I'm going to stick it out Jenny. I did resort to a video walkthrough two times so far when I got tired of wandering.
Due to the lack of actual adventure-game-type gameplay, you lose very little by watching a Let's Play instead of "playing" the game yourself. Whichever you choose, you get the same annoying "Bang! Balance has Shifted" interruptions (the biggest actual "change" is whether a secondary character lives or dies -- the story as a whole doesn't change, and none of the "choices" will fill in all the gaps in the plot). Watching a Let's Play by someone who enjoyed the game may make the game more enjoyable than trying to play it yourself. And if you have problems with "getting lost" you don't have to worry about getting lost with someone else playing.
I'm in Book 3 now playing as Zoe, just put the dream machine on. I do like Book 3 better than 1 and 2.
There are parts of the game with interesting places. I don't have any complaints about the art design. Zoe's story picks up once it gets out of Stark, but the "amnesia" excuse has been overused and is really tiresome.
I like Kian's story much better than Zoe's and I don't care for Saga at all yet.
They did a lot more with Kian in Chapters than in the earlier Dreamfall game.
Saga was sort of interesting as a baby, but she was a snarky teen and a snarky young adult. She was tolerable as an old lady, but no replacement for April and I don't buy that "April reborn" business. You never learn enough about Saga to care much for her. She's just a deus ex machina whose purpose is to fix things at the last minute.
I also do not feel these Dreamfall games had anything to do with The Longest Journey. I believe I commented on that years ago, that it seemed they just put April in the game so they could call it a sequel.
The April in Dreamfall 2006 wasn't the same person as in TLJ, and April's appearances as a ghost or disembodied voice in Chapters were useless and an insult to anyone who thought they'd be seeing April in Chapters.
As for the rest of the plot, I don't know how much had to be rewritten as they went along due to lack of budget, but there were details from the later chapters that contradicted what you learned in earlier chapters and some plotlines were simply dropped. Messy. Questions like "How does Saga know to do what she does" in the later parts of the game were never explained. "It was written" isn't a good in-game reason -- too meta and an overused excuse for the writer giving up and saying "I don't know how to write this into the game."
(Dreamfall 2006 spoiler)
I suppose April's disillusioned and unhelpful attitude in Dreamfall 2006 is for the same reason -- because she somehow knew "it was written" that she'd be killed off and not be able to actually help anyone no matter what she did.
I've played TLJ a total of 4 times and will undoubtedly play it again in the future. I don't consider either Dreamfall 2006 or Chapters to be worth a replay. Dreamfall 2006 was marred by unwanted stealth/action/timed "challenges" and an abortive ending. It wasn't what I wanted as a followup to TLJ, but at least the story hung together and the writing worked to keep you interested until the end.
Chapters was unfinished with clear signs that they ran out of development money and weren't capable of a convincing rewrite to compensate. It was short on puzzles with the low-budget "choose-your-own-story" budget replacement that made minor changes without affecting the overall plot. Suspension of disbelief doesn't work when so many details conflict or are glaring omissions. By the end of Chapters the plot was such a mess I didn't care anymore, which is arguably even worse than the vile cliffhanger ending of Dreamfall 2006.