Dreamfall suffers from questionable design choices that plagued console games in the Xbox & Xbox 360 era; graphics hardware had advanced too rapidly and these consoles didn't have enough memory to render all the visual spectacle developers wanted to portray. Given the choice of sacrificing gameplay or spectacle, developers almost always opted to sacrifice gameplay. Everything feels claustrophobic, the camera controls poorly (particularly in very small areas), and there's a loading screen every 50 ft.

The game introduces a clunky combat system about 15 minutes in. I soon found myself in a situation where I expected to fight a character and I was relieved that he just pushed me aside in a cutscene and ran away. I'd been dreading the game forcing me into combat.

Shortly after that encounter, I was forced into a stealth section that's completely binary. You must crouch when moving (past a motion-sensing robot ... so I don't understand how this protects you). If you're caught, you lose control of your character, you're gunned down, and then you fall to the ground in extreme slow motion.

At this point I stopped and looked up a playthrough. I'd been progressing slowly compared to the video I found, but I was at about 10% of their runtime. I'm going to save myself some grief and watch this game's story.

This series has the best story out of any game I've ever played and left me feeling completely empty after I finished. I have still yet to play a story-driven game this good.