Dual Worlds In Peril, And The Would-Be Hero's Lost

I've mentioned Dreamfall: The Longest Journey twice this week, so why not some more?

The story revolves around Zoe. She's been feeling detached from the world, dropping out of college, breaking up with her boyfriend, Reza, and generally sitting around the house bored out of her mind. Two problems present themselves to roust her from the monotony. First, Reza, who's an underground journalist of some note, goes missing, and there's a dead woman in his apartment. Secondly, Zoe is being followed by some small, creepy child, who appears on TV screens and such. The child is standing in a vast ice field, a crumbling house in the background, and she's always imploring Zoe to find and save April Ryan*. This leads into a major corporate scheme which may be unwittingly endangering two worlds, and the requisite people who are willing to do anything to make sure it carries through. The other world, Arcadia, is having trouble with a powerful empire which tends to protect people in exchange for the protected people adopting the empire's ways and beliefs.

To the point I've reached, Zoe hasn't had much luck finding Reza. She's met several of his contacts, but no sign of him. She did find April fairly quickly, the only problem is, April doesn't want to help Zoe, and doesn't think she needs saving. Unfortunately, Creepy Little Girl won't accept "She says she's fine!" as the end of the quest. Zoe's a likable person, loyal to her friends, and possessed of a fair amount of determination. April has her own inner steel, but she's also worn down from years of feeling like the world's on her shoulders. It's not surprising, if beings of great power kept telling you that you had to do stuff, because the universe is at stake, you might get a little tired of that, but once it stopped, you might also feel confused at how to proceed. At least she has a straight-talking crow as a loyal companion.

So the characters and the story have captured my attention. Much of the gameplay is Zoe or April being confronted with a problem. Then they have to run around until they find the right person to talk to, or find the right item they need. This can be fun, when it's clever, but it can also venture into irritating when the game doesn't provide much in the way of guidance. Example: April needs to break Zoe out of prison. Zoe has gotten part of the way herself, and knows a guard wants the warden to order out for lunch for him. Crow relays this information to April. The correct answer was to go to the inn April stays at and ask the owner to make a sandwich, then receive a knockout drug from a formerly evil wizard who owes April a favor**. For a time, though, I tried lying to the warden about it being the delivery, but not having a sandwich, or worrying that perhaps I'm meant to ambush the actual sandwich delivery guy. There seem to be many options, but there's really only one. On the upside, the game doesn't put a timer on these things.

I hate time trials. Almost as much as escort missions.

The conversations flow well between characters, and you'll often be given options on how to proceed. Sometimes this relates to what topic you wish to pursue, other times, the attitude you adopt. I don't think it ends up making much difference how you handle it, but I'm still on my first play. If I play it through again (assuming I beat it) I may try approaching things differently, and see if it makes a difference. The conversation always goes on long enough for me to gather what information I require.

There's some puzzle solving, mostly matching symbols to unlock doors. You're able to pick up some items in the world, and at least investigate many more, but you can only pick up what might be necessary later on. Which is fine, I'd be annoyed if I kept picking up useless crap. Eventually, I wouldn't know what to grab, and I'd leave some critical item behind. Some of the puzzle solving involves combining items, which can be amusing or frustrating, as you sometimes have to stand in just the right place to be able to combine things, and finding that correct spot can be tricky.

There's also hand-to-hand combat, but it's a weak spot in the game. It's not complicated, you just have to pick your spots to attack, and know when to go for big attacks or settle for the weaker ones, but it feels very stiff. It makes a bit of sense for April, who is sort of a Robin Hood, but with Zoe, they might have been better served to encourage more stealthy handling of the problems. The stealth parts I discussed yesterday, and they at least seem to have an internal logic to them as to whether you're spotted or not. It's just a matter of figuring that logic out. The game is very helpful in letting you know if you can hide in a particular location, and if you do, you ought to be safe. Can't ask for much more.

The controls aren't great. They don't seem well-suited for the combat parts, at least they don't let it feel fluid. Also, there's an option where you can click one of the joysticks, and your character becomes stationary, but you can look around, and perhaps interact with something you couldn't otherwise. It's a nice touch, but in that case the controls are too sensitive, or perhaps still not sensitive enough. I turn the stick, and the character doesn't move, so I turn it more, then they spin 180 degrees. Well that's too much, so now I'm trying to finagle the character to point the direction I want them too, and they're all over the place. They look like someone in a desperate hurry, who can't decide which direction to go. Fortunately, the issues don't come up enough to wreck the fun of the game.

There's one aspect of the game I can't decide is insidious or ingenious. There tend to be long cut scenes, which usually contain valuable information, or sum up the information in an attempt to keep the player in the loop. The cut scene ends, and I find myself thinking I could save and call it a day, but there might be an important reveal in this next part, so I keep playing. The gameplay only continues for a few minutes, then another cut scene starts. This can just keep happening for some time, bits of gameplay interspersed with equally long periods of cut scenes. Once I've sat through a cut scene, I feel as though I ought to keep playing, since it probably won't be very far to the next cut scene, and so i find ti hard to stop playing.

* April was the star of an earlier game, The Longest Journey.

* Trapping him in a calculator gave him invaluable time for reflection.