So young Saga arranges things to the April's friends to have a world still exist until the time when she is old and can save April Ryan to keep her on the track which leads to April's death and Saga's birth.
Wow this is deep. And fucked.
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Decline Dreamfall Chapters - Console Immersion Action Decline Kickstarter [Spoilers]
- Thread starter MaskedMan
- Start date
So young Saga arranges things to the April's friends to have a world still exist until the time when she is old and can save April Ryan to keep her on the track which leads to April's death and Saga's birth.
Wow this is deep. And fucked.
WallaceChambers
Learned
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- Jul 29, 2019
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- 311
IDK if you're under the impression that I'm defending the quality of the writing. I'm just describing what I remember are the events of the story.
The spirit of the white dragon does appear before Saga and tell her some shit about protecting her. If Saga's April reincarnated then there'd be a difference between the lineage of her spirit and the lineage of her physical body. So, no, I wouldn't assume the girl with the green hair is the white dragon. I think she's just a plot device to show that it's dangerous to journey between realities from the border house, since she disappears and is never heard from again.
I'm angry at Ragnar, not you.
Saga's mother is obviously not human and have some alien vibe. But dragon? Hmm.
But Midgard is just Old North for "our world"...
...which is circled by the giant snake hmm
Finally got around to playing this. I liked Dreamfall as a kid so around the time Kickstarters became a thing I backed this, but once it had released and I had replayed the series my attitude had basically shifted to the Codex concensus: TLJ masterpiece, Dreamfall shit.
As such, I never played this as it looked like garbage, but after finishing Blacksad I was in mood for more narrative stuff and thought 'what the hell, let's see how the story finishes.'
As expected, the game is mostly pretty bad, I'd say about on par with Dreamfall. While Dreamfall at least has the decency to include quite a bit of the fantastical and some fun interactions between the three characters (April's newfound self-assuredness vs. Kian's abrasive politeness vs. Zoë's naivete), Chapters is woefully boring in that department. On the other hand, Chapters has three advantages over Dreamfall I think: first and foremost, the story is actually somewhat coherent compared to the complete clusterfuck of Dreamfull (low bar, I know), secondly what little "gameplay" there is, is very slightly better (mostly because the interface is actually kind of good), but thirdly and most importantly, because I kind of enjoyed the C&C, which is about the last thing I expected (more on that later).
If you're someone who gets massively triggered and whines whenever you catch a wiff of the woke virus, this game must be like anger-inducing kryptonite, though looked at objectively, it's way, way less present than the game's concept would lead you to believe. It's not pushing the agenda nearly hard as I was sure it would - hell, the most political MC is a centrist social democrat. It does have two homosexual characters however
(
)
and a few comments on the subject from the perspective of different Arcadian cultures. And of course one of the queer characters is a 14-year-old totally cool playmobile-haircutted lesbian hacker girl, yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn. I didn't mind that shit as much as I minded the typical modern presence of "funny" and oh-so-zaaaany characters who will wax humorously Marvel/Whedon-style and pull you out of your immersion in every single scene they're in with their modern-style "jokey dialogue." Enu is the primary culprit.
As for the aforementioned C&C, I was impressed by it in the way that even though there is much, there is more than for a typical, narrative game, and certainly more than I expected. Perhaps the best example is the branches possible when you meet Na'ane as Kian. By happenstance, she walks into a councilmeeting with the rebels while you're there, and of course you know that she's the one who betrayed their location in Dreamfall.
Initially, you have two choices: reveal her secret then and there, or keep silent.
Both choices branch:
If you reveal it, you can choose to:
1) Kill her
2) Let a Dolmari rebel named Likho kill her
3) Spare her
If you keep the secret you will talk to her in private, where you can:
1) Expose her
2) Keep her secret
All these choices change several different variables, such as determining whether another character lives or dies later, which character you have a conversation with at a certain point, how that conversation pans out (the same character will say different things depending on the combination of choices), how two characters relate to each other as well as, of course, how the secret itself is handled (for example, if it's exposed, who talks to who about it). Finally, it also impacts a subsystem of reputation variables with two of the rebels.
