the longest journey game review

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The Longest Journey review

New today on EuroGamer is our review of The Longest Journey, a gorgeous looking adventure game which mixes pre-rendered backgrounds and real-time animated 3D models to give you the best of both worlds. Can the story, dialogue and puzzles live up to the promise of the beautiful locations and characters? Read our review to find out!

Also, look out for the spectacular comparison shot showing the effect of even low level full-scene anti-aliasing on the game - FSAA really is ideal for this kind of game, and gives its graphics a whole new lease of life without hampering the frame rate noticeably...

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The Longest Journey

The story and characters are among the deepest and most involved I've encountered in a video game.

Review Platform:

Developer(s), publisher(s).

The Longest Journey is a graphic adventure game for the PC. Like recent console RPGs, it features a complex story with many twists and turns. Unlike a console RPG, however, The Longest Journey focuses more on character interaction and puzzle solving rather than combat, and as we all know, console RPGs tend to be very combat intensive. How refreshing it was to me to play a story-intensive game where fighting did not take center stage.

The story’s protagonist is April Ryan. April is an average 18 year-old girl who studies art at VAVA (Venice Academy of Visual Arts) in the Venice district of Newport City – a very modern 23rd century city. Because of the art school, Venice has a reputation of being a liberal, youthful, happening area not unlike New York City’s Greenwich Village. Having escaped from a turbulent household, April has found happiness in Venice. She enjoys studying at VAVA, and has made some very close friends who care for her like a family.

However, April’s idyllic existence is shattered by the strange dreams she has been having of this lush green fantasy world filled with magical beings like dragons and talking trees. April’s dreams are frighteningly real and she is unsure if they are dreams at all. Through Cortez, and eccentric old man, April discovers that there are two worlds- Stark and Arcadia. Stark is the land of science not unlike our own world. Arcadia is the land of magic. April is a shifter who can travel between these two worlds, and is the only hope the two worlds have against the forces of evil that have reared their ugly heads. The story takes many twists and turns and always keeps you wondering, “What happens next?”

What makes the story so compelling to me is that April is no warrior or mage or anything like that. She’s just an ordinary girl thrust into extraordinary circumstances. She’s as human a protagonist as you will ever meet. Her mixture of skepticism, fear, curiosity, fortitude, resourcefulness, wide-eyed astonishment, a strong will, a great sense of humor, and a stubborn streak thrown in for good measure makes her a very easy character to relate to.

As the wonderfully written instruction manual says “by the time you’re cast into a completely different world – one that’s alien to both you, the player, and to April herself- it will be that much more difficult to adjust” (p.6). If you, the player, feel a bit out of sorts in a strange place, chances are April does too. This makes for a wonderfully immersive feel that few other games truly have.

Admittedly, the story does start out slowly. The first chapter (out of 13) is mostly a series of lengthy conversations between April and all the important people in her life, from the lesbian landlady Fiona, to her best friends Emma and Charlie, to Zack – the biggest jerk one could ever have as a neighbor.

While all this exposition at the very beginning is a bit much to wade through at first, it helps the player care more about April and all her friends. Her world becomes your world. Venice takes on those warm characteristics of home.

But April does not stay in Venice for too long. She explores quite a bit; from the sleazy, crime-ridden areas of Newport City, to the various natural wonders of Arcadia, her travels become yours. As you explore new places, you feel April’s various emotions from apprehension of new surroundings to utter awe at the world around you. You and April meet many colorful characters on your journey, some good and some evil. All are quite memorable and integral to the story. My only complaint with the story is that the last few chapters (chapters 10-13) felt a little rushed. But the story was awesome, nonetheless.

What truly makes The Longest Journey’s story come alive are the voices. All the dialogue is fully voiced and contains some of the best English voice acting I’ve heard in a video game. The voices fit the characters’ appearances perfectly and the actors deliver their lines convincingly. However, there are instances where one voice actor plays multiple roles. Only in two instances is it really noticeable that pairs of characters share a voice. I found Sarah Hamilton a wonderful choice for April’s role. She really brought April to life and I certainly hope to hear more of her work in future games and/or animation.

Of course, the best voices cannot save a game or movie if the scripting is bad. Thankfully, The Longest Journey is wonderfully scripted. The dialogue flows very well, conversationally, and has very few spelling errors in the subtitles. There are grammatical errors, but all are intentional to portray a character’s dialect or manner of speaking. The realistic dialogue adds another layer of immersion to the story. I give much credit to the writers for the wonderful job they did. However, there is a LOT of swearing in the script, as well as sexual innuendo. This game does not have an “M” rating for nothing. I love it, but gamers more sensitive to these things may want to pass.

While the voices are the best part of the game’s overall sound, one cannot overlook the sound effects and music. Music is rarely played in the game, but when it is, it’s great. Usually it’s played during FMV scenes or non-interactive scenes, and it’s of the orchestrated/ classical fare with a lot of brass. What little music exists is well composed and fits the intended scene. However, the melodies are not catchy and you won’t be humming this music in the shower.

As for sound effects, they’re realistic. When something is dropped in the water, it makes a convincing splash sound. When a cabinet falls, it sounds like a cabinet falling. I tended to keep the music and sound effect volume low and the voice volume high when I played. Sometimes, the characters in their realism would speak at low volumes.

