Dreamfall Chapters Book Two: Rebels

Rebels represents an absolute high water mark for video game writing and episodic gaming in particular. It expands in every possible way upon Reborn, maintaining unparalleled storytelling, presentation and voice-acting, whilst introducing very well crafted puzzles, an epic sense of scale and technical improvements across the board. If Chapters continues in this vein, it is destined for greatness.

What makes Dreamfall Chapters an adventure better than most is its huge world. A world we can explore beyond the physical boundaries of the game thanks to its deep and vigorous storytelling.

Red Thread Games has given us two spectacular worlds to explore, and while actually getting around those worlds can be a bit of a hassle, they’re still well worth visiting.

Book Two succeeds in reminding us that our destination may be predetermined, but our path is not. It's how we choose to travel, and who we keep by our side, that makes the journey worthwhile.

The main plot starts moving into gear, and with it come puzzles, decisions, and a bit too much time-wasting... but not enough to detract much from the wonderful core experience.

By ignoring so much of the first chapter’s successful formula, Dreamfall Chapters: Book 2 digs into some of the larger issues that may come to shape the overall game. But the price it pays feels too steep.

First episode of Chapters turned out to be a huge prologue, aiming to introduce new players to setting and characters, while story stood almost still. There was a hope that Book Two will change pace, and it partially came to be: there are some surprising developments, but Dreamfall still fails to truly engage players. [June 2015, p.78]

Dreamfall Chapters is a new episodic instalment on the TLJ series, and a direct sequel to Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. The game is wonderfully written - great story, great characters, excellent dialogue and voice acting - and beautifully designed. Book 2 is a huge episode, and is superior in all aspects to the previous book (which was already very good). With two books out, Dreamfall Chapters is already earning its place as one of the most interesting games of 2015. Highly recommended.

Плюсы: - продолжительность. На Rebels придется потратить все 4, а то и 5 часов, что выгодно отличает Dreamfall Chapters от других «эпизодических» игр. С другой стороны, такая продолжительность достигается за счет того, что мы наматываем бешеный километраж в рамках одних и тех же локаций, чего не позволяет себе та же Life is Strange. - невероятно красивые локации с парящими в небе каменными глыбами, чем-то отдаленно напоминающие кэмероновский «Аватар». Минусы: - в Норвегии о таком слове, как «оптимизация», видимо, даже и не слышали. И если первый кусок игры держался еще хоть на каком-то приемлемом уровне, то второй эпизод умудряется проседать на неплохой системе до 7-9 кадров на открытых локациях! При таком раскладе геймплей, графика и все остальные составляющие отходят на второй план. Ни о какой комфортной игре и речи быть не может, когда на экране творится натуральное слайд-шоу. Что самое смешное, даже если выставить все настройки на минимум, то ничего не поменяется. - никуда не испарились проблемы с «рассинхроном» речи, некоторыми анимациями, редкими провалами в текстуры и прочими неаккуратностями. - система поступков, которые влияют на дальнейшее прохождение, вроде как и работает, но за весь второй эпизод я наткнулся лишь на одну отсылку к своим предыдущим действиям. Сбегая из тюрьмы, один из умирающих заключенных попросил рассказать его жене, что же с ним случилось. И я нашел ее. И даже рассказал. Но в ответ получил лишь: «Угу, понятненько. А теперь вали отсюда». Мдя... Итог: второй эпизод Dreamfall Chapters получился неплохим, а местами он так и вовсе интригует и будоражит. Но в противовес всему этому встает хреновищная оптимизация, способная вызвать нервный тик. Порой игра начинает напоминать бенчмарк, который сошел с ума и решил взорвать твой компьютер.

Sadly, the developer is encouraging fans to post preferably positive reviews in order to boost up sales. I loved the prequels as much as I'm dissapointed with what this game has become. For the game itself, the development process, *the developer's attitude*, the change of publishing format from what was originally stated in the kickstarter, and I can go on, and on, and on.

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 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 **** who figures out being a **** is bad in this game. Sure, this is "fantasy", so they changed the name a little - "****" became "Azadi". But it's still the same thing. You're a ****, and your task is to realize that **** are bad and you must make amends. That's the story. If you already figured out for yourself being a **** 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.

I'll just copypaste what was valid for chapter 1: "I'll start saying that The Longest Journey is one of my favourite adventure games ever. Beautful game. I also enjoyed quite a lot the first Dreamfall. So, why this low score? Easy said: shoulder camera. It's sort of a new trend in gaming that I can't tolerate. It makes me feel unbalanced and ill, I have problems moving around and going straight with it. Even zooming out, the camera stays (although less) on the side of the character... and it often gets back to a more zoomed in position, adding the annoyance of zooming it out again quite often. The first Dreamfall had a perfectly fine and functional centered camera. I wish developers would have just sticked with that (or at least gave us the option to choose). It would have worked way better. "