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Originally Posted by Heleo
I just finished playing Dreamfall too (a few hours ago in fact) and I was also struck by the total lack of gameplay. It was as if they missed the game part out and I really wish they hadn't because I'd have liked to see something that was both a good game and had a good story.
Actually I think what got me most was that it did have the feel of a movie about it. Nothing I said or did seemed to have much of an impact. I was there, watching the inevitable happen and like an actor with his lines I couldn't stray from the script.
Like near the end of the game, I had a choice to make and I chose one thing. My choice was ignored though and the character decided he couldn't do what I'd chosen as the option and I found that really frustrating.
Spoiler:If you're curious I chose to have Kian kill April. It seemed logical to me so I was annoyed when he then said that he couldn't. Why give me the choice and then snatch it away from me? How difficult would it have been to have played that scene out differently? The end results are the same, the method of getting there different.
There was little interactivity. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved the story and it swept me away but I found myself stopping many a time and wondering where the game had gone. It did seem very much like a game that wanted to be a movie.
The graphics weren't good enough to be a movie, it was also far, far too long. I go to the movies and I expect one thing. I play a game and I expect another. I do not expect to pay game prices (the shop's are still selling Dreamfall for £30 here) for what's essentially a movie (those tend to be £15 max). Okay, yeah Dreamfall was far longer than your average movie but still...
Actually, yeah, I'd have liked the option that once you've played the game through once you could then just let it run and it'd play the game again for you but without the sneaking and the fights and the dull bits. But what I'd have liked more is if they'd just made some better puzzles.
When I had to get the potions why couldn't I make them myself as I did in TLJ? I'd have enjoyed that rather than just running to a character, picking them up and running somewhere else. I suppose there was a vague puzzle in working out who to talk to but it wasn't that difficult. It did admittedly remove some of the frustration I have with adventure games and I didn't have to sit down and use a walkthrough constantly for it (apart for for those stupid action sequences) but I'd have liked more 'game' in the game. |
Well I choosed to have Kian stall for more time instead, but that's interesting, I'm replaying it now to try different options but it feels so weird, I cant believe I've allready finished the game and it took me less then a week, probably could have done it in a day if I had, had enough time, it's just all the dialogue that takes up so much time, they could have defintely cut down a bit on that. You are right though it felt more like a movie or a tv-series then a game.
I hated the sneaking around part, especially in those caves where you had to avoid the small monsters so the big one didnt come and kill you, for that one I used to walkthrough, I used to fight instead of sneak whenever possible, the fighting I found quite easy, especially when you were Kian or April, a bit to easy but I'm a bit divided here, had it been more difficult it would have been frustrating probably, like those small hacking mini games could get towards the end. So maybe it was all for the best anyway.
I agree with you when it comes to the puzzles and at the same time I don't, because I liked the game so much, I found myself many times wishing that I could do something, especially in the end when there was just videos all the time, I wanted to play too, the last half is hardly any game play at all and that was frustrating, on the other hand with a lot of games I find that I get stuck at some point and it can take days, sometimes weeks before I can move on from that point, somtimes I simply stop playing for a while and then you kind of get lost from the story that had you hooked(which happened in TLJ and then I had no idea who this new guardian guy was cause I had made a 3 months break). So this way you could focus a 100 percent on the story and not worry about anything else, which in a way I was happy about cause I couldnt wait to find out what would happen next cause I loved the story so much. So I don't know, I guess I want two versions like in Monkey Island 3, one without difficult puzzles and one with. That would have been great :-).