So how does all this look? Generally pretty good. The pre-rendered backdrops are a sight to behold. The art and architecture of the various places never ceased to take my breath away. However, I felt that the artists’ efforts were more evident in the magical fantasy backgrounds of Arcadia rather than the dark futuristic world of Stark. I think this was intentional because the player spends more time in Arcadia, and it makes Stark look, well…stark.

The polygon models of the characters are another matter altogether. They don’t look exceptionally good. They are of a higher resolution than, say, Final Fantasy 8, and have some nice facial detailing (such as moving mouths), but have noticeable blockiness and seams during close-ups. Also, when the camera pans really far away, there is a lot of break-up in April’s polygon model. Far away, she becomes an almost invisible blob with a couple of really small polygons to show that she’s there. If there’s anything that could have used some more work, it’s the polygon character models. (If anyone wants to know, I played this game on a 500 Mhz Pentium 3 with a 40x CD-ROM, which is well beyond the recommended system requirements).

There are a few CG FMV scenes scattered throughout the game. These have no voices attached to them. While they have wonderful clarity with no graininess, they are certainly not on par with Squaresoft’s work. The backdrops look stunning but the characters look awful. The character movements in the FMV scenes are quite jerky and almost robotic. And April’s FMV portrait looks drastically different from her in-game model. In-game model April has full curves (best polygon booty I’ve seen on a video game heroine), olive-tinted skin, dark hair, and a cute face. FMV April looks absolutely horrid! She’s scrawny, pale, has light brown hair, and a very anorexic, sickly face. I groaned every time I had to see that sickly looking ‘thing’ that was supposed to be the lovely April Ryan.

Lest I forget that The Longest Journey is a game, I must comment on the gameplay. There’s not much to it. If you’ve played a graphic adventure before, you know the drill. It’s all just point-and-click. Different colored arrows signify different things. A broken arrow signifies a segment where you can’t click anything. A dark blue arrow with a grey border means you can move. A red arrow with a grey border signifies an exit. Click once to walk, double click to run. Either way, April moves slowly, so check off the ‘enable frame skip’ option in the game settings and you can press ESC to skip frames and move April along at a speedier pace.

A light blue arrow that looks like a sword means you can interact with that object. In that case, a bar pops up with an eye and/or hand and/or mouth icon. You can look, talk to, or handle the object/ person. On every screen, it is imperative to keep a watch for these light blue ‘sword’ arrows as those may indicate items you can keep in your inventory.

I love how your greatest tool and weapon in this game is your brain. Progress does not depend on what level you are or what weapons and armor you have. It depends on the player’s logical thinking and how well he/she uses the inventory and/or the environment to his/her advantage. There are a couple of monster battles, yes, but these battles are very scripted. Being the RPG nut that I am, I’d have liked there to be more interactivity in the battles, but the game is great as it stands. After all, the emphasis on the game is not on combat or conflict, but rather using one’s wits.

As with any adventure game, your inventory is your best friend. What may seem like a useless object may turn out to be infinitely useful in a situation you encounter. Sometimes an object is useless by itself, but is useful with other objects in the inventory or useful with something in the environment. Since April cannot die, experimentation is highly encouraged. Click on the chest icon on the top left corner of the screen to access the inventory. Click on an object therein. Then that object becomes the pointer. Drag it over another object in your inventory, or with something in the environment. If it flashes, that means you can use it there. For those like me who are new to adventure games, the ‘flash’ feature and the ‘April can’t die’ feature were a great help to me in figuring out how to get out of the pickles I found myself in.

Another cool icon is on the top right hand corner of the screen. It is the diary icon. When it flashes, April has written something new in her diary. Clicking on that icon will give you the menu screen. In that you can save/load games, change the game settings, view previous FMVs, read April’s diary, or check the conversation log. The diary to keeps tabs on what you’ve accomplished and April’s thoughts on the matter. Oftentimes, a helpful hint may be stored therein. It’s always amusing to read the diary, and I encourage players to do so. The conversation log keeps track of all the conversations you’ve had with people. If you scrolled through a conversation quickly, or forgot what someone said, you can go to the conversation log and re-read what that person said. Again, if you’re stuck, a hint may lie therein. These features are a wonderful asset to the game and I’d like to see features like that applied in more console RPGs.

The only downsides to the gameplay are ease and linearity. I’m new to the adventure genre, and I did not find The Longest Journey all that difficult. The puzzles were integrated very smoothly into the story, but were never abnormally difficult. A few did stump me though, but some trial and error saw me through. Also, I was surprised that the more difficult puzzles were near the beginning of the game, whereas the end chapters had noticeably easier puzzles. Veterans of the genre will find this game a cakewalk.

The game is also very linear. It follows a set path, and you cannot deviate from it much. Sure there are a few instances here and there where you have dialogue choices, but ultimately, the end result is the same. But the story is so immersive and involving that you won’t even notice that the puzzles are fairly simple and that the game is linear.

But after all is said and done, I thoroughly enjoyed this game and highly recommend it. The story and characters are among the deepest and most involved I’ve encountered in a video game. For 25-30 hours, you will be treated to a fantastic journey through the realms of magic, science, and the human spirit. You will be up past your bedtime on many nights to see April’s journey through. This will be an unforgettable journey, so grab your mouse and start clicking.