Just as an example of what one of these changes entail, let's say your choices lead to you later watching a scene about a stakeout with Kian and Likho. During the stakeout, you'll have the base Likho dialogue (other characters could have been present instead), and there's a chance to have bro moment with him over your shared ruthlessness, or you might bicker instead.
And of course, it will change whether Na'ane herself is dead, actively working for the rebels, or in a jail cell.
On top of this you have your usual cosmetic dialogue choices that will change how characters react in the moment - or change future dialogue in very minor ways. Might not sound impressive, but that kind of cosmetic stuff usually constitute the all the C&C in a Telltale game (except for maybe one or two major choices). Chapters has a little more going on.
Mind you that I'm not saying Chapters have an intricately complex web of choices and consequences a la AoD (so as not to get Vault Dweller on my ass here) or even Alpha Protocol, but for something that is basically a Telltale game with some freeform movement and puzzle solving, it is much more mechanically complex C&C-wise than these games. If Telltale games generally had this amount of outcome diversity, I think the typical criticism of them would be lessened.
A small disclaimer though, is that the C&C seems to dry up significantly in later chapters. On the other hand, you do get some payoffs from previous choices there. Sometimes multiple instances within single dialogues.
In conclusion, Chapters is not a good a game and I wouldn't really recommend it unless you're like me and have some hours to burn plus a mild desire to play everything TLJ-related. My thoughts on the C&C should be interpreted more as "I expected nothing and got something" than as isolated praise.
As for my thoughts on the story and characters... I didn't really mind much of it (up to Book 4 or so), I even actively liked a few bits (the voice acting is really good for a lot of the side characters even if half of them are voiced by Vernon Roche, and characters like The Mole are actively great, both written and acted very well), but when that's the best you have to say about a story whose foundation, TLJ, was as much fun as it was, it's not a good sign. Neither is the fact that one of the things I'm most grateful for about the game is that it dialogue is skippable 90% of the time... I think I skipped 80% of the dialogue in Book 4 and 5, and that's a very high skip rate for me even for games I'm kind of bored with.
The story is also full of contrivances, Anna/Alayna being one of the worst offenders. She has a big role to play in the story as a device, but is almost non-existant as a character.
On Saga and Ryan:
Like I said, the story biggest strength is that it is fairly coherent and besides for the villains and their motivations which are complete dogshit, everything makes sense. This is kind of an achievement given that Ragnar had to make sense of the nonsense that was Dreamfall's ending as well as all the un-pay-offed threads in TLJ that were originally just meant as red herrings and mystic foreshadowing. It doesn't save the story by any means, but it's... something.
Ultimately, the game's biggest offense is that for the most part, it's just really boring. Not offensively bad, not politically all that obnoxious, just really, really boring.
(As a final note: behead those who speak positively about Enu)
As such, I never played this as it looked like garbage, but after finishing Blacksad I was in mood for more narrative stuff and thought 'what the hell, let's see how the story finishes.'
As expected, the game is mostly pretty bad, I'd say about on par with Dreamfall. While Dreamfall at least has the decency to include quite a bit of the fantastical and some fun interactions between the three characters (April's newfound self-assuredness vs. Kian's abrasive politeness vs. Zoë's naivete), Chapters is woefully boring in that department. On the other hand, Chapters has three advantages over Dreamfall I think: first and foremost, the story is actually somewhat coherent compared to the complete clusterfuck of Dreamfull (low bar, I know), secondly what little "gameplay" there is, is very slightly better (mostly because the interface is actually kind of good), but thirdly and most importantly, because I kind of enjoyed the C&C, which is about the last thing I expected (more on that later).
