Dreamfall Chapters
The Final Cut is the remastered special edition of Dreamfall Chapters — an award-winning adventure spanning multiple worlds and playable characters. The Final Cut edition combines all five episodes into one complete story, with reworked character designs, an expanded soundtrack, remastered audio and new dialogue, improved art, lighting and animations, and new special features. Dreamfall Chapters is a stand-alone game in The Longest Journey saga; a narrative third-person 3D adventure set in the twin worlds of science and magic. Embark on a magical journey across Stark and Arcadia in a setting that mixes cyberpunk sci-fi with magical fantasy. Play as Zoë Castillo, a young woman seeking answers to her own identity; Kian Alvane, a disgraced Apostle and assassin seeking redemption; and Saga, a mysterious child trapped in a house between worlds.
Steam User 9
Unlike many games today, you have to actually use your brain to get some progress in this game. This is a fantastic game with a really long history and it is quite underrated. Definitely belongs must-play category with the previous games in order to get the full enjoyment.
Steam User 6
If you have never played The Longest Journey or Dreamfall, be warned that this game is dialog heavy. Like its predecessors, Dreamfall Chapters is an interactive story. Fun
Steam User 4
Ah, the early, early 21st century and late 20th century, when specific character archetypes, like a wide fat person and a pale ghost girl, appeared in several mainstream media like The Blade (1998), Ju-on: White Ghost and God of War 2 (or so I like to think), and oh, let not forget Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. As a disclaimer, I never did play the original Dreamfall games before this one but rather watched a playthrough of them a while ago. Doesn't mean I'm well informed in this series compared to those players who play through all these games, but I did try to recap the story before editing this review, as the storyline is pretty lore heavy to remember everything. For instance, we got guardian of the balance, magic, technology, dreamworld, 2 separate parallel universes, freaking dragons, and now there's a god that can end everything by not dreaming.
I won't lie, a lot happened in these series for that reason I find it hard to recommend this game out of the gate unless you play the previous games or have done your research on them as all they all correlate with each other with this last one being a continuation of Dreamfall: the Longest Journey. Just be warned the title doesn't lie, this would be a very long gameplay to get through f you decided to play through all the games, taking probably up to 72 hours to complete all 3 of them from start to finish, and that was a very ruth estimate on my part. So be prepared for what you're getting yourself as this bundle of games can be seen very large book collection.
Dreamfall Chapters continue by a year after we lift off from the last game where we continue to play as Zoë, Kian, and a now new mysterious character, solving escort puzzles, making in-game decisions affecting our relationships with certain characters, and depending on who's gonna live or die. And finally, discovering the answers to the many questions lifts in a cliffhanger in the last game like:
What happens to the White Dragon?
Is that really Reza at the end of the previous game?
What is Helena's plan?
What is Kian fate?
Is Wonkers ok?
As well as answering some long overdue questions, like who is the old lady in The Longest Journey?
I'm glad to say after finishing this final chapter that most of the new and old answers were relatively satisfying. However, I can't say the same thing about how they were delivered, most of which was very dialogue heavy with plenty of situations where characters are standing around staring into each other dumping drag-out exposition.
There are some body gestures and facial animation here and there during these conversations but you can tell the animation wasn't at the forefront of the budget, so expect a lot of clanky animation, especially during action scenes that can make these events fall flat or don't carry much weight, like when Hami push Sister Sahya off the tower or when a character died off-screen.
Even if the animation wasn't the best, at least the developers focused on what was important or what was easier for them to achieve visually and that was character models and the environment design which there is a great selection of them with many of the old character receiving an upgrade as well as plenty of new diverse characters who are pleasing to the eyes. Even our main trio receive different styles over time when something drastic happens to them or just from ageing which was a nice addition to show how much time had passed between chapters when a time skip occurred in between.
There are some obvious reused character models, especially the reused 'blue people' model which can be distracting, but if you take into account that Dreamfall: Chapter is a Kickstarter-funded game developed by an 'indie company' then these recycle asset problems shouldn't be much of a bothersome.
Now for the plot, it's about a conspiracy group of a secret organisation trying to steal other people's dreams to use to alter reality at their own will. You should know 2 different separate worlds were one, one based around magic and the other about science. We play as Zoë who is a Shifter meaning she can essentially teleport between those 2 different worlds when she dreams, both of which have different cultures, languages and attributes towards religion. All create a different experience which I would go over starting with Stark, the futuristic version:
Europolis in Stark (the world of science):
I must say, this was definitely my favourite section of the game between the parallel where we can explore freely as Zoë. It could have been because this was completely a new area, but a couple of things for certain, I adore the melting pot of culture with a cyberpunk aesthetic. Also, the ways people are mixing and speaking different languages together inspire me to incorporate the same type of vocality in real-life.
Before I forget, how can I not end this off by not mentioning the best character in this entire game, s**tbot, they will be missed but never forgotten.
