The Longest Journey

And deservedly so. I might be a little biased, however, as I'm Norwegian and the game came with Norwegian voiceacting if you wanted it, and for some reason that elevated the game for me quite heavily. But trying to look at it objectively, it's still one of the finest adventure games out there for several reasons. Let's have a look at them, shall we? Main Character: April, a young student in a somewhat futuristic world, with all the cares and don't cares such a young lass would have. Emphatic and possessing a dry wit, while being capable of both introspection and insightful commentary on her surroundings and situation. It was one of the first games of it's genre where I truly found myself caring for her fate, and for the characters around her. She is astoundingly well portrayed throughout the game, and is the driving force behind wanting to solve every puzzle and continuing the journey, just because you want to help her as much as you can and see how she'll react to the rest of the world she's finding. World(s): The worlds of Arkadia and Stark are fantastically portrayed. Each character and creature you meet are fascinating and are sure to invoke the full range of feelings you are capable of throughout the game, while being wonderfully fitting in each situation you find them in. Arkadia being a lovely dualistic experience between dark and dystopian future, and a bright and cheerful future with delightful "future tech" which just feels natural and in-place. The same goes for Stark, in it's own way. A far more varied experience in itself, it provides everything a fantasy world can conjure up, both in creatures and settings. And they all feel natural and very fitting. Excellently portrayed through the (for it's time) fantastic art. Story and Characters: The story is confusing, there is no doubt about that. After I finished the game the first time, I had to immediately play it again just to get a full grasp of everything that's going on. But there's no doubt that it is masterfully told in a way that always leaves you with a powerful urge to discover more and gain answers to the questions you are constantly asking yourself. Buuuut it's confusing allright. Sometimes you just aren't sure at all what the hell is going on, and for some people that might put them off this game. If you like a good mystery and don't mind it just deepening over your playtime, this is definitely the game for you. The characters you meet and interact with are also masterfully written and portrayed. Anyone who has ever played this game will reminisce with joy about Raven and April's banter and friendship. About that delightful dimwit sweeping the pavement outside the old cinema, or that cliche detective outside the same building. You'll remember the Dragons with a smile, and from there you'll laugh when you recall that crab/shellfish/something thing that communicated entirely through Clicks, and yet gave you that slightly warm and fuzzy feeling when you helped him out. All given wondrous voiceacting, at least in the Norwegian version. I haven't heard the international English version, so I can't speak of that. Gameplay: It's a very simple game, mechanics wise. Point and click, click and combine, rightclick to get up a menu asking if you want to talk/approach/use/pick up something. It's quite simple, in gameplay regard. But the puzzles? They're not simple at all. Some are in fact so non-intuitive that I would always recommend having a walkthrough bookmarked in order to get you past the most frustrating points where you get stuck. When you read the solution, you'll often facepalm and say "of course, why didn't I think of that?", but that's just because the solution doesn't make any sense until you already know about it. The overall flow and puzzle solving in the game works very well, and is both intuitive and sometimes random. But like I said earlier, some puzzles are just mindbogglingly difficult and unintuitive. Don't let that discourage you, though, since these are very often highlighted in any online Walkthrough so you can get help with it without spoiling the rest of the game. Graphics: Weeeell... it's getting old in that regard. The 3D characters in 2D environments can sometimes be a slight chore both to maneuver and interact with, as we're quite simply used to much better these days. Finding out what can be interacted with, and what can't sometimes consists of just moving the mousepointer around to see when it changes into the "You can do something here" mode. For it's day, it was fantastic and without comparison within the adventure genre. But if you never played games from this era, you might want to check out a few HQ vids on youtube or something before you make the final decision on whether or not to buy this. If, however, you're one of the veterans of this era, you are already well aware of the "problems" I'm pointing out here, and you're probably quite adept at handling them. Conclusion: To me, a far better adventure games than even the old Monkey Island series and the DoTT games. The Dig, Full Throttle and so on can't compare, for me. My personal favorite amongst Adventure games, and one that I often find myself installing just to play for a few hours to get that lovely nostalgic feeling. It's worth the money, without a doubt. ... don't ever bother paying for the sequel, though. Adding sneaking and combat into this game universe just didn't do it any favors at all. Biggest disappointment I've had except the time the Console Devtards managed to turn F.E.A.R's gutwrenching horror moments into quicktime events. Buut that's another rant for another time. For now, just know that The Longest Journey is one of the finest games I've ever played, and it's got my seal of approval. Enjoy it. It's never as good as the first time.

This game probably has the best story of any game EVER! Beyond that it is also a very good point-and-click adventure game. I have the steam version and the game looks great if you force Edge-Detect Anti-Aliasing in the Catalyst Control Center, unfortunatly the mouse pointer gets buggy and ruins it, hopefully in this version this is fixed, even if it's not Nvidia user might have better luck. I think the background images are pre-rendered so a lot of them look pretty great for a 8-9 year old game(even without AA), even if you can't use AA and have to play with a blocky April(like me) the game is well worth it definetly one of the BEST $10 I EVER SPENT!!!

The Longest Journey is a point and click adventure game from the end of the nineties. The story starts with an introduction to April Ryan's life. This 18-year-old protagonist is an art student living in a large futuristic city. After wrestling through the seemingly boring but necessary storyline of meeting her friends, visiting her school and realising they're facing with the same adulthood transition problems of present life, the story gets a lote more interesting. Ragnar Tornquist, producer and designer, has shown through this game that he is an excellent storyteller. And although the game is set in the future, you can clearly detect references to today's world. Stark, for instance, devoted to science and technology, could easily be a reference to capitalism, while Arcadia, devoted to magic, is a place that only exists in our dreams and heart's desires. These two worlds, which were once united, are in chaos as the line between the two worlds is growing thin. April soon learns that she can shift between these worlds and that she is prophecised with the difficult task of restoring the Balance between these two worlds before it is too late. The Longest Journey is an original game that has excellent character voices, ambient music, interesting locations and fascinating characters. It's no coincidence that this game made it in the PC Gamer UK's Top 100 games and IGN's top 10 list of point & click adventure games. This GOG.com-game also includes the game soundtrack by Bjørn Arve Lagim and Tor Linløkken, previously available for download via FunCom. Although this game's successor Dreamfall is a much more mature game, you don't want to skip TLJ if you're a real adventure gamer.

I bought this game based on other positive reviews, however it is essentially unplayable under Windows 10. Mouse clicks simply do not work properly, leading to multiple impossible-to-get-around roadblocks where you cannot interact with on-screen items. There is a thread with out-of-date workarounds here: https://www.gog.com/forum/the_longest_journeydreamfall_series/the_longest_journey_mouse_only_responds_half_the_time_at_best Workarounds from that thread; 1. Set ForceSingleBuffer=On: doesn't work 2. Editing the tweak.ini file: partially works. Some areas still remained impassable. Find the part that says: [FloatingMenu] int_MouseOutsideDelay=500 ; milliseconds before the menu is hidden and change it to: [FloatingMenu] int_MouseOutsideDelay=50000 ; milliseconds before the menu is hidden The first click is still bad but after that the menu comes up immediately. 3. Use the latest daily build of ResidualVM to play the game. Partially worked. Subtitles and ToolTips displayed with missing characters. The solution that worked for me: 1. Install using GOG installer 2. Play the game with the latest daily build of ScummVM. Bonus: it upscales beautifully with ScummVM and looks much better than when using the GOG executable. Frankly, this game should be removed from GOG and fixed as in its current form it is simply unplayable.