying seemed intentional. Yes, I realize we’re building for a sequel here, but could we have a bit more closure, please? But here I go, babbling about the ending. Of course, the ending is the beginning, and the beginning the end (and what a cliché that is), but what’s in between has a lot going for it. It didn’t take long (a trip to downtown Casablanca was all it took, really) before I was hooked. I could have played the game through in one sitting. I did, however, manage to limit myself to one- and two-hour sessions. Most of the time. OK, not towards the end. (Still, I did savour, Ragnar.) I got to travel with Zoë to exciting locations, sneak with April both below and above ground, and stomp with Kian through the streets of Marcuria (please, please give us a free camera cheat!). I got to unravel... ok, partly unravel, a conspiracy, although I didn’t get to prevent it. I’ve seen characters I’ve come to know and love question their faith, regain their faith and find something to believe in. And let go of Faith. Although the Dreamfall story does leave something to be desired at some points, it does almost to perfection what most other games fail to do – it gives you more than just action. When Kian and April meet outside Friar’s Keep; when April is run through in the swamp; when Zoë helps Faith let go – those are moments that stay with the player long after the game is over.

Location, Location, Location!

By the way, did I already voice my request for a free-flying camera cheat for Dreamfall? Why do I want that, you say? One reason... I want to fly across Marcuria. Not sure if you’ll believe this, but it stood for three minutes, at least, at the pier near the Black People’s ship just looking at the city. She’s not called the Jewel of the Northlands for nothing. However, that admiration is just a part of what I’d really like to give the team credit for – location design and art direction. There are games more graphically advanced than Dreamfall, but there aren’t many that can boast the same level of detail, love and care put into building and location design. I walked around for minutes at a time just looking (again, that camera cheat...), reloaded and walked more slowly through the Dark People’s city when I realized I wasn’t spending more time there with April... I felt I was there. There were, of course, downsides. The areas are a bit too small. The didn’t feel that restrictive, and you normally always had a purpose, but there were times when you felt there should be more to the place. The textures for the buildings didn’t work that well up close, either. One thing that really annoyed me, though, was the NPC setup and paths in the areas. The same blond woman always starting in the same spot and walking the same path towards Zoë in Casablanca. Some variation and randomization in this wouldn’t hurt, at least in places the player is bound to visit more than once. The audio randomization seemed good though; let’s face it, there’s only so many different cries one stall vendor has the imagination to come up with. Speaking of which, the spice merchant was hilarious. He reminded me a bit of a certain CMOT Dibbler from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books. Come to think of it, Marcuria does have certain Ankh-Morkporkian qualities about it. And I say that in the best possible meaning. The one thing I didn’t like was the Azadi machinery spread randomly, almost as an afterthought, throughout the city. It looked tacked-on as an afterthought – and that could be understandable since it is less than ten years old, and the city has a 20,000 year history if my sources can be trusted, but it seems to have no function, which is a lot more serious. Pistons go up and down without driving anything, etc. Gave me my one down on my walks in Marcuria...

Maestro?

The music is worth a chapter for itself. Both the orchestral, instrumental parts and the more pop-oriented songs are good. One problem with the Magnet songs is that they are cut short by the length of the travel cut-scenes. They would have deserved more screen time, and had it been up to me, they would have got it by a lengthening of the travel sequences (possibly by inserting a few Faith video sequences in them – even a Magnet music video?). Still, time is money, and most players don’t want to sit through more than 15-20 seconds of travel time. The orchestral pieces are also very good, perhaps one notch above Magnet’s songs. Sometimes the changes in mood became too abrupt for me (for instance when the grubber came close in the caves), but mostly the music stayed unobtrusive like it should while supporting the story.

Humorously Shaped Vegetables

One of the best-loved things in The Longest Journey is its seemingly inexhaustible cornucopia of jokes, in-jokes and references. Does Dreamfall live up to its predecessor in this department? Yes and no. There’s not the same amount of jokes, not by any means. The quality of them, however, can compete with The Longest Journey. Crow’s Samwise Gamgee reference for instance, is an instant classic. Some well-placed Funcom merchandise did not go unobserved. Neither did a doorbell with Funcom employee names. But surely something better than Oslo street names could be used in the football clip at the Border House? OK, I’m nitpicking. The subject matter of Dreamfall did perhaps not invite jocularity on the same level as The Longest Journey. It was there, but I had hoped for more.

