Tread softly...
To call Dreamfall Chapters a disappointment is moot, of course it was always going to be. The Longest Journey and its sequel are over 10 years old now. When I played those games I was not the person I am now and the very industry that spawned them has changed almost beyond recognition. Whenever a story is left for so long the expectations for its conclusion will almost never be met. That Dreamfall Chapters was made at all is perhaps the greatest achievement in all this. Having had his story kicked to one side by his old employer Funcom, Series creator Ragnar Tornquist was forced to turn to others sources such as Kickstarter to try and finish off what he had started so long ago, and as someone who backed him and his scrappy new little development team Red Thread Studios I cannot deny at least being glad that he has been able to finally put an end to what he started the better part of two decades ago.
News of a troubled development and the very fact that it took over a year and a half from the release of the first episode to the fifth and final one may account for much of what's wrong with Dreamfall Chapters, but the end result is that of a very well intentioned failure. It's certainly not risible and it gives me no pleasure to say this but Dreamfall Chapters suffers from a multitude of problems both creative and technical that brings one to question whether all the trouble was worth it. Limited time and resources may explain some of it, but it really does not excuse an end result that never does justice to its own potential or the legacy of the previous games.
The plot itself revolves around the fate of two worlds connected to each other by the power of dreams, that of the futuristic Stark and the fantasy land of Arcadia, and your attempts to stop a clandestine evil that threatens both. You play as returning heroes Zoe Castillo and Kian Alvane and switch between the two at various points as they set about discovering the source of this menace whilst dealing with the developing turmoil at a more personal level.
Those unfamiliar with the series would do well to play the previous games before diving in if they can. It is not essential as the game comes with a story recap, but as so much of the story leans on earlier events, there is likely extra benefit to having that extra knowledge, if only to be able to better identify some of the problems.
Chief among these issues is the often inept storytelling, perhaps the last thing I'd expect from someone as experienced as Ragnar Tornquist. The plot itself is fine inasmuch as it makes some sense, and the characters you meet are often entertaining and engaging, however they are all let down by a storyteller that doesn't seem to know what to do with them. Major plot-points and decisions based around certain relationships and characters are brought up only to then be simply dropped from the story entirely, sub-plots are established and then screech to a confusing halt. They are not ended or really developed, but just cease as if to be concluded at another time that never actually comes. Much of the time characters and plot-lines felt wasted once it's discovered how little they ever mattered, yet at the time of their involvement the story flags them up as somehow significant only to then ignore them or refer back through some other character's off-hand comment.
McGuffins are brought in late to the story and entire scenes are given over to contrived exposition. There are jarring shifts in tone and when you have serious dramatic pacing brought low by an entirely asinine comedy puzzle I cannot help but sigh and reflect on how things could ever have gotten so awful. How I would have dearly wished for a more focused experience with fewer characters fighting for screen time so as to not have their potential wasted. There is a definite case for cutting your lovelies here and I'd have been more than happy to stand behind Ragnar Tornquist during development and beat him with a giant stick whenever the pacing dropped or whenever he tried to crowbar in yet another nod to the previous games at the expense of the drama.
Also, whereas before there was an emphasis on travel and adventuring to new places, Chapters spends far too long in the same locations and is unsurprisingly at its best in the later episodes when our protagonists start to get out and about as opposed to tedious backtracking through the same environments.
On the plus side the voice acting is excellent for the most part and despite some odd recordings where actors seem too close to the microphone the performances are to a high standard. It's also worth mentioning that the writing is perfectly decent, and even though the storytelling feels like a drunkard at the wheel of a dangerously overloaded garbage truck, the moment to moment dialogue is engaging and goes hand in hand with the interesting characters.
On the technical side of things the game is hampered by strangely poor animation quality. Character movements are inelegant and facial expressions are severely limited, dramatic action scenes can often times look unintentionally funny due to awkward limb flailing, whilst intimate emotions and the very fine voice acting is walled off behind disappointingly barren faces. The sense of missed opportunity here is gaping; it does the story no favours and even makes Telltale's own rickety graphics engine seem almost balletic by comparison.
Immersion is similarly broken by seeing the same non-player characters over and over again with little or no variation, and having your own protagonist hover over the ground does little to inspire confidence in Red Thread's coding prowess. The whiff of mediocre talent and budgetary compromise hangs heavy over much of the experience, and the large hub worlds in which you spend the early episodes running back and forth just ram home the feeling that many decisions were made for cost effective reasons, as opposed to creative and artistic ones.
The agony of the experience is sometimes made worse by those elements that the game does get right, as it only serves that sense of frustration at everything else spoiling things. Visually the game actually looks rather nice, and when not in motion there's quite a bit to admire. The art direction is solid and there are lots of beautiful environments, creatures and outfits to see, whilst the lighting and textures seemed relatively sharp.
All of which leads me to conclude that Mark Kermode was right when he said that the best star wars stories are in the heads of the fans; the implication that imagination will always render in the mind something more spectacular, more dramatic and more profound than what one would ever see or actually experience. Dreamfall Chapters is by no means a disaster; it has charm, some wonderful characters, and punctuates its runtime with some agreeably evocative moments, but it cannot shake a feeling of disappointment after the magic of the previous games. Perhaps fitting then that a game which concerns itself with an end to magic and sorcery should end up reflecting that theme so well in itself, however unintentional.