Some things in life get an undeserved high score on metacritic just because they have a small clique of zealous supporters, while people with a more balanced opinion don't even review it, since the thing in question just isn't important enough to merit their attention.
Dreamfall Chapters is such a thing - it's a fanboy magnet.
I may have enjoyed the predecessor games a lot, and I maySome things in life get an undeserved high score on metacritic just because they have a small clique of zealous supporters, while people with a more balanced opinion don't even review it, since the thing in question just isn't important enough to merit their attention.
Dreamfall Chapters is such a thing - it's a fanboy magnet.
I may have enjoyed the predecessor games a lot, and I may have helped crowd funding Dreamfall Chapters hoping for an enjoyable continuation to the franchise. But I was let down. More than anything else, Chapters is a snorefest.
It does take a long time to play, but that time is mostly spent running around endlessly in the same few dull environments. Sorry, I meant *walking* around, because the developer seems afraid we might hurt ourselves if we were allowed to move from point A to point B without watching our steps carefully. You can shift to a very leisurely jogging speed most of the time, but even this is denied in certain places.
The environments are graphically pretty though. Sure the game is pretty in a two-generations-behind-the-curve kind of way, but that's not so bad. What's bad, is that there is so very little to *interact* with. There is practically nothing more than the bare minimum clickable content here. Even when you're solving puzzles, you sometimes just can't find ANYTHING nearby that even responds to your touch!
Yes, the hardest part of the "puzzle solving" is walking around all over the map scanning the environment with your mouse cursor until you find an item that actually acknowledges its own existence in the game world and lets you interact with it. Grab that item, and you half solved the puzzle already. All that remains, is finding a spot where the item will do something. More walking around, and more random mouse exploration.
A *good* puzzle solving game has entertaining and quirky puzzles that makes you use your creativity, and rewards you with a satisfying "of course, why didn't I think of that!" feeling when you finally figure it out. A good game also makes sure to keep you well entertained with quirky humor while you're futzing about trying to solve the puzzles.
Dreamfall Chapters is not that kind of game - it is stiff and dull and unimaginative. If you want a *fun and enjoyable* puzzle solving adventure game, go play The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 or something.
I just said Chapters is "unimaginative", and for a fantasy adventure game that's about the worst possible sin to commit. And yet it is true. Most of it is trivial, banal, and focused on just the kind of boring everyday minutia you play fantasy adventure games to get away from for a while. Where is the sense of *adventure*? Where is the sense of moving to another world that works by different rules?
Even in the supposedly magical world of Arcadia, the "fantasy" is just a thin veneer for a carbon copy of our everyday world. It's a world of magic, but no-one seems to ever *use* magic. And it is steeped in the exact same ideological mold as our world today, in the most uninteresting way.
Do you really want to travel to a magical land, only to be preached to about the evils of racism and prejudice? Isn't that experience available to you pretty much 24/7 in the real world just by turning on the TV or opening a random page of a newspaper? Isn't it kind of boring and lame to drag boring and lame crap like that into a fantasy setting?
The game is *preachy*. It has a clear social justice warrior agenda, and never misses an opportunity to tell you what's The Right Way To Think. Just in case you didn't know, *pedophilia is bad*. This game makes sure to tell you, because it just can't leave depressing real-world issues like this alone and tell a compelling story about something fresh and inspiring. As a fantasy game should.
Sorry, that's not "Arcadia". That's the modern PC-infested world anno 2015, where you can't swing a cat without hitting something that nags about how swinging a cat is animal cruelty, and somehow at the same time a blatant expression of White Male Privilege.
And that's why you must play as a young Nazi who figures out being a Nazi is bad in this game. Sure, this is "fantasy", so they changed the name a little - "Nazi" became "Azadi". But it's still the same thing. You're a Nazi, and your task is to realize that Nazis are bad and you must make amends. That's the story.
If you already figured out for yourself being a Nazi is bad, then this game leaves a sour taste. Preachiness is annoying even when you need to hear it, and it's even more annoying when you don't, so it's really not the way to go when you wish to spread your favorite religion. The first religion that figures this out will dominate the world! :-D
My last pet peave is that the game yells *THIS WILL HAVE CONSEQUENCES!!!* in your face when you do stuff, and then it shouts *THIS WAS A CONSEQUENCE!!!* when something happens.
Face. Palm.… Expand
Dreamfall Chapters Book Two: RebelsYour Score0 out of 10User Score
