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An immersive world awaits.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: May 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

When I saw this game I thought it would be a good enough game to add to my collection, what I did not realize is just how much fun and wonderful it was. The character designs are extremely well rendered, the plotline is truely excellent, and overall this game was hours of immeasurable enjoyment. I ardently await the sequal.

I really miss this style of game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: March 23, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Point and click adventure games are almost (if not already) extinct. Dreamfall does the genre proud. It's pretty easy, and has little action, but that's not the point. It's a fun interactive story with very nice (especially for last generation) graphics. The story is really interesting, and a real treat for people who played the previous games in the series. The locations are varied and well designed. My only complaint, is that it has a cliff hanger ending, and from what I know, there are no plans for a sequal.

...and it was going so well

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 08, 2006
Author: Amazon User

It's been six years since the original game, The Longest Journey, came out on the pc. I don't remember a whole lot about the game, except it featured a great character named April Ryan, had excellent voice acting, and an engaging storyline. But, since it was six years ago, I really don't remember a whole lot about the storyline except that there were two worlds, one being magical and the other technological, and that April could travel ("shift") between those worlds. And that once I finished it, I really, really, REALLY wanted a sequel to be made.

So along comes Dreamfall, the sequel to The Longest Journey. This game has been in development for over three years, and by reading previews on it the total gameplay was supposed to be somewhere in the thirty-plus hours range. There were supposed to be a lot of sidequests that you could go on, and so on. I really thought this was going to be a great game, and it just, well, fell way short.

Basically, in this game you don't control April Ryan (at least at first) as your main character, but rather a girl named Zoe Castillo. She has a delightful accent, and talks a lot. When her friend disappears, she sets off to find him. There are a lot of twists to the storyline, and I don't want to give them away. But, suffice it to say, the story is certainly engaging. The problem is, it's really the only strength to this game, and in the end it fails.

In The Longest Journey, there were a TON of puzzles. Some were ridiculously impossible (unless you're a REALLY good gamer), but there certainly were a lot. It took me a very long time to beat that game, and it lived up to its name. The puzzles in this game are unbelievably easy. There was never once in the game that I was even remotely confused as to what to do or where to go, which wouldn't necessarily be bad if there was more to the game than puzzle solving. Unfortunately, there really isn't. They've added 'combat' to this game, if you want to call it that. Basically, all you have to do is keep hitting the Attack button and you will win every fight. At one point you control a guy who has a sword, and he's supposed to be a 'legendary swordman', yet I wouldn't call him that--again, all you have to do is keep hitting attack. It's a clumsy fighting system, and the game certainly wouldn't be any worse if fighting was removed completely from it.

So then there's the story to talk about. It started out SO well. Seriously. It was engaging, and told through EXCELLENT voice acting. And then it just ended, with NO explanation. I would say that there are a lot of loose threads never tied up, but that would be an extreme understatement. The amount of questions left unanswered is ridiculous. I can appreciate a story that leaves a question or two for the sequel (or for pondering), but this isn't nearly the same thing. My theory on what happened is that although they worked on this game for three years, the developers ran out of time. So instead of requesting more time, they had to hit a deadline so they made the conclusion as cryptic and open-ended as possible. For more than half of the characters I have no idea if they're dead or not, including the main character. I have no idea about pretty much everything that happened at the end, and it's not one of those 'if you paid very close attention to everything you can figure it out' deals, either.

Then there's another problem with it. The developers of this game apparently knew its story was its only real strength, too, so they made it the biggest part of the game. Especially at the end, most of the game is dialogue. You'll sit for twenty minutes listening to a conversation, then you gain control of your character and bring them up a set of stairs and go through another half-hour of conversation. You may think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. There's no final character you have to battle, nothing. You just sit there and watch for the longest time. Now, I like a good story just as much as the next person, but this got somewhat extreme. I'm reminded a bit of Final Fantasy X, where huge cutscenes would take a long time to get through, but at least in that game there was a lot of gameplay.

I finished this game in about 10-12 hours, and there's really no reason for replay. There were NO sidequests in the game whatsoever, unless I completely missed EVERY one of them. The story is completely linear. You do get opportunities in conversations to choose how you want to answer, if you want to be a jerk or a nice person. Maybe some of those options lead to sidequests, or changes in the story, but I doubt it. The game did do a couple of changes in point of view--you control three characters during the game, and at points they meet, and you control the conversation from both sides--which was interesting.

Some of the characters from The Longest Journey return in this game. I don't remember them all extremely well, but some of them were pretty funny in this game, especially toward the end. Probably the best character was Crow, who really was funny in a lot of the things he said. But he entered the game very close to the end, and although it seemed like he was going to be Zoe's companion for awhile, the game hit its sudden ending not very long afterward.

