Dreamfall was the hotly anticipated sequel to The Longest Journey. Its amazing story lived up to and possibly exceeded its predecessor, which is no small feat. However, the clunky gameplay left the over all experience somewhat lackluster. The soundtrack, unfortunately, is also just as bad as its predecessor’s soundtrack and in some cases even worse.
To me it felt like composer Leon Willett was trying way too hard to make the music sound similar to that of the first game. It reeks of copycat unoriginality, and it’s made worse by the fact that the copycat is copycatting bad music. It’s more slow, boring, plodding, 3rd rate orchestral drivel with no hooks or melodies to grab your ear. The synthesized vocals are back in some of the tracks and they still sound fake and processed without the organic warmth of live vocals. It doesn’t help that the tracks are longer on this soundtrack, thus prolonging the boredom. And once again, the tracks mostly go for atmosphere, but that atmosphere is one of boredom. There is not a single standout track and all just sound like monotonous droning to me.
And what’s this? A few additional composers attempt some more modern music, just like in The Longest Journey soundtrack. Too bad none of that is very good either. Simon Poole’s compositions are rather boring and repetitive, but they’re thankfully short. The Slipperhero song is quirky, and not in a good way. It sounds like cheesy vampire music done in circus instrumentation with cheesy ghostly effects on the vocals. The Octavat, Vivi Christensen, and Morten Sorlie tracks are also boring, unremarkable, and unmemorable.
In a nutshell, this soundtrack sucks. Every single song sucks. I ended my review of The Longest Journey’s soundtrack with those same words and I’m ending with those same words here as well.