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Dreamfall: The Longest Journey review

Clumsy combat and adventure games just don't mix.

GamesRadar+ Verdict

The engaging storyline

Jack Angel's voice acting as Wonkers

The plausible puzzles

The half-hearted combat

No plot resolution

Waiting for a sequel

Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.

Imagine a majestic bald eagle soaring through the sky, not a care in the world except for where its next furry meat-snack is coming from. Now imagine that same eagle trying to flap its wings with a brick tied to its talons. That's pretty much how we'd sum up Dreamfall: The Longest Journey - a high-flying adventure that's been weighed down with several unnecessary and awkward fighting sequences.

Dreamfall is a sequel to The Longest Journey , a highly regarded PC adventure game from 2000 that was big with the "point-and-click" crowd of adventure purists. To make Dreamfall more accessible, the sequel travels the action/adventure route in this follow-up.

Well, kinda. Heroine Zoe Castillo can wander her fully 3D surroundings freely, but any interactions with the environment - climbing, chatting, picking up items, even walking up stairs - are triggered only when an on-screen icon says you can do so. It's an interesting departure from the traditional, "3D person walking around a 2D background" system that this genre grew up using.

Dreamfall 's adventure roots are also apparent in your character's Focus Field, a mode that puts your attention on a particular object or person in the form of a big blue beam of light. Its use is only required a few times during the entire game, though; you may forget the mode even exists until you get stuck.

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Packages that include this game, buy the longest journey + dreamfall.

Includes 2 items: Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, The Longest Journey

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Includes 3 items: Dreamfall: The Longest Journey , The Longest Journey , Dreamfall Chapters: The Final Cut Edition

"The Longest Journey is not only the best adventure games in recent years, it's one of the best games ever" - GamesDomain

About This Game

• 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
• Cinematic musical score

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Dreamfall: The Longest Journey Review

• First Released Apr 17, 2006 released

Anchored by a wonderful cast of characters, the very well-crafted sci-fi story in Dreamfall will leave you anxiously wanting more.

By Greg Kasavin on April 18, 2006 at 3:29PM PDT

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey is, first and foremost, a great work of science fiction. Such a complex plot, endearing characters, and imaginative settings and situations are highly uncommon to gaming, or any medium for that matter. Those familiar with the game's predecessor might expect no less, since it's widely considered one of the best adventure games ever made. Judged as a follow-up to a beloved classic, Dreamfall does not disappoint, for the most part. It exhibits the unique attention to detail and terrific presentation that made The Longest Journey so remarkable for its time. But Dreamfall also does an excellent job drawing in new players as well as those fans patiently awaiting this sequel. The actual gameplay is a blend of action adventure conventions, but it clearly isn't the main draw. It's there to help make the story more engaging, and that's more or less what it does. Yet, as impressive as the story is, it ends too quickly to leave you feeling fully satisfied when you finally reach the game's bewildering, enlightening, frustrating, thought-provoking conclusion. Is the journey itself worth your while, though? Absolutely, yes.

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Now Playing: Dreamfall: The Longest Journey Video Review

More than six years ago, The Longest Journey introduced one of gaming's most memorable heroines, a smart and resourceful young woman named April Ryan. April happened to possess a latent ability to "shift" between worlds, from her familiar (yet futuristic) home to a magical place called Arcadia. These parallel worlds of technology and magic had fallen out of balance, and the reluctant April became the key to restoring harmony between the two--but at what cost to her and her friends? At any rate, you don't need to know what happened to dive right into Dreamfall, which is deeply connected to the events of The Longest Journey but doesn't assume you've played or remember that game. If you haven't or don't, then upon finishing Dreamfall, you'll probably want to go back and play The Longest Journey. It's certainly better as a pure adventure game than Dreamfall is, in case you were wondering. Dreamfall doesn't seem to have nearly as many complicated puzzles in it, but on the flip side, that means you can enjoy this story without running into many roadblocks.

It's tempting to go into specifics about Dreamfall's sharply written story. But since playing through the game involved unraveling a convoluted mystery, it's best not to spoil anything. Suffice it to say that you spend much of Dreamfall playing as Zoë Castillo, a bright and attractive young woman who's not unlike April from The Longest Journey, only she's a little less cynical and she's got a lovely British accent. Zoë seems like she has it all--a high-tech room with an incredible view, a good-natured and understanding dad, and even a gentle-hearted, artificially intelligent monkey robot. But she's seen better days. She's living at home with her father, trying to decide what to do with her directionless life, having dropped out of school and recently broken up with her longtime boyfriend. She's still on good terms with her ex, though, and one day, he asks her for what seems like a small favor, for help with a story he's working on for his editor. From that point, a chance encounter sets in motion an epic series of events that'll send Zoë all across the globe, and beyond.

