Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 11-15 of 29
 Spectacular! May 4, 2006
JTT (Florida)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
The story of Dreamfall is fabulous and immersive! No senseless puzzles! The challenges require high curiosity and a little common sense to solve, but they aren't too easy. There are multiple choices for every action, some which seriously alter how you progress. Plenty of replay, I'm still finding new ways! The only downside is the lousy PC controls (hoping for a patch soon), but the Xbox is fine so I'm given this a top rating!
 Should have been a book or a movie it would have been better that way! May 7, 2006
Gamer 00015 (Lakewood, WA)
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
This game says its an action/adventure game but I say its adventure game emphasis on adventure. Some people say that its short but its long. It is called "dreamfall: the longest journey" for a reason. All I've done is "Talk to one person and talk to an other person, walk over here, walk over there, blah blah blah". In a game you should be playing it not just mindlessly moving a joystick. This should have been either a book or a movie 'cuz this is not worth a penny to be video game! But if you like adventure games you should get this 'cuz thats ALL IT IS!
 ...and it was going so well May 8, 2006
Christian Teppic
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
Good Game, Great Story May 19, 2006
J. Szostak
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I finished Dreamfall up last night. Wow, I loved the ending as well as the rest of the story.
It took me just over 13 hours to finish, and I enjoyed every second of it. I didn't find the sneaking around to be too bad actually, but it certainly wasn't great. The combat was passable, but again it wasn't great. The puzzles were easy, but I didn't mind because it kept the game flowing at a good pace for me. The story and the characters kept me hooked and I would recommend the game to anyone who likes a good story.
I actually had (just a tiny bit) more fun playing this than I have had with Oblivion, and I really have enjoyed my 30 hours with that. Which one is a better game? The gameplay certainly isn't as fleshed out in Dreamfall, the code behind it isn't nearly as complicated as Oblivion, the world isn't as large and not nearly as open. But I play games to be drawn into the world and to have fun and Dreamfall eeked it out in that category for me.
It may not be the best game out there, and it certainly isn't the game of the year, but it may be the most fun I will have with a game all year. It beat out anything I played last year, that's for sure.
 alright... May 21, 2006
bossh bosh (somehwere)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I think it is pretty good but not great. like someone else said theres not a ton of gameplay and so much talking. I luckily found out you can skip if you press B a lot, good story but can get tiring.
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