The Longest Journey

Here's my spoiler-free review: PROS: 1) Epic Production. There are many different worlds to explore and each section of the game has its own unique feel. There are, accordingly, many characters to converse with in these worlds, with (mostly) good voice acting. You'll probably forget about the paltry 640x480 resolution before long, and besides, the pre-rendered cinematics are quite beautiful.* 2) Engaging story. The lead, April Ryan, is funny and believable. Her friends and companions along the way are well developed. The mystery of what is going on with April is established well, and then slowly revealed throughout the game in such a way that suspense is maintained. Extra star for the ending, which was very good. CONS: The game really started to feel like a chore about half way through. I persevered because I wanted to see how it would conclude, but a lot of it was just not that much fun. I blame two things: 1) Conversation. It's good to have a lot of character interaction. It's not good when the voice-acted dialogue drags on and on and on, and you find yourself click click clicking, thinking to yourself *just get on with it already please!" It wasn't much of an issue for April and her friends, but with the secondary characters it started to become drudgery. 2) Puzzles/Gameplay. There are a bunch of pretty good puzzles, and even a few excellent ones. There are only one or two puzzles that I consider *bad* (the solution didn't seem intuitive at all). Bad puzzles aren't the problem though; it's the vast number of merely decent puzzles. It wouldn't have mattered as much except that I didn't have any choice in where the game was taking me. It became a click-a-thon to see what would happen next, instead of giving me a chance to make a difference for April. - - - *It IS possible to force a higher screen resolution using a special utility to intercept the game's DirectX calls (I used 'dgVoodoo2'). And wow the game looks great this way. But it's a lot of extra work.

It's obvious this game was made with a lot of love and care, but it is also pretty flawed. The game is light on puzzles overall, and those that are there are often obvious or uninteresting. The world of the game and the scope of its plot are huge - way too much so to fit in this game. The exposition at one point becomes laughably excessive and convoluted. There are about a dozen MacGuffins more than the plot really needs, and the sheer convenience needed for the main character to be able to round them all up is staggering. There are many areas that show promise but ultimately fail to deliver. Take the theme of two worlds, one magic and one technological. In a point-and-click adventure, you'd assume that a big part would be using items acquired in one realm in the other - there are only a couple such moments that I can remember, one being clever (the magnet) and one completely nonsensical (the calculator). The characters are pretty good. April feels earnest, and she often offers lampshading on the absurdity of her situation and the sequence of events, which doesn't excuse the poorly constructed plot but at least makes it more bearable. I can totally see why people would love this game, but I feel the world and its characters would be better used as the setting for an RPG or something. Either that, or you keep the world in the background and make a more focused game. Here, they had made this well fleshed out world, and they really wanted to make use of it, writing a very grand story which couldn't really be fit into just one adventure game. I should mention that I played the game with the Swedish translation (which I think isn't available here). That was probably a mistake, since the game, despite being Norwegian, seems to be written for English.

This was one of those games that I simply missed back when it was a new release. I never recalled hearing about it at the time, and it was only much later when it appeared here that some old friends started gushing about how great it was. When they realised I never played it, they didn't give me the option of leaving it unplayed, haha. Well, I'm glad they insisted. This must have been amazing to play at its release year, because even after all this time, it holds up. Yeah, maybe it starts a little slow, and those not more accustomed to older titles might find the hop backwards in graphical fidelity a little jarring, but this is a story that can really sneak up on you. If you're looking for something fresh but with a twist of nostalgia, I'd absolutely suggest putting this high on your list of things to check out.

The Longest Journey is one of the best adventure games ever made. The dialog and characters are second to none, the plot is magnificent, deep and long, the locations are imaginative and awe-inspiring, and the general atmosphere of the game is something you'll want to linger in for weeks to come. This game also deals with some pretty mature concepts, which was/is pretty rare in this genre. To me, this game marked the end of the era of adventure gaming. This is the last truly awesome adventure game. Fortunately Telltale Games started some kind of mini-renaissance in adventure gaming, so there's still hope. But to top The Longest Journey, well, let's just say I'm not holding my breath.

Must play! If you enjoy a good story, funny dialogue, memorable characters ;) Progressive before "it was cool" :))))))))