Well, I’ve talked about the Longest Journey, it only makes sense that I talk about its sequel, Dreamfall. In the adventure community, this had to be one of the most highly anticipated games of recent memory. It took seven years to complete due to some development hell and the longer the fans waited the more their expectations grew. Unfortunately, as with all over-hyped games, those expectations were not met and the game did not do nearly as well as it was expected to. However that doesn’t mean it was a bad game.
Dreamfall takes place ten years after the events of the first game and things have changed. You play as Zoe, a twenty-one year old already going through her quarter life crisis. Living at home in Casablanca with her father, Zoe drifts day to day with no real sense of focus or drive. This all changes when her journalist friend/ex-boyfriend Reza asks her to do a seemingly simple errand, which is far less simple than either anticipated. Reza disappears and Zoe makes it her mission to find out what he was researching. As if this wasn’t stressful enough, she starts seeing images of a creepy little girl on loan from The Ring, who continually repeats one message: “Find April Ryan. Save her.”
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| Creeptacular |
If this game has anything going for it, it’s Ragnar Tornquist's excellent storytelling and characters. The sequel had the unenviable task of returning to old worlds while also introducing enough new elements into them to make them fresh. Thankfully, Funcom managed to pull off a pretty good balance. As a fan of the old game, it was both thrilling and heartbreaking to wander through familiar locations and see how they had changed.
Stark and Arcadia are still as wonderful as ever, but MAN have things gotten dark over the last ten years. Remember Venice from the first game, the student paradise? Remember how happy it was? Well, I won't spoil what it looks like now, but it provides one of the most terrifying levels of the game. As for Arcadia, it's under military occupation with all the magical inhabitants forced into a ghetto. Happy and simple, this isn't. Tying it all together is a mystery that is frankly one of the most enjoyable to uncover.
At first, Zoe as a protagonist is not nearly as enjoyable as April, which works against the game and I think is one reason players didn't initially like it. Instead of witty and sarcastic, Zoe is morose and bored with life, preferring to take every opportunity to whine about her lack of direction. However, as the game goes on she grew on me. It's clear her friendship with Reza is strong and deep and although their conversation only lasts five minutes, it's not hard to see why she would go to the ends of the earth to save him. It was also refreshing to have a protagonist who doesn't have a tragic backstory and gets along with their parents. It's nice to know that you don't have to come from a broken home to be a hero.
Along with Zoe, you also play as April once again and as Kian, a fanatical religious soldier tasked with travelling to Marcuria to purify non-believers. I was continuously impressed at how maturely the developers handled the change in these characters. Ten years is a long time to pass for anyone. The April Ryan we grew to know and love in TLJ is a far cry from her former self. The years have made her hardened and cynical, though she does still have some of the old April sarcasm floating around in there. As for Kian, I would have liked to have seen a bit more done with him. As it was, he was the most underdeveloped amongst the three characters although he showed a lot of promise.
Stark and Arcadia are still as wonderful as ever, but MAN have things gotten dark over the last ten years. Remember Venice from the first game, the student paradise? Remember how happy it was? Well, I won't spoil what it looks like now, but it provides one of the most terrifying levels of the game. As for Arcadia, it's under military occupation with all the magical inhabitants forced into a ghetto. Happy and simple, this isn't. Tying it all together is a mystery that is frankly one of the most enjoyable to uncover.
At first, Zoe as a protagonist is not nearly as enjoyable as April, which works against the game and I think is one reason players didn't initially like it. Instead of witty and sarcastic, Zoe is morose and bored with life, preferring to take every opportunity to whine about her lack of direction. However, as the game goes on she grew on me. It's clear her friendship with Reza is strong and deep and although their conversation only lasts five minutes, it's not hard to see why she would go to the ends of the earth to save him. It was also refreshing to have a protagonist who doesn't have a tragic backstory and gets along with their parents. It's nice to know that you don't have to come from a broken home to be a hero.
Along with Zoe, you also play as April once again and as Kian, a fanatical religious soldier tasked with travelling to Marcuria to purify non-believers. I was continuously impressed at how maturely the developers handled the change in these characters. Ten years is a long time to pass for anyone. The April Ryan we grew to know and love in TLJ is a far cry from her former self. The years have made her hardened and cynical, though she does still have some of the old April sarcasm floating around in there. As for Kian, I would have liked to have seen a bit more done with him. As it was, he was the most underdeveloped amongst the three characters although he showed a lot of promise.
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| Old April would pretend to be a pizza delivery to get past a guard, New April would snap his neck...seriously. |
Like the first game, I think this one was timely for me. It had been two years since I graduated university and the realities of the world and making a living versus living out your dream were making me fairly cynical. Another old character who had been an aspiring dancer in the first game now owns a night club, and hearing him talk somewhat wistfully about giving up his passion in order to pay the rent hit pretty close to home. That's not to say it was depressing, though. Like real life, no character really regretted having to make those choices and for the most part were fairly happy in their current roles.
With such a strong storyline, characters, and gorgeous graphics, it was bound to do well. But while critics absolutely loved it, it was something of a commercial failure. There might be many reasons for this, but in my opinion one in particular is that Dreamfall was trying to be too many things at once. The developers needed to reach a larger audience which ended up affecting many aspects of the game.
For one, the game was released on X-box to try and reach the console lovers. Since point and click adventures don't really lend themselves to the X-box, a more RPG style gameplay was implemented. On the plus side, I personally enjoyed freely running around familiar locations and seeing them up close and personal. However, on a PC the controls were far clunkier and made for a more frustrating game experience. It was clearly meant to be played on a console.
