Dreamfall Chapters does not in any way benefit from episodic distribution. It tries hard to be its own game with its own plot structure rather than the missing second part of Dreamfall expected by everyone who played that game (and was invested in the story), and for that purpose it has to build up its own speed almost from scratch. The problem is that the first installment ends up feeling slow, uneventful, and inconsequential, even more than the first parts of TLJ and Dreamfall. The first part of TLJ (before the meeting with Manny Chavez and the trip to Arcadia) was exciting because it gave a whole new sci fi world to discover, Dreamfall gave a chance to see how that world changed in the twenty years following a technological collapse. In Dreamfall Chapters not enough time has passed after the previous game to give us something new to explore and be interested in. Oh look, Europolis is a dark, rainy, cyber-punky semi-dilapidated urban beehive... just like Newport was in Dreamfall. There are EYE drones and police officers everywhere... just like in Dreamfall. Neon adverts, people of all races, bots flying around, polluted environment - we've seen all of that before, and we've got bigger things on our mind than delivering sausages and bribing activists this time around.
The only thing that's different this time around is that Tornquist decides to explicitly bring politics into the story. The series has always had anti-capitalist, anti-corporate, eco-friendly, multicultural socialist undertones (as befits the Norwegian author's origins), but until now this has all been in the subtext of an adventure story. Well, enough with the subtext, time to dump all of our extremely valuable political opinions into the screenplay. Rightism bad, Leftism good. White people boring fascists, ethnic people magical wonders of diversity. Rightist extremists terrifying scum of the earth to be cleansed with nuclear flames, leftist extremists wacky and rad rebels who are a teensy-weensy smidge too radical. Conservatives corrupt and out-of-touch with reality, Social Democrats the best choice for all. Is Ragnar not aware that forcing your political opinions down everyone's throats is extremely rude and unprofessional under any circumstance, especially in a game that you're paying him for?
Book One further cemented its mostly negative first impression by somewhat heartlessly getting rid of its links to the previous game, by unnecessarily killing off a ton of important characters. Apparently, Olivia and Damien got wasted at some point between Dreamfall and Dreamfall Chapters. What was the point of introducing them if they weren't going to matter in the end? We got a few secondary character deaths in the end of TLJ, but at that time it was different - we saw Burns Flipper and Zack get killed, and it affirmed the point that shit was starting to hit the fan. Now it's just the author lazily getting rid of characters he doesn't want to sue anymore. Reza is still alive, but considering Zoe's line "This is not Reza" and the fact that Zoe has a bug in her apartment she doesn't know about, I assume he got brain-washed and turned into a drone spy for the fascist Rightist corporate establishment *shakes fist*. It's hard to be invested in Zoe dating Reza after we got told THIS IS NOT REZA, downplay it all you like. Most shockingly, it seems April Ryan is gone for good, her body burned to ash, and her spirit reincarnated as a dumb blonde baby called Saga in the House of All Worlds. We also say a final goodbye to the Vagabond despite learning nothing about his origins. Oh, and that pirate guy kills himself to save Kian, didn't even remember who he is. What characters do we get in replacement for those who really didn't need to die? Well... there's the seventh wonder of India known only as Mira, who... does nothing but spout obscenities and edgy dialogue with no rhyme or reason. There's also... a fat Arab guy who... says vulgar stuff and hits on Zoe. And... a Latin girl who swears and screams a lot. And, finally, a Jewish Black guy with a terrifying glowing blue get-up on his head. Hm. Lucky we waited so long for that. At least we got shitbot.
We don't see any Arcadia at all, aside from the drab insides of Kian's prison, his story is cut-off the second he jumps into the portal. Nice sequel hook, it's thrilling to know we'll be getting four more of those. Game mechanics are almost identical to Dreamfall, minus the godawful combat.
Ragnar better step up his game in future chapters, so far this isn't worth the money and the wait.