Zoë is a great character who's likable, charming, and sympathetic almost right away. And she'll get to meet lots of other similarly interesting characters during the course of her adventure, including some whom Longest Journey fans should recognize. The dialogue between all the different characters flows naturally, and superbly done voice acting, along with expressive 3D characters, makes all the conversation (and there's a lot of it) the highlight of the game. Dreamfall earns its M rating through a little bit of ribald humor and some profanity that's used very liberally by certain characters, and yet applied with restraint overall. For instance, you'll hear Zoë cuss in situations in which you'd expect almost anyone her age to react the same way. She leads an outstanding ensemble cast of characters, but they're not to be outdone by Dreamfall's wonderfully imaginative locales. Few games can muster up a cohesive science-fiction setting or a believable fantasy world. Dreamfall pulls off both at once, tying them together in some mind-bending ways. This is some seriously virtuoso storytelling from Longest Journey writer/designer Ragnar Tørnquist. There are so many inspired little touches all throughout the game that it's hard not to get swept up and emotionally invested in everything that's going on.

That's why it's all the more disconcerting that the game ultimately leaves so many loose ends untied. The story seems well within the author's capable control as it unfolds, intensifies, and deftly changes tone, but then it hurries to a close, practically with a nudge and a wink. Some room for continuation and interpretation can be a good thing for a story, but in Dreamfall's case, the game doesn't do as good of a job wrapping everything up as it does introducing multiple layers of conflict in the first place. In the end, you'll be left wishing for a sequel, wondering what this game could have been like had it simply been longer. It's almost painful not knowing the full breadth of what ends up happening to all these fascinating characters and this amazing world (or, worlds).

The Longest Journey was a point-and-click adventure game, whereas Dreamfall plays more like an action adventure game, letting you directly control the character as you explore and run around in detailed 3D landscapes. There's a little combat, which is easy and very basic. There are a few inventory puzzles and other fairly simple puzzles that take the form of hacking or lock picking. There are a number of environmental puzzles and a few stealth sequences. And, other than that, there's a whole lot of character interaction. Some dialogue sequences prompt you to decide how your character will respond--such as confrontationally or apologetically. These bits make the exchanges of dialogue that much more engaging, though as difficult as these decisions may be when they arise, they usually bring you to the same result.

To the game's credit, a number of its puzzles are open-ended enough to let you solve them in a few different ways, such as by sneaking past a dangerous situation, talking your way out of one, or fighting for your life. But overall, there just isn't a ton of actual gameplay in Dreamfall. Especially at first, both the action and the puzzle solving take a backseat to dialogue and exploration. And yet, strangely enough, this works to the game's advantage. The one or two times you might get stuck trying to figure out the solution to one of the game's tougher puzzles will be when you realize how refreshing the brisk pacing of the story is for the most part.

The game controls quite well. The camera can get a little awkward in tight quarters, but since there aren't many action sequences, this is almost never a liability. Numerous objects in the environment become highlighted as you approach them, and you can also examine them from afar. Your character's initial observations about a given object may reveal more information, prompting you to take a closer look. Or, similarly, you might observe new things about someone after having spoken at length with him or her. Better yet, since Zoë isn't the only character you'll get to play as in Dreamfall, it can be really rewarding to visit the same places from different perspectives. In one remarkable little moment, your control shifts between two different characters conversing with each other, effectively letting you direct both sides of the discussion. Also, while you might initially find yourself wishing you had access to a map, none of the game's areas are so expansive as to require one. You'll sooner appreciate being able to explore all these places at your own pace while soaking in the detail.

The differences between the PC and Xbox versions of Dreamfall are slight. On the PC, you've got your choice of keyboard, mouse, or game pad controls, or a combination of all three. Mouse-and-keyboard controls are fine, but gamepad controls are best suited. The PC version is capable of looking substantially cleaner and more colorful if you've got a good graphics card, but the Xbox version looks really nice, too. Each version supports widescreen displays, and something about this game makes it beg to be played in a panoramic view. While there are some blurry textures here and there, and the character models aren't made up of a relatively huge number of polygons or anything, the game more than makes up for this with its inspired, stylized visual design. The scenery throughout looks beautiful, and the characters emote believably--not only through good lip-synching but also through believable facial expressions and body language.

But the audio in Dreamfall is really the driving force behind the game's dramatic impact. The quality (and quantity) of the voice acting is terrific, and the game's soundtrack is filled with memorable and varied compositions, including a few soulful songs, and it cues up perfectly with Dreamfall's many poignant moments. Like some great score for a feature film, the music in Dreamfall is an integral part of the experience from start to finish.

Despite the far-flung premise of Dreamfall, the game touches on a number of classical themes. The importance of faith, the significance of dreams, the value of trust, and the need to be free are all woven into a story that runs the emotional gamut from excitement and intrigue to sadness and fear to relief and hilarity. Sound too good to be true? In some respects, unfortunately, it is. In the end, Dreamfall leaves you hanging. It practically pulls the rug out from under you, after setting you up to expect some sort of amazing grand finale. And to an extent, this undermines the experience leading up to that point. The game is of a decent length and will probably take you about 10 hours to finish the first time, but you'll feel like there was enough material left on the cutting-room floor for at least another five hours or so. It's also a bit of a shame that there are no extras, not even some unlockable concept art or anything like that. But you'll likely feel the urge to play through at least once more, since you'll miss some of the dialogue and subtle references the first time, and gain new insight into the story on the second run. Above all, you'll likely be left hoping that Zoë Castillo's and April Ryan's story will continue past this game, and soon.