If you're someone who gets massively triggered and whines whenever you catch a wiff of the woke virus, this game must be like anger-inducing kryptonite, though looked at objectively, it's way, way less present than the game's concept would lead you to believe. It's not pushing the agenda nearly hard as I was sure it would - hell, the most political MC is a centrist social democrat. It does have two homosexual characters however
(
now I wish I didn't have an eternal imprint of Kian in my head saying "I am gay", JFC I cringed so hard now my feet can fit into shoes two sizes less than normally
and a few comments on the subject from the perspective of different Arcadian cultures. And of course one of the queer characters is a 14-year-old totally cool playmobile-haircutted lesbian hacker girl, yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn. I didn't mind that shit as much as I minded the typical modern presence of "funny" and oh-so-zaaaany characters who will wax humorously Marvel/Whedon-style and pull you out of your immersion in every single scene they're in with their modern-style "jokey dialogue." Enu is the primary culprit.
As for the aforementioned C&C, I was impressed by it in the way that even though there is much, there is more than for a typical, narrative game, and certainly more than I expected. Perhaps the best example is the branches possible when you meet Na'ane as Kian. By happenstance, she walks into a councilmeeting with the rebels while you're there, and of course you know that she's the one who betrayed their location in Dreamfall.
Initially, you have two choices: reveal her secret then and there, or keep silent.
Both choices branch:
If you reveal it, you can choose to:
1) Kill her
2) Let a Dolmari rebel named Likho kill her
3) Spare her
If you keep the secret you will talk to her in private, where you can:
1) Expose her
2) Keep her secret
All these choices change several different variables, such as determining whether another character lives or dies later, which character you have a conversation with at a certain point, how that conversation pans out (the same character will say different things depending on the combination of choices), how two characters relate to each other as well as, of course, how the secret itself is handled (for example, if it's exposed, who talks to who about it). Finally, it also impacts a subsystem of reputation variables with two of the rebels.
Just as an example of what one of these changes entail, let's say your choices lead to you later watching a scene about a stakeout with Kian and Likho. During the stakeout, you'll have the base Likho dialogue (other characters could have been present instead), and there's a chance to have bro moment with him over your shared ruthlessness, or you might bicker instead.
And of course, it will change whether Na'ane herself is dead, actively working for the rebels, or in a jail cell.
On top of this you have your usual cosmetic dialogue choices that will change how characters react in the moment - or change future dialogue in very minor ways. Might not sound impressive, but that kind of cosmetic stuff usually constitute the all the C&C in a Telltale game (except for maybe one or two major choices). Chapters has a little more going on.
Mind you that I'm not saying Chapters have an intricately complex web of choices and consequences a la AoD (so as not to get Vault Dweller on my ass here) or even Alpha Protocol, but for something that is basically a Telltale game with some freeform movement and puzzle solving, it is much more mechanically complex C&C-wise than these games. If Telltale games generally had this amount of outcome diversity, I think the typical criticism of them would be lessened.
A small disclaimer though, is that the C&C seems to dry up significantly in later chapters. On the other hand, you do get some payoffs from previous choices there. Sometimes multiple instances within single dialogues.
In conclusion, Chapters is not a good a game and I wouldn't really recommend it unless you're like me and have some hours to burn plus a mild desire to play everything TLJ-related. My thoughts on the C&C should be interpreted more as "I expected nothing and got something" than as isolated praise.
As for my thoughts on the story and characters... I didn't really mind much of it (up to Book 4 or so), I even actively liked a few bits (the voice acting is really good for a lot of the side characters even if half of them are voiced by Vernon Roche, and characters like The Mole are actively great, both written and acted very well), but when that's the best you have to say about a story whose foundation, TLJ, was as much fun as it was, it's not a good sign. Neither is the fact that one of the things I'm most grateful for about the game is that it dialogue is skippable 90% of the time... I think I skipped 80% of the dialogue in Book 4 and 5, and that's a very high skip rate for me even for games I'm kind of bored with.
The story is also full of contrivances, Anna/Alayna being one of the worst offenders. She has a big role to play in the story as a device, but is almost non-existant as a character.
At least it was satisfying seeing Brian Westhouse revealed as the prophet. Yes, anyone who followed the plot closely had guessed this, which Crow actually makes a joke about, but I'd rather a twist be predictable because it was properly set up than most stories which just pull bullshit out of their ass for shock effect.
