You make valid points, even if I don't agree with most of what you are saying.

As a long time fan of the two previous games, the series was never really about the freedom of choice in my eyes anyway. I'm much more invested in the story and atmosphere than I am with whether I can play cupid with Kian and Anna.

In my opinion, Book 3 was a vast improvement over both Book 1 and 2. There was more plot movement and advancement in 3 than in both of the first two books combined. Having less choices actually allowed them to get on with the story instead of worrying about how each choice would effect what.

After the first two books, I was worried that the game was going to become bogged down with pointless choices and end up a sprawling branching story with no real purpose. Book 3 showed me the devs aren't afraid to just get on with it instead of having Zoe run around in Propast for 5 books making decisions on what to cook for dinner.

My only dissappointment in Book 3 is that it makes me wish they had scrapped the choice mechanic in the first place and just made the game in the same mold as the first Dreamfall (minus the fighting / stealth parts).

Having said all that, I understand that other people expected a lot more from the choice mechanic based off of how Red Thread advertised the game, and it's a perfectly valid point. I just wanted to give a view from someone on the complete opposite side of the fence.

I think the goals and journal give a bit of hints andwhen not its a puzzle on how to

Originally posted by .exe:

Hello. I want to share my opinion on Book 3 and how dissapointed I was after finishing it.

Actually I felt really bad playing all of it. Books 1 & 2 were really interesting, I couldn't honestly stop playing until I finished them, and then I wanted more. But unfortunately Book 3 was quite the opposite of what previous books presented. Explanation and spoilers below,

- First thing that got on my nerves was info on the informative page about my choices. The game have literally kicked me in the face with the fact, that even though I chose to kiss Anna in the previous book, game have denied that and told me, that it just didn't happen. Okay.. I guess I have to live with it. But hey! That's not over! After browsing trough steam discussions I found out that Kian is in fact gay. Plot twist, huh..
- I started the game as Saga, hoping to discover something interesting. Well, I did... but path to 'interesting' part was heavily annoying. Searching for these drawings consumed a lot of time, and after running around the house more and more annoyed I had to check the internet for help. Finally! That step was behind me, now it should be good, right?
- And we see Kian again! Woohoo! w-wait... Why does he look like a jedi knight? Am I playing the right game?
- Here at the tower I am reminded that Kian is not interested in woman at all, and poor Enu gets smacked with that info in the face, as am I.
- Now the gameplay. The entire run trough empty streets of Marcuria was absolutely annoying. There were absolutely no hints as for where to go and what to do. I hoped for Kian to think about some solution, but no, there were no hints whatsoever, and then I checked the internet again and read about the goats.
- After playtime with goats was over and I picked up the flower, Anna showed up (Hell yeah!). Sadly, yet again I am reminded that my choice was meaningless and romancing with this hot redhead who is in deep love with Kian is absolutely not an option. Really, I get it, he's gay.
- Now after she was gone I had to finish the job. For some reason guards that shouldn't be able to see me until I am really close... do actually see me from a mile away. The force is strong with these ones!
- Then I learn, that Kian, a skilled fighter, is too damn slow to catch some fat rat with his bare hands that is running under his feet, and next to a cheese he needs a freaking tube for that purpose. Why not ask Bip, that is actually next to Kian to help? Because it's better to run there and back again with a metal tube.
- Once we got a rat we send him to death. Guards are away and we get to the engine where we meet very skinny, probably starved engineer that looks like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥. After short talk Hami arrives and wants to take Kian to the prison. Good thing that this skinny, nearly weightless engineer grabbed his belt and stopped him so Kian could just calmly walk away like nothing happened.
- Up to this point game offered me no choices, even in dialogues. I felt like I was watching a really bad episode of tv series.
- Zoe! And... what he hell have happened with your hair? Were you visited by a really bad barber after the bomb knocked you down? Really, that's the improvement of the main characters looks? Good job, gooood job.
- Being followed by a drone is fine and kinda cool. But having a big ♥♥♥, blue arrow showing me a way to a point barely 100m away? Was that really necessary?
- In general, playing as Zoe was much more interesting, but still it offered no choice except for tossing a dream machine at the guy and getting him shot or not. It was still just walking around and listening.
- Queenie flying away on a chair from the middle of the city filled with heavy armed 'police' units? None of them would notice?
- And Zoe is back to Arcadia only to catch up with previously missing dialogue 'options' at the tavern talking to Ulvic and asking him bunch of questions, which finally leads to getting lead to interrogation room at rebel hideout just as Kian is standing there and talking. Why not yell? Or do anything to get noticed by him as he was standing few metres away? Nah, better be put in the room and get interrogated.
- Finally we have Kian getting to the cloudship and the only actual choice to make in the entire book 3.