Not everyone is going enjoy this section of the game due to it leading more toward the political spectrum, mainly about campaigning, changing the economic system, choosing who you want to vote for, government and corporations control, racism, such and such. It shouldn't be a surprise to the fan of the series that Dreamfall as a whole has some political undertone. At the very least for me, it was interesting to experience to witness discussion revolving around these subject matters.
Marcuria in Arcadia (the world of magic):
Now onto the other side of the equation, Marcuria. For a city revolving around fantasy, chao and rich ancient history it never did feel as magical as I had envisioned. The reasoning for this is the lack of diverse characters, many times we see same the blue people model I sometimes wonder if the Azadi are just racist towards them rather than 'the magician' as they claimed.
Furthermore, the place we can explore in Marcuria seems less interesting compare to Europolis, as there weren't many buildings or structure that stand out in my opinion and there weren't much magic stuff happening other than some flying kites. It doesn't help as we gain less little and less access to these locations as well as progress through the game (for plot reasons) but still, it does feel rather limiting. Not to say everything in Arcadia is lacking, there are some cool places to go to outside of Marcuria, like a jungle mountain or a spooking, purple forest that resembles Hansel and Gretel but those are far few in between.
Conclusion:
In retrospect, this was generally a mixed game, you would either love, hate or think it's meh as for me I thought it was good above avenge. At first, I wasn't going to recommend this game as there are quite issues with this game that those who aren't familiar with the Dreamfall previous hiccup then they would find a huge problem with this game. For example, there are wonky puzzles, plotholes, questionable stereotypes, slow pacing, the introduction of 2 new characters that came out of nowhere and stiff animations.
However, the more I thought about it how well this game executed the final chapter of Kian, Zoë, Crow and April's storyline while tying all of the previous games together like explaining the first scene of The Longest Journey. For that reason, I feel it is worthy of a playthrough for those who had been following this franchise for a while.
I'm just happy with what the developing team managed to accomplish even if it wasn't perfect at least they manage to put the book down of one of their longest journey and share it with their fans.
Recommendation for mega fans of Dreamfall- High Recommendations
Recommendation to those who are general fans of Dreamfall- Mid Recommendations
Recommendation to those who are completely new to Dreamfall- Low-mid Recommendations
Steam User 12
Play this saga. In order.
Start with The Longest Journey, then Dreamfall: The longest Journey, ending with Dreamfall Chapters.
Ok, this review is going to be a bit different than the usual reviews I write, and there's a reason behind it: this is the end - at least for now - of a trilogy of games that I love fondly.
The Longest Journey and Dreamfall: The Longest Journey were the first games I bought on steam 10+ years ago when they were on a bundle sale, and I'm so glad I've got to experience it all. Not only that, but Dreamfall Chapters was gifted to me by a person I love dearly, so yeah, you can say that I'm in no shape to write a logical review of this game, since I feel so much joy just thinking about all of it.
It's no exaggeration when I say that these games helped shape the way I think and even feel about life, even though they're not THAT deep - compared to other adventure games. If you enjoy story heavy games with a great atmosphere, do yourself a favor and play all of them, in order.
You can also check my reviews for The Longest Journey (in Brazilian Portuguese) and Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
Steam User 3
The game is incredible, but you should either play, or at least watch the gameplay of the previous two titles of the series in order to understand the story. It has it's own fantasy world, not just fantasy elements. Great characters and amazing story.
Steam User 4
Dreamfall Chapters is an overall solid game, with many good moments and a few flaws. I hope Red Thread gets to work on The Longest Journey IP again. I'll list out some pros and cons.
--Pros--
The voice acting and music is very well done.
Beautiful world.
Character development is done well. My favorites are Zoe, Crow and Enu. Kian is much improved from the orginal Dreamfall.
Choices felt significant. While I'm not sure how many different paths you can take. The game-play around choices felt great.
Dialogue is generally down the earth and smart. Character thoughts on dialogue choices was a nice touch. This made it easier to avoid badly translated decisions that can plague these kind of games.
Unique game play. You control many different characters in this journey. One character in specific you play throughout many stages in their life. Also some great things were done to bring the sci-fi feel to the world.
--Cons--
The world can feel empty. This is partially forgiven since this is an Indie game.
Some puzzles can be convoluted. While this isn't foreign in Adventure/ Choose your Adventure type games, it's unfortunate when it happens. It can pull you out of immersion.
The conclusion in Marcuria seemed to have much higher stakes then Stark. Stark had a good set up though.
Small thing: since Dreamer is a type of traveler and Dream Machine is a device, more synonyms for "dream" would have flowed better in some dialogue.
Steam User 5
The best game I've played in a long time. I really enjoyed all three (so far, and I live in hope of more) games. The longest journey No.1 sets the scene. Dreamfall: The longest journey has better visuals and the character control is better. Dreamfall chapters' is in every way even better and they seem to have nailed the realism of how the characters move etc. Surely they can't stop now just when they've perfected the game. And the story is such that it can go on forever...Come on surely there must be more!!! I was so sad to say goodbye to the characters in the story when I had got to the end. Please please continue the saga.....Brilliant Beautiful funny and Amazing. Thank you