Dreamfall Chapters
Endings are hard.
I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again. It's difficult to tie up loose ends and wrap up a story in a way that is both earned and satisfying. That makes good endings rare.
As I understand, Dreamfall Chapters was originally meant to be an ending to the Dreamfall storyline(s), but there was a further endings conceived to The Longest Journey (of which, Dreamfall was sort of a tangential, but connected, story). Where things fell after the crowd-funding project, though, I believe Chapters was meant to be the finale for both. That sort of shows in how parts 4 and 5 of the game feel more rushed story-wise than the first three.
As it was released in pieces, the early parts flow at a more leisurely and detailed pace. Toward the end, things pick up. The story is more densely packed with all the events that need to transpire, but also there's more skipping over bits between scenes. Early on, the player walks Zoe through taking lunch to her boyfriend. In a later chapter, the game skips from Zoe acquiring a mount to reaching her destination while bantering with Crow about things that happened along the way, off-screen. Two upcoming wars are mentioned, but not really addressed beyond that. In the closing scenes, Kian is referred to as The Bloodless King with no explanation to the meaning. So much gets skipped over that it's hard for these things to have impact.
Then there's Saga, a character that has a good bit of potential as we meet her throughout the game in different phases of her life. By the time she's an adult, though, and taking on a role in the plot, she's become really nothing more than a deus ex machina. She arrives in time to save a life and facilitate the climax of the game(s) because, as she says (in very similar words), "That's how the story goes, it's already written, I'm just playing my part." She tells Kian outright that he's going to adopt her and they have to go fight a war, then another, bigger one ten years down the line. She knows all this, it's nothing to her, and the implications of that are totally ignored. There's some indication she might be April Ryan reborn, yet she thinks of April as someone else and, in fact, meets her in the epilogue in a way that twists time to tie back to a scene in the first game.
The fate of the connected worlds of Arcadia and Stark are unclear, other than they are "reunified" at some point... which is sort of what the heroes of Chapters prevented. The game pulls a couple fake-outs about who the central villain of the story is, and we're left with one who's reason for his actions is... clear as mud. Westhouse wants to get rid of magic, apparently, but why? Heck if I know.
It feels like many other stories I've seen in games and other media that try to get deep and meaningful, but instead come across as just convoluted and inscrutable.
I also have to say the gameplay is mediocre. There's a lot of running (slowly) around. There are a few puzzles that are baffling. Mostly, the game is just a serviceable vehicle for the story. There are a number of choices in the game. None of them seem to alter the course of things in a major way, though some may decide who dies in certain scenes and what happens in some character relationships - it's a reasonably good attempt at injecting consequence in what's primarily a linear tale.
The best part is, as a player of the previous games, it's a chance to get back with the characters. Crow still steals the show once he shows up, but Zoe, Kian, and those around them nice to be with again.
I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again. It's difficult to tie up loose ends and wrap up a story in a way that is both earned and satisfying. That makes good endings rare.
As I understand, Dreamfall Chapters was originally meant to be an ending to the Dreamfall storyline(s), but there was a further endings conceived to The Longest Journey (of which, Dreamfall was sort of a tangential, but connected, story). Where things fell after the crowd-funding project, though, I believe Chapters was meant to be the finale for both. That sort of shows in how parts 4 and 5 of the game feel more rushed story-wise than the first three.
As it was released in pieces, the early parts flow at a more leisurely and detailed pace. Toward the end, things pick up. The story is more densely packed with all the events that need to transpire, but also there's more skipping over bits between scenes. Early on, the player walks Zoe through taking lunch to her boyfriend. In a later chapter, the game skips from Zoe acquiring a mount to reaching her destination while bantering with Crow about things that happened along the way, off-screen. Two upcoming wars are mentioned, but not really addressed beyond that. In the closing scenes, Kian is referred to as The Bloodless King with no explanation to the meaning. So much gets skipped over that it's hard for these things to have impact.
Then there's Saga, a character that has a good bit of potential as we meet her throughout the game in different phases of her life. By the time she's an adult, though, and taking on a role in the plot, she's become really nothing more than a deus ex machina. She arrives in time to save a life and facilitate the climax of the game(s) because, as she says (in very similar words), "That's how the story goes, it's already written, I'm just playing my part." She tells Kian outright that he's going to adopt her and they have to go fight a war, then another, bigger one ten years down the line. She knows all this, it's nothing to her, and the implications of that are totally ignored. There's some indication she might be April Ryan reborn, yet she thinks of April as someone else and, in fact, meets her in the epilogue in a way that twists time to tie back to a scene in the first game.
The fate of the connected worlds of Arcadia and Stark are unclear, other than they are "reunified" at some point... which is sort of what the heroes of Chapters prevented. The game pulls a couple fake-outs about who the central villain of the story is, and we're left with one who's reason for his actions is... clear as mud. Westhouse wants to get rid of magic, apparently, but why? Heck if I know.
It feels like many other stories I've seen in games and other media that try to get deep and meaningful, but instead come across as just convoluted and inscrutable.
I also have to say the gameplay is mediocre. There's a lot of running (slowly) around. There are a few puzzles that are baffling. Mostly, the game is just a serviceable vehicle for the story. There are a number of choices in the game. None of them seem to alter the course of things in a major way, though some may decide who dies in certain scenes and what happens in some character relationships - it's a reasonably good attempt at injecting consequence in what's primarily a linear tale.
The best part is, as a player of the previous games, it's a chance to get back with the characters. Crow still steals the show once he shows up, but Zoe, Kian, and those around them nice to be with again.
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