Summary: Book 3 is a tragedy. Player is merely an observant that is not even given any hints or freedom of choice, even in dialogues until the very end. Probably wanted romance option between Kian and 'Anna' was denied as developers turned him gay. Why even give option to kiss Anna or push her away if not only it makes no difference but also game denies that option at the beginning of book 3? This entire book seems like it was made in rush just to fill the gap between previous and the next one. This part of the story was really short and full of pointless, forced dialogues that were probably designed only to skip them and get over with it. I was waiting to the very end to be able to make any choice at all, anything more or less meaningful. There was nothing, nothing at all except for Kian's choice to take Likho on the mission or not. Even at such important moment as meeting Hami I was powerless and forced to do nothing but watch how it goes.

Hopefully in the next books players will receive some more freedom, other than skipping boring and annoying dialogues and being able to run around in circles without a clue.

That's all.

Well said OP, i agree on most points, wosrst was that i felt like watching a movie, i had zero influence on disscutions and decisions during whole book except in the end.....

Out of 3 books, book 3 is the worst and it is linear to death :-/

Book 1 & 2 were awesome.

I think the chapter summary perfectly illistrates what is wrong with this chapter; "You chose to drink beer, this choice is meaningless" "You chose to drug the rat, this choice will have zero consequences"

I almost agree with all your points OP so I won’t repeat you. Book 3 is at least mediocre. Especially when you compare it with the length, plot twists and plethora of meaningful and hard choices of book 2. I get that at some point the developers have to push the main plot in a more linear direction… But waiting 4-5 months for this to happen isn’t worth it.

I’m sure that most of my disappointment with book 3 comes from the episodic nature of the game itself. For me it’s the last episodic game I buy. IMO it’s a very problematic concept for story-driven games. F.e. you can’t read half the story of a book, abandon it for 5 months, then continue it, then abandon it again and when you finish it after a year and something, claim that you enjoyed it

The episodic format doesn't help. But in my opinion book 3 has major problems of its own.
In the first TLJ, choice was not about "path-decision" but puzzle-solving and talking to the right people to move on with the story. All of this was done in such a way the player would still be enthralled by settings, characters and the puzzles themselves. I remembered some of those puzzles for years! Like the boyler puzzle...or the magician labirynth.

Book 3 goes a little "old school" trying to focus on puzzles and story as well. But the puzzles to me are memorable in the wrong way. squinting at a piece of paper to understand 2 of the 3 dots are actual places is not fun. Drugging a rat is neither. opening tens of doors with a two persons mechanism is far from interesting (but at least they got the dialogue going in the meanwhile!).

I don't really care about Kian being gay or not and I don't care about the choice to bring Liko or about going to save Bit. I'm being honest here: All I care about is the main story plot. And that's solid.
But this IS a videogame and since puzzles are what characterized TLJ from the beginning, I'd like more interesting puzzles, possibily connected to some mistery.

This game isn't TLJ, its Dreamfall. Go back and play the original Dreamfall because you obviously haven't. Red Thread mentioned back in the Kickstarter that Dreamfall Chapters would end Zoe's story and that they wanted to do another game that would go back to the original game play. If memory serves it's working title was The Longest Journey Home. Not sure if there has been any word on if they are going to make it, as it was an unreached stretch goal for the Kickstarter. I personally am impressed with what they have done considering the size of the team and budget. Episodic content is a terrible terrible idea! My complaint applys to both Dreamfall & Dreamfall chapters.. Both don't do enough story telling to bring you up to speed with lore/characters. I spent alot of time thinking "Who is that person, am I supposed to know whats going on!?" for example in Dreamfall and can only imagine what its like for new players starting with Dreamfall Chapters. An example from Chapters Book 3 is Anna, wan't sure who she is or where she came from but it felt like I was supposed to know her. Turns out I couldn't have really which made the decision to kiss/not kiss her meaningless. Keep'em coming Red Thread!

Originally posted by killock:

This game isn't TLJ, its Dreamfall. Go back and play the original Dreamfall because you obviously haven't. Red Thread mentioned back in the Kickstarter that Dreamfall Chapters would end Zoe's story and that they wanted to do another game that would go back to the original game play. If memory serves it's working title was The Longest Journey Home.

Not sure is this was a reply to my post. If it was then yes: I have played TLJ and Dreamfall:TLJ more than once and have enjoyed both games a lot.
What I was doing in my comment is noticing how in my opinion book 3 goes a little back into TLJ's roots, with more puzzle-solving and less dialogue-choices. But yeah: it's just my opinion :)

But! Now that you made me think about it. How about a comparison between Dreamfall:TLJ and Dreamfall chapters? I'll think about writing a quick essay on this ;-)

I was looking into this forum to find out if there are more people unhappy with chapter three,
haha i liked your ranting. ;-)
Im don´t agree with all the points you made and i don´t think Kian is gay, he just told Enu that he wasn´t interestet in Anna.
But the dialogues were annoying and the chapter really seemed like stuffing a gap between part two and four.
It seems like not much was happening, just bla bla and running around.

