The Longest Journey is an amazing graphical adventure, where the player controls the protagonist, April Ryan, on her journey between parallel universes. Embark on an exciting and original journey of discovery, where you will explore, solve puzzles, meet new people, face terrifying monsters, learn, g...
The Longest Journey is an amazing graphical adventure, where the player controls the protagonist, April Ryan, on her journey between parallel universes. Embark on an exciting and original journey of discovery, where you will explore, solve puzzles, meet new people, face terrifying monsters, learn, grow, and live the adventure of a lifetime!
Over 150 locations spanning two distinct and detailed worlds
More than 70 speaking characters
40 hours of gameplay
20 minutes of high-resolution pre-rendered video footage
An attaching protagonist full of zest, memorable interactions and locales, fun and varied puzzles (albeit sometimes quirky), great soundtrack, a grand adventures through time and space that's full of curiosities. No other adventure game equals it, the stars aligned for this one. Play it, then replay it every now and then just so that the journey never ends.
I do not usually play adventure games nor do I usually write game reviews... but this game is definitely worth the effort. First of all, I did not play this game when it was initially released, so this is not a nostalgia review.
Long story short: buy this game and you will like it. If you hesitate for some reason, just wait until it is on sale and get it for almost free. Just do not let the graphics fool you. This game is not about bland, “realistic” 3D models like most modern games are, it is about the journey. And the journey is indeed long and interesting. The story line is an outstanding, unique mix of Sci-Fi, Cyberpunk and Fantasy genres.
Every NPC in this game is unique and memorable, every dialogue has a sound and the voice actors did a great job. And the humor is great and used when it is relevant.
Every puzzle is doable and logical. They vary in difficulty of course but even difficult ones are doable. The one about “the eye” (if you know, you know) took me a long time, but still it was doable and logical too.
It is one of those good old games that will take you about 20 hours to complete (not quite long according to the “modern” standards) but the content of this game is so unique and there are so many different events in it that you will feel way more attached to this game and its characters than you do in most bland, modern games that take you 200 hours to complete.
The only problem that I had with this port, was a couple of random crashes after cut-scenes. But reloading the game and skipping a scene, resolved this issue. Everything else worked flawlessly.
This game is really good and I see several people complaining about compatibility issues and outdated graphics. There is a n HD upgrade for this game that works with ScummVM. The instructions for installing the upgraded graphics and playing on Windows 10/11 is also available (It also works on Linux). Search for "The Longest Journey HD" and click on the github link that provides the update files and also how to install it. The base game from GOG is 1.6GB, however with the HD upgrade it is almost 6GB. Playing the game with these upgraded visuals improves the game considerably. I could not find a comment on GOG referring people to this upgrade as this has made the game really enjoyable for me. Hope this helps some other people to enjoy the game.
I really like adventure games and kinda felt like I had missed something, by not buying this when it came out. After all people had been giving 5 star reviews. It does NOT deserve them.
For starters, the main character is annoying as all get out. She is given all this obnoxious cliche-ridden dialogue that we are supposed to find ironic smile at but it just makes me want to gag her.
I prefer logical mechanical-type puzzles, Myst-type code breaking, riddles, and in modern games, physical puzzles to pixel hunting and inventory puzzles. Here the "puzzles", are pretty much exclusively of the latter two types and particularly objectionable because while the plot is serious the actual solutions make far less sense in the real world than even the puzzles of a Discworld game -- which at least had puns to fall back on to explain them.
And finally the plot is delivered through exceptionally verbose dialogue trees that seem unending in their delivery of pointless and repetitive information.
I'm sure the journey would be much shorter if not for all the detours and flat tires, but as it was I turned for home before the end of it.
Go play GOG's three free RPG's instead. Beneath a Steel Sky, Lure of the Temptress, are both solid four star adventures (BSS maybe even a five I'd have to play it again to be sure). And Dragonsphere while rather too easy is worth playing for the well integrated plot.