• Leave Blank
• An incredibly provocative sci-fi story filled with many memorable characters
• Beautiful presentation, featuring fantastic voice acting and musical score
• Dialogue prompts you to make some tough, interesting decisions
• As rich as it is, the story leaves you wanting much more
• Simplistic combat, not much challenge

About the Author

Greg Kasavin

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The Longest Journey

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Critic Reviews add missing review

Average score: 88% (based on 52 ratings)

Player Reviews

Average score: 4.2 out of 5 (based on 213 ratings with 17 reviews)

Fan tribute to a dying genre

The Good When Longest Journey appeared on the stage, it generated a small sensation among adventure fans. Made by a Norwegian developer hitherto focused on console games, it was quickly proclaimed a modern masterpiece, and was frequently mentioned in speeches as argumentation against those who have condemned the genre to death. So, is it really that good? And, more importantly, can it save the adventure genre?

My opinion is that it is a nice game, but certainly not one that can compete with the classic offerings of Legend , Sierra , or LucasArts .

The game is firmly rooted in the existing traditions of adventure-making, most notably echoing the tendency of merging old-school inventory-based gameplay with serious settings and strong, emotionally charged plots rich in lore and characters. As everyone know, Gabriel Knight truly started that trend, and is rightly regarded as a milestone for that. Longest Journey was clearly influenced by that game, as well as perhaps the more recent Grim Fandango , which it resembles in overall structure and aspirations.

The journey is indeed long. The game has a linear story with rather frequent changes of locations; but each area is appropriately large, usually consisting of at least several interconnected screens you can explore. Longest Journey takes you to many interesting places, and it keeps up a good pacing, neither precipitating events and rushing towards the end, nor sticking too much to the same location. The game world is generously designed: there is a variety of indoor and outdoor locations, and most of them are interesting to visit. There are a dozen or so chapters, each focusing on a particular event or task needed to fulfill in either of the two worlds the game is set in. The considerable length of the plot reflects the game's premise of an epic adventure.

Perhaps the most appealing aspect of the game is the new world it creates. The central idea of the story - the conflict between science and magic - may not be very original, but it is executed with love and attention to detail. The concept of allowing a normal, ordinary girl to catch a glimpse of a world she had no idea about, making her gradually unravel the truth about it and herself, works here just like it should. Like April Ryan, you discover a new world, surprised by everything you see. The larger part of the game is set in that "other" world, and the feeling of magical, wondrous exploration of the unknown is captured very well.

The developers weren't stingy with material: the game contains loads of information about the world, its history, its characters and concepts, and so on. It's true that the dialogues can get too dry and overly informative; but it is admirable that the designers wanted to cram as much lore as they could into them. In that way, Longest Journey is similar to role-playing games: its star is the universe itself rather than its characters or even concrete events constituting the game's story.

Longest Journey is a beautiful game. Most backgrounds are exquisitely detailed and ooze atmosphere. The Norse love of vast, majestic landscapes serving as potential battlegrounds for an upcoming confrontation between forces beyond our imagination is strongly manifested in this game. It is interesting to note that, although the nature in the game can hardly be called lush or exotic, some of the backgrounds convey an almost mystical, appropriately otherworldy feeling, mesmerizing in their somewhat cold beauty, reminding of pure and transcendental things lost to the futuristic world of soulless skyscrapers and high-speed transportation. The Bad The gameplay of Longest Journey is archaic. What's worse, it doesn't really fit the game's ambiance and story. Most puzzles are taken directly from classic comedy adventures of the past (most notably LucasArts' works) and are out of place in this seriously-minded and only mildly and very sporadically humorous game. Predominantly unrealistic and artificial, the game's puzzles involve sterile and awkward inventory item manipulations. They may not be as offensive as their infamous contemporary cat mustache , but they aren't as amusing as that one, either. Besides, this game doesn't have investigations, computer research, or other challenging activities besides inventory combinations and a few isolated logic puzzles.

Some of the inappropriately nonsensical, contrived tasks are at odds not only with the tone of the game, but also with the situations it puts the player in. For example, infiltrating a police station by means of a ridiculously labored concoction ruins the tension of the moment and the seriousness of the event. The game also has a few scenes where the heroine is in mortal danger; yet the ubiquitous "no death" policy turns them into unbecomingly serene affairs. Contrary to popular opinion, I don't think that LucasArtian device was the ultimate cure to the problems of adventure games. I believe that Sierra was on the right track creating potentially dangerous situations for the player instead of holding his hand all the time. This game, in particular, would have benefited from that design philosophy.

Much of the time here is spent on conversations with other characters. Unfortunately, they tend to drag quite a bit. Serving mostly as containers of background information necessary to understand the game's complex story, these dialogues can get very long-winded, often slowing down the game's tempo to a crawl. There are no close-ups on character faces during conversations, so you'll have to just read and occasionally click on a line to trigger the next batch, without having the feeling of really participating. The writing is good, but lacks personality and that extra treatment that made the classics of the past so inimitable. The Bottom Line Longest Journey is neither the savior of adventures, nor the innovative, groundbreaking game it so wanted to be. In fact, as an adventure game, it's just above average, falling short of the past greatness it passionately strives to imitate. It can't resurrect the ailing genre, though it does make its agony less painful.

