The Longest Journey

After playing Myst, I caught "the puzzle fever" and played through Riven, Myst 3 and 4, and Obduction. I'm also trying RHEM, but I wanted to try a more story-rich puzzle game. The Longest Journey is critically acclaimed, so... Why not try it? The Good: - I like the main character, April Ryan. She's cheeky, funny, and believable. - The story is off to a strong start. I'd heard it was supposed to be complicated, but it seems quite straightforward and conventional at the moment. - The world designs are great and interesting. The Bad: Many of TLJ's puzzles don't make any sense until after they're revealed, assuming the solution makes sense at all. The Rubber Duck puzzle is, apparently, one of the most notorious amongst all games of this genre, frequently making "Top 10" lists of bad puzzles. Yes, it's that bad. How often players must look up a guide to finish a game tells you everything you need to know about it. I'm not the smartest person in the world, but I'm positive I'm not a dunce. I can proudly claim I can count on one hand the number of times I needed a small hint for Myst, Riven, Myst 3, and Obduction. I can't say the same for TLJ. I'm partway through chapter 3, and I'm quickly running out of patience due to how many times I've had to look up a full walkthrough. Extra: There is also a game-crashing glitch with the police station. GOG's known about it for years and it still hasn't been fixed! Unacceptable! There is a workaround, but you won't be able to figure out what it is for yourself, which is par for this course. Verdict: Don't play TLJ for its puzzles, so, you might as well not play it at all. I will finish TLJ because I paid for it (on sale) and I'm invested in the story. I doubt I will play it a second time or ever recommend it to anyone. You should probaly watch a "Lets Play" video instead. Reading guides to solve a game would be the same as watching someone else play it. So yeah, spend your money on food or gas instead.

The Longest Journey benefited greatly by being released after a long lull of quality adventure games which allowed it to gain more following than it otherwise may have justified. It has a promising premise yet it fails to reach great heights due to simple puzzles with the only occasional difficulty being due to pixel hunts and incredibly dry and monotonous dialog. Still the story progresses satisfyingly and the overal experience is a solid but average adventure game.

I'd been looking forward to playing this game for years and was quite happy to see it appear on GOG.com. Reading all the reviews I was prepared for quite a ride and one of the best adventure games ever made but having finished the game I can't help but feel disappointed. The game's pace is too pedestrian, characters talk way too much - especially non-essential NPCs, puzzles either make no sense at all or are tedious logic solving games. I wish the creators had focussed a bit more on fleshing out the game worlds (hello empty underwater "city") instead of giving fishermen and landlords a script the size of a phonebook. The "unforgettable" story is in fact quite forgettable and the unnecesarily complex background history of the game world is too much to remember. As for originality, the creators have borrowed heavily from Blade Runner, King's Quest, The Neverending Story, Star Wars and the Abyss, but an original game this does not make. Voice acting got on my nerves but luckily there's an option to turn it off. All in all while I'm glad I finally got to play The Longest Journey I can only recommend it to hardcore adventure fans.

The Longest Journey tries its hardest to keep you hooked with typical storyline tropes like vague implication and initially random-seeming events that keep you propelling forward to find out what's going on. Still, these old storytelling tricks can't hide the flaws inherent in many typical adventure games. Obvious moments where some items can be closely examined and others can't, which must mean they can be interacted with? Check. Completely nonsensical combinations of items? Check Moments of "imminent" danger where you're allowed hours to figure out what to do? Check. Completely unrelated and uninteresting fetch quests? Oh holy HELL, check. And then at some point about halfway through, not even the storyline can hide the flaws of this game. You get sacked with an oh-so-hilarious bird sidekick (that's sarcasm, kids), the mythos and storyline of the world you're in becomes second place and lost, and moments of exposition to plug up plot holes drone on and on to the point of exhaustion, which wouldn't be that horrible if the story being told was engaging. Lead character April Ryan's reactions to events were probably the most interesting and "real" feeling part of the game. "Why me? Why do I have to save the world?" ,she asks in exasperation. At some point, me the player began to wonder why as well. And when I took down an enemy with the use of a calculator...I just stopped caring. Sometimes less is more, and no more is this apparent than in the story of The Longest Journey. While adventure games are expected to transport you into a strange and fascinating world, the universe of this game starts off being the first, and finally ends up failing at being the second. Buyer beware.

Let me start by stating that as a Norwegian I'm possibly disqualified to even rate this game and that it was wonderful just to have an adventure game my native language. Even so this game has one of the best stories I personally have experienced in any computer game (It might share the top spot with Gabriel Knight 2). If you're even slightly interested in adventure games you owe it to yourself to play this one.