For me the first two chapters were so much better,
that i just ask myself if recently something went wrong in the development team,
like not having enough money and one half of the team had to leave the company.

I have read through all the points OP has given...while reading through them I recognized most of the things that annoyed me during episode 3...
Episode 3 felt more like a timesinking scavenger hunt than an episode...there was almost no plot nor choices...
I wonder how long the episode lasts if you don't count all the time of randomly checking every corner of the map to find items...

Originally posted by thirdchance:

I was looking into this forum to find out if there are more people unhappy with chapter three,
haha i liked your ranting. ;-)
Im don´t agree with all the points you made and i don´t think Kian is gay, he just told Enu that he wasn´t interestet in Anna.
But the dialogues were annoying and the chapter really seemed like stuffing a gap between part two and four.
It seems like not much was happening, just bla bla and running around.

For me the first two chapters were so much better,
that i just ask myself if recently something went wrong in the development team,
like not having enough money and one half of the team had to leave the company.

Yes, for me Book3 kind of felt like a filler. But maybe that's because it's been so long since the first two chapters...

Btw I liked this Saga episode better than the last one.

I disagree on a few things, but for the rest i kinda agree:
- the robot thing was deliberate, it happens if like me you refused to comply to the Eye, it's made to be obnoxious.
- Enu never looked romantically interested in Kian to me.
- are you serious, i love Zoë's hair! And it looks like this because she had a wound to the head, and it needed shaving to heal (she's got a huge scar).
- the "not kissing Anna" was a bug, and Kian is gay regarless if you let her kiss you or not (although like you i learned it while reading the forum as well - to me not kissing her didn't mean he wasn't straight, he just didn't trust Anna enough or was just not interested)

And even though they were awful then, i miss the infiltration and fighting phases from Dreamfall:TLJ.

Just ended book 3, and here is my opinion. I'll concentrate in what i dislike first, because that's the easier thing to do:

- The Saga part is boring, the camera jumps and bad hitboxes don't help when all you have to do is run into things all the time, several times, until you find the pictures. The idea is good, however.
- I don't think that the "freedom" (no clue what to do) parts, mostly Kyan's, are so bad because the play area is smaller and is relatively easy to spot the goats. I also found this problem in some sections of previous books. Maybe these sections would benefit of some clue system (character talking to himself in the head?).
- There are some non-interactive parts when the characters don't move their lips when talking. Even in some close-ups.
- I also don't understand the guards seeing Kyan or not depending of what history requires. Maybe this is not explained properly, or I didn't understand it at first.
- I don't like the choices recap at the end of the book, either. "This won't have consequences". Ok, so don't show it to me. There are no consequences but three? Ok, show those.
- The Engineer stopping the big man while Kyan gets out just walking? Ok, some animation reworking is required here, because it looks awful.
- This is a very minor thing, but I find odd to see chickens at night in book 1 (the chickens won't stay out at night afaik) and not seeing any chiken at daytime in book 3.
- Another minor thing, some human peasants in book 3 Marcuria daytime seem to have a name assigned. But the same person with the same name is in several places at the same time? Just label it "peasant". And since captions usually represent what the main character knows, this means that Zoe actually know all that people?

Overall, I think the game is good, but I also believe that the quality standards are low and some compromises were required to get the game released on time. Maybe you should reconsider the release dates to raise quality, if possible. If not possible, maybe you could fix some of the gameplay and low standard quality issues after all the chapters are released?

Sorry if I'm being insensitive or rude. I want this game to rock, and I'm still happy for being able to play it.

I actually liked:

- The sewers section. If not very interesting in gameplay, at least you made the conversation more fluid.
- Crow appearance is amazing.
- ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is always welcome.
- Daytime Marcuria, at last! The harvest festival made Marcuria more interesting and vivid, too.

Originally posted by gentakojima:

- Another minor thing, some human peasants in book 3 Marcuria daytime seem to have a name assigned. But the same person with the same name is in several places at the same time? Just label it "peasant". And since captions usually represent what the main character knows, this means that Zoe actually know all that people?

They're probably wearing backers' names that's why they look "familiar" :)

Originally posted by Kyalie:

They're probably wearing backers' names that's why they look "familiar" :)

I agree with that speculation, as I saw a man with a Korean name in Macuria, which again felt a bit immersion breaking to me.

I think it would have been better if they only show up in Propast instead, where we already see many people from more familiar countries like China, for example.