Windows · by Unicorn Lynx (181773) · 2016

Great Adventure Game

The Good Likeable main character, nice art and backgrounds, plenty of interesting dialogue and immersive gameplay. The puzzles border on the simplicistic but are consistent with the setting and don't feel forced. The plot is nothing new but moves along smoothly despite being unoriginal. Streamlined and unobtrusive interface that rarely gets in the way. Great Introduction and first part, with very high production values. The Bad 3D characters lack polygons and don't look very great against the 2D backgrounds, especially in close-ups and cutscenes (that are few, blocky and poorly done). Some of the characters share the same voice actor (that does a poor job of trying to alter his voice) and some sections seem rushed (especially towards the end) with too few locations/things to do. The final part and ending seem hastily done (like the publishers wanted to get the game out of the door asap). The Bottom Line A great addition to the adventure games genre and a very engrossing experience.

Windows · by Paolo Cumin (11) · 2005

Perfect for the genre.

The Good I liked the puzzles. They made sense and were just my difficulty level. I played at the same time as a friend so we both did about half the solving. The graphics are cool. I have never played a game like this. The Bad Sometimes the puzzles are extra hard. I had to turn off the speakers sometimes so Mom didn't hear the swears (long story). Some things were picked up and never used. I'm sure you know how that can be. That's about it. The Bottom Line A long adventure. Nice story. Hard,but fun. If you haven't played it, It's a classic of the genre. If you have, it's a great thing to give to a friend: or play it again in five years.

Windows · by Meg C (6) · 2004

The most involving story of any computer game, ever.

The Good This is one of those rare games that can be described as a work of art. Visually stunning, emotionally involving, well-acted and well scored with great dialogue. Wildly imaginative, at times hysterically funny and at times bordering on the profound. The Bad The dialogue is terrific but there's a bit too much of it. How long can you stare at a static screen listening to very long conversations? And it has the amnesia problem common to many adventure games as the main character asks people she's known for months the sort of questions you ask people when you first meet. Oh, and the folk tales in it are all dull. The Bottom Line This game is like a novel, completely immersive and involving. You never want it to end.

Windows · by Charles Herold (3) · 2000

LONG, beautiful, but dated adventure game.

The Good The Longest Journey has beautiful visuals, a good soundtrack, and a decent plot. It's a good solid point-and-click adventure and one of the only good 3D adventure games out there. The Bad The game is dated. The character models are very pixelated when blown up on my widescreen 22'' monitor. The dialog can get very long and tedious. The puzzles can be frustratingly random and hard. April Ryan, the main character, is a sarcastic whiny teenager. The Bottom Line I would recommend this game to others if they enjoy adventure, but would hope that this game gets remade to the standards of it's sequel Dreamfall.

Windows · by hvrsd hvrsd (1) · 2007

One of the most original adventure games ever made

The Good Well, everything: the plot, the music, the atmosphere, the puzzles, the voice acting (at least on the original, Norwegian version which I played) - it's all done so well that its downstraight impossible for me to complain! The Bad No complaints, sire! The Bottom Line After that you have played the game, you are left with the feeling of wanting more; not becouse of dissatisfaction, but becouse it was such a great adventure it seemed more of an experience then a game - which I wish it was.

This is not a game - but a rare interactive artwork. If you are an adventure gaming as myself: this game is your cup of tea.

"The Longest Journey" has pushed the envelope of adventure gaming further, and is one of those rare and unique games that will leave a lasting impression.

In my book: this is the best adventure game ever made, and I heartly recomend it if you are an adventure gamer looking for a game with splendid plot, excellent atmosphere and top-notch everything.

Windows · by Stargazer (99) · 2003

Great game, tough far from perfect

The Good Gee, where to start? The Longest Journey is a great game, its overflowing with creativity and originality, its got a great epic storyline and it's got tremendous production values. Graphically speaking the game is stunning, even on a 16-bit video card the game looks amazing, with some gorgeously drawn backgrounds with very well blended polygonal characters on top. Great sound and music complement the artwork, and the fmv cut scenes are no slouches either (tough the character animation there is somewhat awkward).

Technically the game is great, but it's the creative side of things that make it a winner. The story is great, rivaling the "epicness" of the Final Fantasy games, and without the need to add cheap melodramas. But the characters are outstanding, the entire cast is excellently developed and backed by a superb voice acting , especially April. And speaking of April, she has got to be the best female character ever to grace a videogame, bar none. She's neither the kick-ass babe/femme fatale type that is so popular nowadays on PC games (Tanya, Lara, etc.) nor the "Touching" type so popular in console games (Square, hello??). She's a complex yet down to earth and genuinely interesting character, with a very cynical personality. In fact, she's almost like a more humbler, less-stereotyped version of Daria, and I found myself laughing and smirking at April's sarcastic and often feminist remarks and observations. A feat I am unable to perform when watching MTV's snobbish/ stereotyped female star.

The interface too is refined with a nice pop-up menu for actions and a feature that makes your pointer blink whenever the action you want to perform (with an item) is possible, saving you the hassle of going through those annoying "can't do this" messages.

A great story and characters coupled with tremendous production values! You couldn't possibly go wrong here, could you?? well... The Bad I have a series of gripes with this game, first of all it's buggy, something which I cannot understand given the "on-tracks" linear nature of adventure games, seriously, I suffered it all on this game, even the dreaded Police Station bug (tough thankfully there's a patch for this one).

