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 Posted: Sat, 22nd Jul 2017 16:59 Post subject: |
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Dreamfall.Chapters.The.Final.Cut.Update.v5.7.2.1-CODEX
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ixigia
[Moderator] Consigliere
Posts: 65134
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Sun, 10th Sep 2017 03:52 Post subject: |
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After years spent in a comatose state (whilst wearing the Dreammachine and waiting for Red Thread to fix the game) I finally downloaded the final cut and finished the journey. It was really the longest one, but despite the efforts and the good intentions poured into the project in order to tie all loose ends, alas, I'd be a lying Watipetal if I said that it was the unforgettable and grand conclusion that the saga deserved.
The protagonists Zoe and Kian are likable, there are many recurring characters (some pleasant surprises, too  ) as well as a good amount of familiar locations and references. The voice acting is great all around, with charm, hilarity and pathos, the multiple storylines are handled quite nicely and the main plot itself actually works well for what it is.
There's a pretty damn big problem though, and it involves the dialogues: one moment you're enjoying a beautiful scene or an engaging explorative ride, the next you're sitting there listening to lines and situations that one would expect from a Bioware production, suffering from severe cases of inconsistent writing like some sort of hodgepodge mashed together with stale potatoes 
Clumsy romancing attempts, sassy teenagers, cardboard villains, Saga ex machina, secret "revelations" that feel more tacked on than natural and a constant fetish for social issues. Many of these themes have being part of Tornquist's world before, but they were more nuanced and immersed in a coherent personal well-written story without being so highlighted. It almost looks like someone was fighting a parallel battle here 
On the bright side, I didn't encounter performance problems with the scary Unity (at last!), though while the game could offer some great looking vistas, decent models and dat glorious ass, we've got the usual trademark package of stiff animations (including the facial ones, very tired here) and the usual mid-2000s special effects that never really help with the cinematic structure. The game is the classic modern interactive cutscene simulator, but thankfully there's also basic exploration involved and occasional extra-light puzzles as well (similarly to Dreamfall - minus the lousy action).
Chapters 1-3 were the best ones when it came to giving some freedom and the ones that I liked the most, whereas 4 and 5 went for the more movie-like approach, progressively showing more flaws and introducing a bit too many cringey clichès for my tastes. I said freedom but "freedom" would be more correct, and while the game has TEH BALANCE HAS SHIFTED! choice and consequence system and applies it, in the end it doesn't really deviate too much from the illusive Telltale-sque type which is a shame. I'd rate this Chapters ~6,5/10, if only because a conclusion was given* but the entire experience was so far away from The Longest Journey for me that it's hard to believe it was made by the same people, those golden days are really gone, dammit.
*
 Spoiler: | Not a completely satisfying one either to be honest. I especially didn't like how Saga was handled, she just showed up out of the blue solving all problems, all the dialogues and interactions with her involved and the other characters felt ridiculously bad. "I'll explain, it's already written!"..and yet she never did. A lousy attempt of Lindelofianism  
Enu's character was wasted as well in its complete linearity in my opinion, same for Likho, not to mention the stereotyped pseudo villains (the nazi redhead was objectively not the game's best moment xD). |
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JBeckman
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Posts: 35187
Location: Sweden
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