➤ The end of the dream 🎮

The last chapter of an episodic series has the fundamental role of determining the overall meaning of the work. It is the moment in which all the knots are untied and the story ends, with the ending falling like rain on what was previously enjoyed.

In the case of Redux, the fifth chapter of Dreamfal Chapters, we are faced with the conclusion of an entire saga, which for mainly economic reasons will probably no longer be able to go on. The development of the game has been troubled and, after a successful Kickstarter campaign, which ended with more than a million and a half dollars raised, and the funding from the Norwegian Film Institute, it has not managed to carve out enough fans to be able to stand on. own legs. In short, Dreamfall Chapters has struggled a lot on the market, to the point that there have been several slowdowns in the releases. Probably the episodes were carried out more for a form of respect for users than for a concrete prospect of economic return. Even the entire series was given as a gift during the recent GOG sales (CD Projekt Red's digital store), to those who spent a certain amount of money. This is not really a positive sign. Too bad, because given the background, the work of Ragnar Tørnquist would have deserved greater consideration by gamers. However, seventeen years after the launch of The Longest Journey, the time has come to take stock.

Dreamfall Chapters closes the series and the saga with Redux: we have reviewed it

The Longest Journey series

Here's how The Longest Journey series is composed:

The longest journey --1999
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey --2006
Dreamall: Chapters - from 2014 to 2016, divided into:
- Reborn (October 21, 2014)
- Rebels (March 12, 2015)
- Realms (June 25, 2015)
- Revelations (December 3, 2015)
- Redux (June 17, 2016)
The Longest Journey Home (canceled - was to be funded with Chapters' Kickstarter campaign, but the secondary goal that included it was not met)

traditions

Redux concludes the stories of the characters known in the previous chapters. The player will take turns controlling Zoë Castillo, Kian and Saga, in known locations and in other previously unseen locations. The whole episode is much more driven than the previous ones in the sense that there are a lot more sequences filmed. Puzzles and interactions, for their part, are reduced to the bone and, in general, are easy to solve.

Not that the previous four chapters offered who knows what challenge, but in this case it is evident that the need was felt to make the story central to the detriment of the rest. Without going into the details of what is narrated, we can assure you that, if you love the characters of the game, some situations will not leave you indifferent. Indeed, if you are particularly involved in their stories you could even come to tears. Unfortunately Redux carries with it some of the defects of the entire series, which over time have not been resolved. Eg the beginning immediately offers an example of the infamous system of blind interactions, with actions that are unlocked only under certain conditions. Anyone who knows Dreamfall Chapters knows what we mean: in some cases you interact with a hotspot without getting anything, only to discover that to unlock the right interaction you had to do something else first (solve a puzzle, talk to a character and so on), without however, that the game has given us no hints on this. The result is that when you are in similar situations you end up interacting repeatedly with all the hotspots to try to keep the adventure going. The first area of Redux does exactly that. Obviously, when you reach the fifth chapter, there is no risk of leaving the game due to a similar problem, but the suspicion remains strong that certain mechanics have been implemented more to lengthen the soup than to intrigue the player.

Stories that intersect

Once the initial impasse is overcome, the expected revelations arrive. Now, if you have played Dreamfall: The Longest Journey and enjoyed it, you will be comfortable with what is being told. At a first approach the whole thing may appear quite convoluted, but ultimately it makes sense.

After all, Tørnquist has always loved the logical and lexical intricacies allowed by oneirism. The only character who turned out to be weak and not very thorough is Saga. Not that there are strong narrative moments that see her as the protagonist, including a mother scene of a certain impact. But among the three main characters he is certainly the one who appears most disconnected from the context; that is, whose history seems to have been forced into the general one. Many expected something more for her than what was finally dedicated to her and the implications of her events are indeed unexpected, but in the worst sense of the term. Not that he is not a decisive character, mind you, only that his point of arrival is too arbitrary compared to what was told. Probably in the writers' plans, his was to be an exquisitely metanarrative role. In part it is, but it is precisely by discovering it that what happened before is devalued. After all, the stories of the other characters amply compensate for Saga's weakness, with Zoë completely conquering the scene in some highly dramatic moments.

PC System Requirements

Test Setup

Intel Core i7-4770 processor
16 GB of RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 video card
Windows 10 operating system

Minimum requirements

Core 2 Duo 2GHz processor or equivalent
3 GB RAM
Scheda video Intel HD Graphics 4000
DirectX 9.0 c
Windows 7 operating system

Choices

In the approximately five hours that make up the episode, and that make Dreamfall Chapters last about twenty-four hours as a whole, all the situations experienced in the past are found. There is a stealth phase linked to Zoë similar to those faced by Kian in the first four chapters, there are very dark exploration sections that represent the most graphic adventure moments of the entire game, there are assorted puzzles, as already mentioned, not very difficult, and there is a lot of story.

Unfortunately, something is also missing of what might have been expected. For example, it turns out with some discomfort that the choices made previously do not have a great impact on the conclusion of the adventure. We understand that putting moral choices into adventure games is all the rage, because they seem to enhance the player's role by giving him a false sense of freedom, but we must also make sure to give it the right importance, otherwise they end up being a useless tinsel. Another problem related to the choices, in this case incidental, arises from the wait suffered by the players between one episode and another. If you've been playing the Dreamfall Chapters episodes at launch, some details of the final chapter may escape you, unless you have a very good memory. In fact, years have passed since the release of the first episodes, not months. This is a known problem with episodic video games: the more time passes between chapters, the further away you get from the characters. Our advice is therefore to replay them all together, if you like, so as not to miss anything along the way, especially the events of some secondary characters. You will enjoy the game a lot more. From a technical point of view there is little to say that has not already been said in the reviews of the previous chapters: Dreamfall Chapters compensates for some technical problems, probably due to the production level, with a fascinating style. Some places, although poor in detail, are excellent in their architectural and conceptual construction. Excellent work done on the soundtrack, which remains at a high level, as it was in the other four chapters. In short, those looking for an aesthetic experience in a video game, as well as entertainment, will be satisfied.

Comment

Digital Delivery Steam, GoG Price 29,99 € Resources4Gaming.com

7.5

Readers (1)

7.0

Your vote

Redux is the worthy finale of a series that, through thick and thin, has managed to keep the narrative level high throughout its duration. Obviously if you have played the previous chapters, you cannot miss this one, while if you are among the doubts about the whole project, knowing that the ending gives credit to the whole work could convince you to buy it. Too bad only for some structural defects, especially in the most played parts, which limit a little the overall impact. Still it was a nice trip. One of those who, mouse in hand, we do not regret having made.