Second and more important: dialogue. Oh god the dialogue! it's so good, and so well acted....yet it's made sooooo utterly looong and booooring. You watch the characters talk and talk from the same static faaaaaar view every single time. Why was this made so? couldn't they at least make some close-ups pop up with a generic background? I'm not expecting a cinematic treatment like in Gabriel Knight 3, since there is no 3D environment here, but c'mon! Plus it's made more boring by the lack of interaction, Planescape: Torment is a game with at least twice as much dialogue as this one (and not voiced-over mind you) but it's never made boring because the dialogue is selected by YOU, even if to just say ok, or a-ha. On TLJ you select your dialogue too, but just the starting subject/query, so you click on an option and Wham! 1-2 minutes of conversation go by without any involvement of your part at all.

This has a bigger impact on game play than you think, since a lot of the puzzles in the game are simply talked trough. That's right, you'll find as you advance the game that the ratio of item/logic-puzzles vs. talking "puzzles" goes down, and hits an all time low on say...the Alatien village. Picture this: you have to prove to a guard that you are the "Windbringer" and to do so you must prove your knowledge of 4 ancient stories. What do you do? you embark on a quest to find the stories? you face a deduction puzzle were you have to make up the stories? nope. You just go around the village and ask the villagers to tell you the stories. yup. And yes, they are LOOOOOOOOONG, and you must listen through 5 minutes each (at least, tough they seem like 30-40 minutes each actually) just so you get the right options to answer when you are questioned by the guard.

This also brings me to another thing: the game's too easy. Period. The few puzzles around are rather easy to figure and most of the time involve Fed-Ex puzzles, and as you can see from the example above much of the game's bulk is made of knowing when to talk to the right person. The Bottom Line Essentially The Longest Journey is a tremendous gaming experience, but not a memorable adventure game. When I think of TLJ in terms of the story and characters, I think of it as a masterpiece of creativity, but when I think of it as a game all I can think of is of an easy adventure which required a LOT of stamina to endure.

Windows · by Zovni (10504) · 2001

Spread your legs!... AND DO THE MONKEYYYYY!!

The Good (In order to illustrate critical points, this review contains some spoilers for portions of The Longest Journey . You have been warned.)

The Longest Journey is an innovative approach to a genre that desperately needs a breath of fresh air. It's a story about storytelling itself, and more specifically about the very genre of adventure, with a clever device (April's diary) that allows the game to get away with using most of the old adventure cliches (saving the world, collecting a set of jewels, always running errands for everyone), while simultaneously poking good-natured fun at them.

From an audiovisual standpoint, TLJ is a beautiful piece of software. The story is rich, detailed, and LONG, with many conversations spanning as much twenty or thirty minutes. Opinions on this vary, and it will definitely bore players who hate conversation-driven games (not to mention looking at the same screen for any length of time), but I personally felt the extra time and attention to detail in April's world, and the people she knows, created emotional involvement that paid off big-time in the game's second half. The fantasy landscapes are gorgeous to look at, and give something to take in as you're listening to the characters talking. Also, all the conversation delivers a long play time, without forcing players to spend it all solving puzzles and constantly getting stuck.

As an adventure protagonist, April shines. She's extremely easy to like, funny and friendly, and pleasant to listen to (a absolute must since she carries the bulk of the game's dialogue). Not to mention she's a lot more... how I say?... realistically proportioned than, for instance, Lara Croft.

The game is easy to get running, even on older machines. There are no big system-limitation problems, no 64MB AGP accelerators required, and you have the ability to turn off the fancier features and still be able to enjoy the game. (I definitely recommend doing the full 1GB install, though, if you can afford the space.) The Bad (LAST CHANCE to avoid the spoilers!)

The rest of the voice acting is good overall, never stiff, but sometimes the game's situations give the canned responses an awkward feel. For instance, when Emily gets shot and April escapes the clutches of the Vanguard, she doesn't know whether her best friend is dead or alive. It should be a very emotional moment, but have April examine her clothes at this point and she points out how, "ARRRRRR, matey!" she looks like a real sailor. Also you still get the "identical voice" effect from having a small cast playing a large number of characters, to the extent that some of them sound very much alike. (Toward the end, with each new character that was introduced, I was able to easily identify the other voices played by the same actor.)

Some of the puzzles and situations are thoroughly contrived, and this doesn't mesh well at all with a story that tries so hard to be original and serious. Take the police station in Stark, for instance: April manages to get into a restricted area because the electronic doors JUST HAPPEN to be broken that day. Then she's able to bypass the retinal scanner because one of the cops on the force JUST HAPPENS to have an artificial eye. Then she's able to get his password because she finds out it's based on his wife's birthday, and she's able to bring up the subject because it JUST HAPPENS to be the very next day. Yrrrrghhh...

The interface itself is occasionally inconsistent. Sometimes you get all the info you need when you examine something the first time, and sometimes it takes you two looks before you see what's really important. To give an item to a character, sometimes you click the item then click it on them, and sometimes you have to talk to the character and choose the line of dialogue that indicates you have the item. In the case of Crow, you click on HIM, then click him on the object you want to use him with. It wouldn't have been so hard to implement multiple methods of achieving the same end. There are also a couple of Myst -ish puzzles, Ancient Mysterious Objects (TM) that must be manipulated in the right way to accomplish something. I've never enjoyed this sort of puzzle, personally.

