Dreamfall Chapters – Book One: Reborn Review

By Brendan Austin  |  Posted: November 6, 2014

Another Kickstarter success, Dreamfall Chapters developer Red Thread Games was able to raise over $1.5 million to release a sequel to the iconic adventure game series. Unlike many other games of the genre, The Longest Journey series takes place in two parallel universes; Stark, a cyberpunk futuristic Earth and Arcadia, a magical fantasy world. If you haven’t played 2006’s emotional Dreamfall, you may feel lost and you will miss all the references to the previous game in Dreamfall Chapters.

At the end of the previous game, we find our heroine Zoe’s mind trapped within a Dreamachine (a device that allows users to enter a lucid dream state). While there, she attempts to help the others trapped. Events lead to her waking up, but having no memory of her past and everything that transpired while in Storytime (the dream world). The majority of Book One focuses on Zoe, although you’ll briefly interact with Kian, another protagonist from the previous game.

You’ll find yourself roaming the city streets of Europolis, listening and talking to random characters and strangers. The colorful city is bustling with life, and feels like everyone is in a rush to get somewhere. The majority of the puzzles are simple in nature, requiring the use of a single item in your inventory. You won’t be carrying many different items at the same time, making it easier to figure out how to solve the puzzle. Following suite of Telltale’s adventure games, characters will remember how you interact, given meaning to the choices that you make. As you find objects in the environment, your cursor will automatically highlight interactive objects in view. The closer you get, the more options you’ll have. The improved control system allows for full controller support.

Similar to every other episodic game, you won’t have a definitive conclusion by the time you finish Book One and you’ll have many unanswered questions. Considering we have been waiting on the cliffhanger ending from Dreamfall for eight years, the wait for the next episode won’t be as hard to bare.

Simply Put

The first episode marks the beginning of what may be an epic adventure, but falls flat. Most of the time is spent reacquainting ourselves with the characters and narrative, which isn’t inherently a bad thing after eight long years.