The boldest move however was the addition of a combat system, and this is probably what decided a lot of people's opinions about the game. If you mention the word "combat" to an adventure purist, they will go screaming off into the night seeking to destroy whoever dared to taint their adventure genre. The fact that Dreamfall, the sequel to the beloved TLJ which didn't rely on violence of any sort, would have combat was sacrilege. Now, I don't buy into this philosophy. While I'm not a fan of combat, I believe that it is possible to integrate combat into adventure games without sacrificing the classic rules of an adventure game.
Unfortunately, Dreamfall didn't quite hit that mark. The combat that we ended up with has to be some of the most painfully easy and awkward I've seen in any game. Except for maybe Alone in the Dark. In their attempts to gain a new audience, the developers not only scared away their core audience but also put off their new target audience as well. Honestly, I found this combat easy. Me. Not only is it incredibly simple to perform (click once to hit...that's it), but your opponent almost NEVER fights back.
You can choose to use stealth or combat when crossing paths with an enemy, and almost always I chose combat because screw stealth! It's stressful! And I hate it. HATE IT. This backfired on me twice when I encountered an enemy that was suddenly next to impossible to beat and killed me with two quick punches to the face. The stealth sequences were even more frustrating, causing me to put down the game for several days at a time simply because the sneaking around was just too difficult.
For a pure adventure gamer, the game didn't have enough puzzles. For a console/RPG gamer, the game had too little combat. For both types of gamers the game simply wasn't challenging enough. As a result, Dreamfall had mediocre sales and didn't reach nearly the levels of recognition that TLJ got. It's now available for the same price as TLJ, and it's only been out since 2007. Which is a shame, because really? This is a great game.
Despite my gripes about the awkward stealth and combat, keep in mind that I still wanted to play the game all the way through just to find out what happened next. The questions the game poses aren't all answered, and the end of the game itself left me shocked and even a little tearful. Like Heavy Rain which came after it, Dreamfall has often been called more of an interactive movie than a game, but man what a movie it is.
The saddest part is that the end of Dreamfall clearly set itself up for a sequel, a sequel which has yet to be made due to more development hell. While it may not have reached the success levels of TLJ, this is still a great continuation of the story and I sincerely hope that the sequel finds a way to get made. Play the game if you haven't yet, it's not the type you normally play on a console. And frankly consoles could use more games like that.
With such a strong storyline, characters, and gorgeous graphics, it was bound to do well. But while critics absolutely loved it, it was something of a commercial failure. There might be many reasons for this, but in my opinion one in particular is that Dreamfall was trying to be too many things at once. The developers needed to reach a larger audience which ended up affecting many aspects of the game.
For one, the game was released on X-box to try and reach the console lovers. Since point and click adventures don't really lend themselves to the X-box, a more RPG style gameplay was implemented. On the plus side, I personally enjoyed freely running around familiar locations and seeing them up close and personal. However, on a PC the controls were far clunkier and made for a more frustrating game experience. It was clearly meant to be played on a console.
The boldest move however was the addition of a combat system, and this is probably what decided a lot of people's opinions about the game. If you mention the word "combat" to an adventure purist, they will go screaming off into the night seeking to destroy whoever dared to taint their adventure genre. The fact that Dreamfall, the sequel to the beloved TLJ which didn't rely on violence of any sort, would have combat was sacrilege. Now, I don't buy into this philosophy. While I'm not a fan of combat, I believe that it is possible to integrate combat into adventure games without sacrificing the classic rules of an adventure game.
Unfortunately, Dreamfall didn't quite hit that mark. The combat that we ended up with has to be some of the most painfully easy and awkward I've seen in any game. Except for maybe Alone in the Dark. In their attempts to gain a new audience, the developers not only scared away their core audience but also put off their new target audience as well. Honestly, I found this combat easy. Me. Not only is it incredibly simple to perform (click once to hit...that's it), but your opponent almost NEVER fights back.
You can choose to use stealth or combat when crossing paths with an enemy, and almost always I chose combat because screw stealth! It's stressful! And I hate it. HATE IT. This backfired on me twice when I encountered an enemy that was suddenly next to impossible to beat and killed me with two quick punches to the face. The stealth sequences were even more frustrating, causing me to put down the game for several days at a time simply because the sneaking around was just too difficult.
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| This level? So much hate. |
For a pure adventure gamer, the game didn't have enough puzzles. For a console/RPG gamer, the game had too little combat. For both types of gamers the game simply wasn't challenging enough. As a result, Dreamfall had mediocre sales and didn't reach nearly the levels of recognition that TLJ got. It's now available for the same price as TLJ, and it's only been out since 2007. Which is a shame, because really? This is a great game.
Despite my gripes about the awkward stealth and combat, keep in mind that I still wanted to play the game all the way through just to find out what happened next. The questions the game poses aren't all answered, and the end of the game itself left me shocked and even a little tearful. Like Heavy Rain which came after it, Dreamfall has often been called more of an interactive movie than a game, but man what a movie it is.
The saddest part is that the end of Dreamfall clearly set itself up for a sequel, a sequel which has yet to be made due to more development hell. While it may not have reached the success levels of TLJ, this is still a great continuation of the story and I sincerely hope that the sequel finds a way to get made. Play the game if you haven't yet, it's not the type you normally play on a console. And frankly consoles could use more games like that.
This didn't set itself up for a sequel -- it set itself up for the second half of the game. This was a half-game, not a full game. I liked it too, but ... half game.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I take mild umbrage at the "No combat in adventure games!" people. I love the Quest for Glory games just that much. Even though their combat systems often sucked.
Half game, really? Interesting. I know they were toying around with the idea of making the next one episodic.
ReplyDeleteSigh, someday combat and adventure will be awesomely combined.