Fighting

Since the fighting was given so much attention from the developers, I have to comment on it. First of all, I’m a lover, not a fighter, as the song goes. I haven’t played an FPS since Doom, and though I like RPGs and sims, fighting isn’t my strong point in any context. I was undeniably wary of the fighting element in Dreamfall, especially since the early reviews did not look too promising. Training with Zoë. OK, that wasn’t too bad. Except that my wrist started to hurt (Yes, I’m a mouse + keyboard player.). Now, what really almost made me put the game down, and did for a couple of hours, was the April On Ice fighting extravaganza. I think I went through that scuffle 30 times before I managed a win. Since I’m not big on fighting games, I can’t say this with much authority, but... If the fight scenes are called bad by both avid FPS gamers and hard-core adventure gamers (for diametrically opposite reasons, of course), then they all probably have a point. My suggestion for the third installment: make the fights optional, either by always having a way out or by scripting the fights.

Sneaking

The sneaking element wasn’t used all that much, but in my view it was used to good effect, and worked in the contexts it was used in. And I won’t go into how I got the sneaking and walking mixed up and spent hours trying to get past the nice doggie... Not a big gameplay element, and not a point of much contention, so I’ll leave it alone; just let me say that it worked, in my view, a whole lot better than the fighting.

Technobabble

Dreamfall was, in my experience, surprisingly bug-free. I suppose that’s only to be expected with the kind of delay those of us who eagerly anticipated the fall 2005 release were faced with, but still I think the team should be commended for that. Still, there were a few issues, and I’ll mention some of them. I played the Norwegian version, and I had issues with it. Working in the translation business myself, I groaned looking at the menus. It was so obviously engineer-Norwegian that I could have cried. Please, please; if you do a localized version, get the pros to do it. Also, get the whole installer localized if you get part of it done. Half-baked doesn’t work. Other than that, what I experienced of bugs were mainly graphical glitches and 3D environment mishaps. For instance Zoë and April putting their heads through walls and into columns in the caves, Zoë walking through snowdrifts in Russia, and her shadow falling through the wall in the underground lab... Spoilers in resource and file names was a well-known issue from The Longest Journey, and one I thought would have been eradicated for Dreamfall. But I guess programmers will always be lazy. After all, it is so much easier to call something by its rightful name.

Starstruck?

It shouldn’t be necessary to include a paragraph on the marketing and communication effort for a game these days – but in this case there are things that need saying. What I won’t dwell on are the copy protection (Why use StarForce when you know it will keep people from buying the game, but not in the long term from copying it?) and delays (Production delays happen. We deal with them. No biggie.). What need to be remarked upon are two things: consistent communication and proper information updates. And they can pretty much be summed up in one paragraph. The information flow from Funcom and its distributors just before, during and after release can be described as nothing less than appalling. The expected ramp-up of information before release never came, except for the arrival of an almost empty and incredibly slow Flash website. The system requirements that were released were so laughably inconsistent from publisher to publisher that fans didn’t know what to believe. The information regarding release dates was close to non-existent (rule of thumb – give one release date to retailers, another to fans...) and the handling of user queries after the delays were a fact was terrible, at least for European players. I know this is mainly an issue with Asknet AG and not an internal Funcom problem (and I have indeed defended Funcom on this issue), but for later games I suggest using another European distributor, one that is capable of at least a modicum of communication...

Threads

So, did it? Yes, and no. I was left wanting more. A lot more. I’m not sure whether that ”a lot” is a good thing. In the story department I got what I wanted. In the game department; not so much. The criticism of other players holds for me too: Dreamfall was too much interactive movie and not enough game. And on top of that, the section where some real game elements had been incorporated (April’s quest through the caves), it was too much and stood apart from the feel of the rest of the game (but would have been right at home in The Longest Journey, however). I’m still an avid follower of April Ryan and the rest of the Twin Worlds universe, and I’ll do my bit of speculating in the years before TLJ3 (speculatively entitled When Worlds Collide by yours truly), but had I been giving out scores, I’m afraid Dreamfall would not have been as high up as the first installment. On a lot of levels it lives up to the reputation of its predecessor, but some of the “experimentation” drags the totality of it down of the pedestal I had intended for it and into the upper echelons of mediocrity*.

* Yeah, I stole that one from the Indigo Girls, it just seemed to fit so nicely.