The episodic format doesn't seem a good fit for the series' long-term storytelling, and I felt stranded by the abrupt ending, as if I had been invited to an opulent dinner only to arrive and find no one was home. As part of a long-term arc, Book One: Reborn may prove highly effective on its own, it plays at a measured adagio that rarely quickens. Those eight years between Dreamfall and its sequel were long-but I suspect that the wait between the Dreamfall Chapters' first and second episodes will feel just as lengthy, even if it's a matter of months and not years. The first episode of Dreamfall Chapters provides the former, laying the groundwork for a potentially rousing adventure, but too little rises from that foundation. Those earlier games provided another kind of balance: that between a slow-paced opening and meaningful narrative tension that rose as the stakes grew higher. Returning Dreamfall heroine Zoe Castillo has remained comatose, but she has not allowed her body to serve as a prison. Its sequel, 2006's Dreamfall, found new worlds to balance-those of waking life and dreams-and Dreamfall Chapters returns to this same theme soon after its emotional opening. It was a game about balance: the balance between the mundane and the magical, the head and the heart.
This is the universe that has occupied my thoughts and fantasies since 1999, when The Longest Journey was released and earned rightful praise as one of the best adventure games ever made. Eight years is a long time to wait for answers, and the opening scenes of Dreamfall Chapters understand as much, providing a tearful gut-punch that is as much of a conclusion as it is an introduction.
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