Considering how much time you’ll spend chatting with the inhabitants of Chapters’ world, this is no small problem. By Chapters’ end, there are so many confusing conspiracies and deus ex machinas that even the inevitable end-game exposition dump can’t bring the tale to a satisfying conclusion.Ī haphazard story could be salvaged by punchy writing or memorable characters, but Chapters has neither. It’s not even explained why Zoë and Kian are so important to the fate of their worlds until many, many hours into the game, and even then, it basically boils down to the cheap ‘chosen one’ trope. For the majority of the game, though, these narratives lack focus, often introducing characters and sub-plots that go nowhere and contribute nothing to the overall plot. As you set out to save the world, the game bounces you back and forth between its two main protagonists, Zoë Castillo and Azadi turncoat Kian Alvane, each of whom has a separate narrative to keep track of. Sadly, even if you can remember every tiny detail of the Dreamfall canon, it won’t make up for Chapters’ scatterbrained story. Even 20 years ago, that would have been recognised as poor puzzle design.
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Up to this point, Chapters has made no attempt to recap what happened in The Longest Journey, so unless you can clearly recall the plot of a game that released 17 years ago, you’re going to have to resort to trial and error.
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To move the story forward, you’re tasked with arranging a series of children’s drawings in chronological order according to the events of The Longest Journey, the first Dreamfall game that came out way back in the year 2000. Take a particular mid-game puzzle, for example. Even for someone who played the previous games, it can be overwhelming–11 years is a long time to remember what the heck a Dolmari is, after all. The Azadi, WatiCorp, the revolution of April Ryan– Chapters assumes you’re intimately familiar with the story of the previous two Dreamfall games as it hurls dozens of obscure names and concepts at you without giving you time to catch your breath. From its very first scene, it becomes clear that newcomers to the Dreamfall series will have a tough time following what’s going on. It doesn’t take long for Dreamfall: Chapters to establish itself as a game trapped in the past. From its premise to its execution, Dreamfall: Chapters is a game out of place and out of time.
Sadly, not only does Dreamfall: Chapters fail to make good on this promise, it stubbornly ignores a decade’s worth of progress in adventure-game design.
Dreamfall: Chapters, the Kickstarted follow-up to Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, seems at first to take a similar approach, promising players that their choices will shape the game’s narrative in poignant, meaningful ways. In those 11 years, we’ve seen the adventure-game genre redefined by games like Telltale’s The Walking Dead and Dontnod’s Life is Strange, games that discarded pixel hunting and illogical ‘logic’ puzzles for a greater focus on narrative and consequence. It’s been 11 years since Dreamfall: The Longest Journey left Zoë Castillo trapped in a coma, placed there by her mother for the crime of saving the world. For good and for bad, Dreamfall: Chapters is a game trapped in the past.
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