However besides the reveal itself, everything concering his role as the prophet is completely trite and unsatisfying, including his motivation and him being possessed. So despite the setup and payoff being fine, everything actually relating to him being the prophet is ultraboring.
However besides the reveal itself, everything concering his role as the prophet is completely trite and unsatisfying, including his motivation and him being possessed. So despite the setup and payoff being fine, everything actually relating to him being the prophet is ultraboring.
On Saga and Ryan:
The rebirth is so bad. Paradoxically, Saga is a Deus Ex Machina that is set up. It's like Ragnar knew what a contrivance it would be, so to escape it he spent a lot of time and effort (on some of the game's most charming moments honestly) to set the whole thing up, but no amount of set up can save a payoff that poor. It turns out that a fairly well-built contrivance is even more of a contrivance, because so much attention has been put on it. In many ways, Saga is at the core of why the story fails even if you ignore its tedium and lack of wonder: the entire thing is based on the heavy hand of the writer's intrusion to make the ends meet.
Of course she's also edgy and aloof as all hell, going so far as to bothersomely react with "Is everyone gonna ask me that question?" when people ask who she is, something anyone in her situation in reality would accept as the completely natural thing to do
It's kind of amazing, really, that a seasoned writer doesn't realize that it will obviously, completely evidently, pull the rug out from under every single stake in a story if you make a character justify the solution to the plot by saying "Because that's how the story goes, it's already been written, and we can't change that". She even says that shit on two occasions! Like, it's right there, you're literally explaining why this is a horribly bad idea right there yourself in your own writing
I realize the callback, but in TLJ the similar line was just vague mysterious foreshadowing. Here, it is Saga literally telling us that "hey man, that's how Ragnar wrote it dude! Such 4th wall, much wow!"
Of course, even without Saga the plot is ultimately doomed, because removing Saga does not remove tedium or all of the other issues.
Of course she's also edgy and aloof as all hell, going so far as to bothersomely react with "Is everyone gonna ask me that question?" when people ask who she is, something anyone in her situation in reality would accept as the completely natural thing to do
It's kind of amazing, really, that a seasoned writer doesn't realize that it will obviously, completely evidently, pull the rug out from under every single stake in a story if you make a character justify the solution to the plot by saying "Because that's how the story goes, it's already been written, and we can't change that". She even says that shit on two occasions! Like, it's right there, you're literally explaining why this is a horribly bad idea right there yourself in your own writing
I realize the callback, but in TLJ the similar line was just vague mysterious foreshadowing. Here, it is Saga literally telling us that "hey man, that's how Ragnar wrote it dude! Such 4th wall, much wow!"
Of course, even without Saga the plot is ultimately doomed, because removing Saga does not remove tedium or all of the other issues.
Like I said, the story biggest strength is that it is fairly coherent and besides for the villains and their motivations which are complete dogshit, everything makes sense. This is kind of an achievement given that Ragnar had to make sense of the nonsense that was Dreamfall's ending as well as all the un-pay-offed threads in TLJ that were originally just meant as red herrings and mystic foreshadowing. It doesn't save the story by any means, but it's... something.
Ultimately, the game's biggest offense is that for the most part, it's just really boring. Not offensively bad, not politically all that obnoxious, just really, really boring.
(As a final note: behead those who speak positively about Enu)
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Double post for replies:
nigga you must be joking - Chapters is about twice as long as I expected and four times as long as its boring ass content justifies
Doubtful. In fact, Chapters might be the most coherent and easily deciphered of the three games. If anything, cocaine would have probably made it more exciting.
Besides being from Midgard (we know this as Saga's dad tells us, even if we have no idea what Midgard is supposed to mean in TLJ), her name is identical to Saga's in a sense. A saga is "a long story of heroic achievement, especially a medieval prose narrative in Old Norse or Old Icelandic", while the edda is basically a collection of stories and poems about Norse myths. So if nothing else, there's no doubt Etta and subsequently Saga are related to some version of Norse mythology.
