This is a multi-part series
retrospective on Ragnar Tørnquist's Longest Journey Series, made up
of The Longest Journey, Dreamfall and Dreamfall Chapters. Part One is here.
The Longest Journey itself
was tight and self-contained enough that a sequel wasn't immediately
expected. Even so, it's not hard to imagine what an immediate follow
up to the game might have looked like. The continuing adventures of
April Ryan, exploring more of Arcadia and Stark and foiling the
further machinations of the Vanguard. There have been worse proposed
point-and-click sequels.
But TLJ didn't get an
immediate sequel, instead it's follow up Dreamfall arrived seven
years later, and was a departure in both game-play and storytelling.
The action in Dreamfall is more immediate, more dynamic, and the
writing is both deeper and further reaching. Where TLJ was a mostly
well written quest made of familiar fairy tale tropes, Dreamfall
seeks to explore bigger ideas.
Once again, it's the
writing that's the strength. There's not a lot to really say about
the game-play. Dreamfall leaves behind it's predecessor's classic
point-and-click presentation to give us a more action-oriented
third-person focus. Though there are Tomb Raider inspired climbing
sections and the occasional stealth sequence, the game is mostly
business as usual in talking to characters and using inventory items
to solve puzzles, albeit in a very paired down, more focused way.
Beyond that the most
maligned part of Dreamfall was it's combat sequences. These are
finicky and just plain bad, but the worst part about them is how
unnecessary they are. There are only a handful over the course of the
game, and most could have easily unfolded as cut-scenes instead. It's
likely that the move to a console market demanded action, action,
action, but it's a real shame that this does nothing but blot an
otherwise wonderful game.
Indeed, it's not just the
combat that is affected by the move to a console release. While the
game's graphics hold up quite well, and still look crisp and
atmospheric today, the game is cut into tiny pieces and riddled with
loading screens due to the limitations of the console generation at
the time. This is a problem that also plagued Thief: Deadly Shadows,
and both game words feel tight and claustrophobic in the wrong sort
of way.
Still, that's not to say
Dreamfall doesn't do interesting things with it's new graphical
engine. In fact, Dreamfall plays with cinematic convention in a way
only video games can. There are two specific occasions where this
really shines. First is when the player returns to Newport, no longer
rendered as a painterly background but instead as a full 3D map,
except due to the engine limitations Newport actually looks worse
than in TLJ. It's smaller, tighter and less flashy than when we last
visited it, but this actually works in the game's favor since it
mirrors Newport's own fall from grace.
As we return to April
Ryan's old place of work it's a grim and gray affair, just as how the
once bustling Venice is also on it's last legs. Dreamfall uses what
it has with it's limited 3D maps to evoke a specific reaction from
the player.
It does a similar thing
when the player first returns to Marcuria. As we leave the Journeyman
Inn, the camera focuses on the the Inn's sign, before pulling back to
the same angle that it was framed at during TLJ. While the character
is amazed at the new world they have entered, the player mimics their
amazement at seeing a familiar place now rendered in more detail.
And indeed, the entire
experience of Dreamfall is all about playing with the familiar and
the unfamiliar. The game starts with a flashback to to Brian
Westhouse, a minor character from the first game, traveling from
Tibet through a hole in reality, but before we get a handle on things
we are pulled away from Brian's story, and what unfolds in the
prologue wouldn't become relevant until the next entry in the series,
Dreamfall Chapters.
We are instead introduced
to Zoë Castillo, who
appears to be somewhat of a replacement for April. She's also a
disillusioned student who's struggling to find her place in the
world, and just like TLJ, the game starts us with her morning routine
to give us a baseline normal before her world is turned on it's head.
Like April, Zoë starts to
uncover a strange corporate conspiracy that is somehow connected to
the magical world of Arcadia. The player is lulled into thinking that
this is mostly a remake of TLJ and Zoë is going to be revealed to be
another shifter with a role to play in an ancient prophecy.
Instead
the game pulls the rug from under us, revealing that Zoë is actually
a dreamer, and has a much different role to play. Zoë gets caught up
in an international conspiracy that involves the use of dream
machines intended for mass surveillance. In a weirdly pertinent
twist, Zoë teams up with a corporate whisleblower who wants to leak
these surveillance plans to the press. Despite coming out in 2006 the
game has strong parallels to the NSA and Wikileaks scandals of the
New 10's.
It's
not just the Stark portion of the game that gets political either.
The Acadia plot seems separate from Zoë's main arc, and instead
follows two further characters, April, now a revolutionary leader,
and Kian, an assassin sanctioned to kill her.
After
the events of TLJ, the Vanguard's forces occupying Marcuria are
deposed by a technologically and socially superior nation that
decides to leave a military presence to impose it's own values of
society and religion on the reluctant Marcuirans. This in turn leads
to a rebellion that isn't above the use of terror tactics.
In
case you haven't noticed, this mirrors the unfolding of post-invasion
Iraq, with Kian and the Azadi standing in for the Western coalition
and April and the resistance standing in for the insurgents. I'm
astounded that Funcom and Tørnquist had the balls to frame the west
as the bad guys and the insurgents the sympathetic characters, but it
does seem that the subtext was lost on most people.
While
the game does frame the Azadi occupation as immoral, through Kian's
eyes we see that it was done with the best of intentions, and most
Azadi leadership just wonder why the Marcurians can't get with the
program and civilize themselves. The Acradian plot would be explored
in more depth as Dreamfall Chapters rolled around, but it's seeds are
planted in the most wonderful ways here.
The
game ends with Zoë's plot mostly wrapped up with the discovery that
a sister, Faith, unknown to her, was a critical part of the dream
machine's development, and her vengeful soul haunts the data-sphere,
threatening to end everything. Zoë sacrifices herself to lay Faith's
soul to rest, and ends up trapped in a coma. On the Marcuria side,
Kian, doubting his loyalties, unintentionally triggers a sting
operation against April, which results in her death and his
imprisonment. All things considered, the story ends on a grim note,
and a final cliffhanger hinting more to come.
Unlike
The Longest Journey, Dreamfall is undoubtedly part one of a
multi-part story, with clear intentions of a continuation further
down the line. This makes it difficult to judge on it's own merits,
and had Dreamfall never seen a sequel it would be safe to judge the
game poorly on it's decision to stretch out the plot over multiple
games. That being said, Tørnquist and his team have to be commended
for their decision to expand the story and take it to strange new
places like The Dreaming.
Indeed,
Dreamfall is a wonderful example of playing with audience
expectations, forcing players to second guess where they think the
story is going. Zoë is not April 2.0, but the step-by-step
realization of this is part of what makes the plot so joyful. The
Azadi are not the expected evil occupiers we originally assume them
to be, and setting right what once went wrong is not shown to be as
easy as fighting an end boss or defeating a horde of enemies like
most games suggest it would be.
Though
Dreamfall's story ends with many threads still hanging, it's an
ambitious and lofty project, with aspirations that go far beyond the
standard affair of action-adventure games. It wants to explore big
ideas, both political and metaphysical, and it wants to build on the
foundations of the adventure genre while both taking it in new
directions that the advancing technology and graphics would allow.
For
a sequel to a fine 1999 point-and-click adventure game, it far exceed
what anyone would expect, and as we'll find out next time, it's
follow up would be great launching point to take the genre even
further.
Jack Harvey 2017. Dreamfall is (c) Funcom
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