The game explores xenophobia and segregation here, frequently punctuated by Kian’s own ignorance serving as a window into a struggling bigot’s mind. The leader of the second faction bears an unpleasant resemblance to England’s least treasured joke, Nigel Farage. The divide between the humans and the ‘Magicals’ (read: anyone that looks different) is exacerbated by religious zealots and a group that buy into a ‘Blood and Soil’ idealogy. The portions where I controlled Kian in the fantasy town of Marcuria were also political. Anyone seeing the current state of politics with any kind of left-leaning bent will shudder at where the first few Books in Dreamfall go. The game uses this as a jumping off point for a critique on corporate interests infringing on government design, and the importance of free press. Zoe works for a Neo-Liberal candidate, who is viewed as a better choice than the far-left and far-right in opposition. Not only is it believable as a vision of what is to come for Earth’s future, it also includes a darkly prescient view of current cultural climes. As the City is a fusion of cultures, the local dialect is punctuated with Polish words like ‘Dobra’ and German words like ‘Bruder.’ This serves to present a coherent vision of a futuristic Pan-European people, where borders have become blurred. People set up stalls, imposing cyborg cops patrol, and ‘bots try to sell her timeshares. It’s impeccable in terms of lending both Arcadia and Stark humanity and authenticity.Īs Zoe walks through the City of Europolis, people will chat about local events, the price of food or make offhand jokes. With combat gone, the development team have wisely spent time on filling each of the two worlds with hours of incidental dialogue in the form of direct and indirect conversations the player will witness, and also plenty of details for each of the characters to comment on when clicked. There was never a moment more taxing than doing a brief object hunt for an item, or tut-tutting over what decision I should make with Zoe’s boyfriend, who is kind of an idiot. This time, the environments are large and rendered in 3D with a smattering of simple point-and-click puzzles and a glut of conversations to have that will dictate the fate of characters in later parts of the story. Chapters also does its best to let newcomers know about some of the nuances of the two worlds in the opening Books without it feeling like an infodump.Īny series fans coming to Chapters and looking forward to the combat from Dreamfall are either insane or unclear on what the real draw is - combat is not why anyone likes these titles. There is a good recap included for people new to the series and I recommend it, as it fills out what happened to the three leads in a fairly speedy nature. Dreamfall: Chapters carries on this story one year after from the events of Dreamfall. In the sequel She was joined by Zoe Castillo, a young student investigating a corporate conspiracy in Stark, and Kian Alvane, a puritan Apostle from Arcadia tasked with assassinating Ryan. April Ryan was the protagonist of TLJ, in which she had to rescue the worlds from certain doom by shifting between them. The second, Stark, is a science-led dystopia. The first, Arcadia, is a land governed by magic. The first games in this series concerned two parallel worlds in trouble. This new game, originally released in five episodes (each called ‘Books’) has now been released as a full collection and continues the strong tradition of Tornquist’s output with some unexpected twists in style. With writing primarily helmed by Ragnar Tornquist, those titles were mature, intelligent and thought-provoking. WTF Yes, I am reading every one of these Diary entries.Ģ000’s The Longest Journey and 2006’s Dreamfall were standouts in the post-Lucasarts, post-Sierra Adventure era. LOW Checking the concept art before finishing the game. HIGH Anytime Kian talks about his love of Yams.
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