The Longest Journey

Every so often, you'll read a book, watch a movie, listen to a song, or play a game that sticks with you long after the initial experience is over. This is my experience with The Longest Journey. I first heard about TLJ from an old IGN article listing the best PC games of all time. While I wasn't really interested in adventure games at the time, the screenshots intrigued me. Years later, I rediscovered the game here on GOG and picked it up. This game is beautiful. Not necessarily in a technical way, but artistically. The pre-rendered cutscenes and backgrounds evoke living, breathing worlds. You can imagine just how much more there is just off of the edge of your screen. Couple that with a brilliant soundtrack, and you've got a game that is rich in atmosphere I played this game when I was working on a failed second college degree in my early twenties. I really related to April Ryan's struggles as a young adult trying to find my place in the world. It certainly didn't hurt that she's a charming, well-acted character. Playing this at that time in my life really made it stick with me. There are definite downsides to TLJ. Primarily, the puzzles. Good gravy are they convoluted. I would highly recommend not playing this game blind, but instead using a walkthrough. I personally used the Universal Hint System guide, which drip feeds you only basic information at first, with the option to spell it out for you as well. Try it yourself first, but once you get stuck, don't give up. It's worth it to finish. Another aspect that has aged pretty poorly is the voice acting and writing. April herself is acted well enough, but there are far too many characters whose stilted performances and cheesey nineties writing make it a little hard to stomach. From a technical aspect, this game needs a remaster. It doesn't work particularly well on modern systems. Take a look at the PC Gaming Wiki before you play. I adore this game and hope that April will finish the journey home one day.

The graphics were passable and the voice acting was solid and I must say I really enjoyed the characters and the game was funny at times as well and "Crow" especially added an additional dimention to puzzle solving you don't often see in adventure games. So the game hit most of the curtial elements an adventure game needs to hit so cudos for being adequate in that respect. However that being said the story was hopelessly complicated and extremly confusing, the plot borderlines on unintelligble at times and it's very easy to miss key pieces of information that are just sort of slipped in there. I found myself repeatedly asking myself, "wait who is that again", "What he talking about?" and "I thought that was the other thing" You really do need a Ph.d in plot development to understand what the hell is going on half the time. Still though a very unique game storyboard in any case. Also the game was quite longwinded at times leaving you stuck listening to charaters tell you stories that are both unnessary and honestly quite boring in order to move the game forward only to face a quiz at the end to see how closely you paid attention. Not my idea of a good time and quite lazy puzzle design if you ask me. My overall rating is general disappointment and I would not recommend this game.

The Longest Journey has been one of the seminal influences on me, especially in terms of how I view the world, existence, perception and other philosophical concepts. I played it first when I was in my late teens and it was an eye-opening experience back then. I couldn't believe that someone could write such a story and make it playable; it made me think deep on what I think and believe, and I loved the presentation of the game, the art style and music. However, looking back on it now, I see the gray hair, the wrinkles and the stiff joints. The puzzles are mostly free of moon logic, but they are also a bit simplistic and bare-bone. The writing and the characters are a mixed bag; some are great, like Westhouse, Crow and April, but most of the others are more sketches than characters. Some dialogs are amazing, but some are purely functional. On top of that, the latter part of the game, roughly from the point after the Alchemist's tower, feel a bit rushed compared to the leisurely pace of the early game. That being said, the core concept of the story still holds up very, very well, and has lost nothing over the years. Dualistic beliefs are very old, and people feel them deep down in one form or another, regardless of personal beliefs. The art and music has also held up excellently, and the game can still be a pleasure to play for that reason alone. Voice acting is also excellent, and has no trace of underacting. Having played the rest of the series (Dreamfall and Chapters) I am even more inclined to view this game as its own standalone thing, which has been expanded on a bit artificially. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, plenty of franchises have done it well, including this one (the design problems of Dreamfall notwithstanding). That being said, I can recommend this game to anyone with a tooth for 90s adventure games.

The Longest Journey was an old game when I first played it and that was probably about 6 or 7 years ago. Then and now the graphics don't hold up terribly well, but considering that it was launched in 2000 I'd say it's not that bad. However even now the voice acting, story and dialogue are still fantastic after all this time and it's in these areas that Longest Journey truly shines. Like a good book you can't put down, I was sucked into the story immediately and hardly noticed the time passing until looking at the clock to see that it was the middle of the night. The themes are mature and intelligent, the dialogue extremely well crafted, and the characters believable. I almost feel like I need to exhaust all dialogue options because I want experience all of it and to see what the characters say and do in each situation. It still has faults in the same way that point and click games usually do - the solution for the puzzles are sometimes opaque, or sometimes you know what you need to do but you're pixel-hunting to find where exactly you're supposed to click - but these are problems with the genre and not this particular game. However, there are relatively few of these genre-related problems given how long ago this game was launched. The one glaring problem that may make this game unplayable for some people is the graphics - if you can't stand fairly blocky character models and low-res textures then this may not be the game for you (just check out the screenshots on the store page to get a good idea). Out of all the re-make games coming out, this is a game that deserves an HD remake. Once you look past the aging graphics however, you will be transported to an incredibly detailed world with an inventive mixture of fantasy and sci-fi in this excellent story. 9.5/10

One of the best games of adventure genre. The narrative is epic and captivating. And at the same time not too serious, as April (and other characters for that matter) don't hesitate to notice if some plot move reminds them of something. And remind it shall, as there are a lot of puns and easter eggs. And at the same time the story is well developed and characters show a lot of depth. Each of them has their desires, fears and inner struggle. April most of all. Puzzles are not too difficult and more importantly all fit into the world and the story well. Well, maybe except that "dip candy into ooze". And there are two episodes, that would be much better as QTE, not just April runs around and monster can't hurt her. But nothing is perfect I guess. And btw some people were dissapointed by the ending, but I disagree with them. Ending as it is was really satisfying for me. Because the journey is more important than destination.