Who she is as a character doesn't matter much because just like Saga, she's only there as a story device to inform us about things and make certain ends meet.
Besides the rebirth being discussed there is the outright mention in the discussion between Zoë and April that Zoë did save April by helping to cause said rebirth as well as her relationship to Neo-Crow (using April-like sentences to describe him).
Additionally, Etta is voiced by Sarah Hamilton (April's voice actor) and the music playing during Interlude III where Saga goes to Arcadia is a version of April's funeral theme. At least that's how it sounded.
There's no outright confirmation or anything, which I suspect would be because the idea is kind of retarded for the reasons you mention yourself.
Gandalf said:
nigga you must be joking - Chapters is about twice as long as I expected and four times as long as its boring ass content justifies
Boleskine said:
Doubtful. In fact, Chapters might be the most coherent and easily deciphered of the three games. If anything, cocaine would have probably made it more exciting.
Verylittlefishes said:
Besides being from Midgard (we know this as Saga's dad tells us, even if we have no idea what Midgard is supposed to mean in TLJ), her name is identical to Saga's in a sense. A saga is "a long story of heroic achievement, especially a medieval prose narrative in Old Norse or Old Icelandic", while the edda is basically a collection of stories and poems about Norse myths. So if nothing else, there's no doubt Etta and subsequently Saga are related to some version of Norse mythology.
Who she is as a character doesn't matter much because just like Saga, she's only there as a story device to inform us about things and make certain ends meet.
Verylittlefishes said:
Besides the rebirth being discussed there is the outright mention in the discussion between Zoë and April that Zoë did save April by helping to cause said rebirth as well as her relationship to Neo-Crow (using April-like sentences to describe him).
Additionally, Etta is voiced by Sarah Hamilton (April's voice actor) and the music playing during Interlude III where Saga goes to Arcadia is a version of April's funeral theme. At least that's how it sounded.
There's no outright confirmation or anything, which I suspect would be because the idea is kind of retarded for the reasons you mention yourself.
Lacrymas
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2015
- Messages
- 18,735
Oh, right, this game. What I think tripped up the narrative is April's death. It's painfully obvious that lady Alvane was originally supposed to be April from the future, but oops we killed her off for some cheap drama. There weren't enough characters after that to fill the convoluted roles Dreamfall set up, so here's Saga to "fix" (??) our story.
And with Dreamfall, obviously the longterm plan was for a Kian-Ryan romance. But he's gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay now, so
To be honest, he did give me slight homo vibes in Dreamfall on account of his very light, smooth holyman voice. But in Chapters mr. Smooth aka Gavin O'Connor was replaced with Ye Standard Gruff Guy aka I'm Batman.
Lacrymas
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2015
- Messages
- 18,735
Here's what I was thinking they could've done. Since there is a rebellion going on that April is essentially the leader of and Kian sympathizes with their cause, they could've arranged a mock marriage in order to appear strong and united. They *are* strong and united, but the marriage could've been a performance for the political world stage. And bam, Lady Alvane while Kian is still gay.
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Very true. And a forced mock marriage between two enemy-friends would be more interesting than Ryan and Kian having all sorts of honeypie romantic moments anyway.
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It's p. clear in the first game that Lady Alvane = April Ryan. But then they made a mess with p. much everything in Dreamfall.
Moreover, at the end of the first game you see the very old Crow with Lady Alvane. Yet somebody still thought it would be a good idea to kill him off in Chapters, and have Saga apparently revive him (there's a small bird on her shoulder at the end).
Moreover, at the end of the first game you see the very old Crow with Lady Alvane. Yet somebody still thought it would be a good idea to kill him off in Chapters, and have Saga apparently revive him (there's a small bird on her shoulder at the end).
It's too sophisticated writing for 2010s Ragnar, sadly. Probably ate too much soy.
I liked when this game either killed off or completely ruined all the characters from previous games. The progression of wokinism from TLJ to Dreamfall to DC is incredible. If this Norwegian faggot ever gets around to making another game in this series, it will probably be about trannies and justice for Black marxists.
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