As far as graphics go, well, they're okay. I played this on the Xbox; I'd assume on the pc they'd be a little better. Essentially, though, although all of the environments have their own special feel, the graphics aren't going to astound you. The character models are only okay, although they do a very good job with the facial expressions. The characters' eyes move, they smile, they tilt their head--the way it's done goes along with how someone really would do those gestures. So give the developers some credit there, because it makes the characters more believable. Also, speech is synched up with the characters' lip movement very well. It's not perfect by any means (are there ANY games that are?), but it's one of the best jobs I've seen of that to date.

So, here's the deal. The voice acting is incredible; there's no question about that. The story started out very well, and fell VERY short at the end. The puzzles aren't engaging. There's little to the game OTHER than the story and dialogue. Is this game worth playing? I think it is, but with reservations. Obviously, with the way it was left off, a third game is going to be coming out in this series. I would assume that game will attempt to tie up all of the loose ends this game created. If you want to play this game, I'd suggest waiting until the next one in the series comes out. That way, when you get to the end and start cursing at how poorly it's done, you'll have the next game in the series to start right away, so you won't have to spend a long time confused. As it is, if it's going to be another six years before the next game comes out in this series, then it's just not worth it.

This is not a game.... but it was still very entertaining.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 14, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I bought this because I played the first one and loved it. The gamplay was superb, if extremly difficult at times. The story one of the best in a game ever. The sequal though I cant call a game, it is a c.g. movie with game elements added in just so they could call it a game. In all this product was about 10-15 hours but you actually only have at most 2 hours of gameplay, and that was poor at best. The story however was deep and engrossing, much like a good fantasy/sci-fi book. My only complaint with the story was the ending left every story thread unresolved. All of which were obviously meant to be continued in a sequal. Would I recommend it for purchase? Yes, but only if you want a good story and dont care about playing a game.

Fantastic game. Hands down one of the best experiences I've had gaming in a while.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I love this game. It's one of the best experiences I've had gaming/being told a story/being entertained whilst looking at a screen. It brought up emotions, had me empathizing with the characters in a way that I think maybe no other game has, and gave me that oh so good feeling of being immersed in something grand and esoteric and playfully meaningful. Buy it if you like great stories.

Suddenly an adventure game convert

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I loved this game. Frankly, I've never had much use for video games before, because I thought all video games were basically carpal-tunnel inducing fighting games (Nintendo, etc.) or filled with tedious, pointless puzzles (Myst, etc.). My husband bought Dreamfall for me and it completely changed my mind. This game is first and foremost about the story, which is complex and deeply engaging. I felt like I was really immersed in a different world (well, worlds, actually--you'll see when you play it). The graphics are absolutely beautiful. The voice actors were actually good, and since the dialogue is a key part of this game that's important! The fighting is minimal, fortunately, and the puzzles are relatively simple. I'm now going back and buying the first installment of this series. So, if there are any other 30ish women out there who thought video gaming was just for kids, well, I very strongly recommend you check out this game.

Fantastic!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Even though I'm about to turn 30 and I'm a girl, I absolutely love video games. My husband and I got our Xbox360 a week ago and I just happened to have randomly selected Dreamfall for my first game. I was so hooked I couldn't put it down. My husband and I don't typically like the same types of games, but he was even playing this game! It was fantastic! The music, graphics, storyline and everything was great! The game really draws you in. My only issue was that I had rented the game, so I didn't have the instruction book and there was no way for me to find out what my controls were besides just experimenting (I probably could have looked online). I finished the game in a week by playing a little each day. I'm sad it's over. I never played the original PC game, but I hope they make similar games for Xbox in the near future.

Pretty good

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

To keep it brief, the game is very engrossing, the story sucks you in and keeps you interested throughout. The voices and visuals were excellent. However, the camera control left a lot to be desired and made some parts of the game a lot more difficult than they needed to be. The ending is a cliffhanger and I hope they do get around to making a sequal. Oh yeah, and this is a sequal to The Longest Journey. I didnt' know that before I rented it. It doesn't effect the story since they were pretty good at giving you enough back story to fill in the characters that were from the first. Overall, not bad

Playing the game is like watching half a movie

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 18, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is the first game I played that made me feel I was merely turning the pages of a pre-programmed novel. There is nothing you can do out of order, nothing to build up (skills or inventory), nothing you can skip (maybe a little bit), no side quests, no rewarding fights.

What is worse, the story is too abstract, too complex. When the game ended, none of the loose ends were resolved.

In short, playing this game is like watching half a movie.

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