Inevitably, as with all adventure games, there are points where you run out of options, get stuck, and resort to the "click everything on everything else" method to find the one thing that works that you somehow missed. And this means not understanding the solution until after you've arrived at it. Case in point: I tied the clothesline to the clamp and attached the inflatable duck with no idea why I was doing it, except that the game was letting me. It's only after I noticed the key in the subway that I suddenly had a use for the previously purposeless contraption I'd constructed.

Worst of all, TLJ still suffers from the adventure gaming "broken record": You can talk to characters as many times as you want, and if you've exhausted all conversational possibilities you'll still continue to get the same "Hi"-"Bye" exchange. If you don't get a timing-related puzzle right on the first try, the game makes the event occur over and over until you do. The biggest offenses here are in the case of Officer Minelli dropping and picking up his synthetic eye before you can grab it, and, even worse, "escaping" the Gribbler in the forest. The Gribbler "attacks" April initially, but never chases her beyond that. She can hide behind the table as long as you let her, and the Gribbler never tries to run around and grab her. Once you realize this, any hope of tension is POOF , gone, and the game's urgent music becomes ludicrous. (On the other hand, I do realize that "dying" in an adventure is politically incorrect these days, that people hate "save-and-restore" puzzles. I have yet to see a game that walks this thin line successfully.)

And, once you're completely finished, the game doesn't have much replay value. While the lengthy dialogues weren't hard to sit and listen for me, I currently have no desire to back through any of it, and probably won't for a very long time. The Bottom Line Hmm, reading back through the above, it seems to give the impression that I didn't like The Longest Journey . On the contrary, I found it stylish, compelling, and a definite must-play for any adventure fan, though still flawed. Though its story is a solid piece of fiction, I felt it was lacking a few things that would have made a truly great GAME. While certainly the best commercial adventure game in recent years (since Grim Fandango ), The Longest Journey still doesn't do much game-wise that's truly innovative, or to revive the fading genre of pure adventure as a whole. But it should give adventure holdouts faith to keep waiting for the next great game (possibly the just-announced sequel), and maybe that one will succeed.

Windows · by Ye Olde Infocomme Shoppe (1674) · 2002

Blade Runner meets Final Fantasy

The Good The Longest Journey (1999) was released during an era where many companies were either giving up on graphic adventure gaming entirely or attempting, with mixed results, to resemble the more action based play mechanics of Tomb Raider or Resident Evil. This is why everything about this game is not only amazing, but, for many older gamers, a retro ride down memory lane. The game features incredible animation, graphics, sound and music. The point n' click interface is easy to use and other user-friendly touches are added, like the ability to replay video sequences or toggle between text and or voice. The look and feel of the game shows influences of Blade Runner and Final Fantasy while adding its own creative perspective. Not many other graphic adventure games have been able to smoothly blend science fiction and fantasy as this game does. Nor do many games feature a strong female hero or positive depictions of gay and lesbian people. The game does feature some adult content, but it's used to help further the storyline and not simply to cover up the game's flaws or to push people's buttons. The Bad If I had a complaint about the adult content, it would probably be the suggestion that, as a child, April was abused by her drunken father. While it is handled well and helps define April, it is rebuked near the end of the game. Some of the attempts at comedy, seem a bit odd. For example, it does not really make sense that, in the distant future, rapper Tupac Amaru Shakur is hanging out in police station or that one of the most popular television shows is MacGyver 2200. The game also has a few, mostly fixable, bugs. The Bottom Line The Longest Journey is one of the last, great point n' click graphic adventure games. It combines some of the best science fiction and fantasy themes with its own original ideas. Its graphics, music, sound, voice talents, control and comedy are all praise worthy. The game deals with some interesting and thought provoking concepts related to art, philosophy, time, history, personal identity, cultural diversity, social class, sexism, sexual orientation, coming of age, child abuse, drug addiction, and human right. It's not a game for kids or adults who are uncomfortable dealing with these sorts of concepts in a game.

Windows · by ETJB (428) · 2010

Somewhat long and boring, but a fun game nonetheless.

The Good Adventure game fans rejoice! The genre isn't dead!

The Longest Journey certain is the "longest" journey I've played. badum-chink! Ahem.

The game is played through a point-and-click method with a pre-rendered background. Similar to Grim Fandango, in many ways, as well as a number of other adventure games dating back to Sierra's golden age in the early 90s, there's nothing so new to the interface that will leave anyone confused.

The graphics are beautiful, especially the pre-rendered backgrounds. There is amazing scenery throughout the game, from the beautiful areas in the near-future Venice to the colorful island with the snoring giant, to outer space, every part of the game you visit is eye candy. The character models aren't that bad, either.

The story I didn't care for - I'll explain why in the "bad" part - but the setting of the human world I love. It's a solid setting. It's in the near-future, with flying cars and other cliche'd sci-fi elements, but it's not so overly done to the point where it's not at all believable.

You'll fall in love with the characters in this game. My favorite part about the "adventure" game genre is that it's less of a game and more of an interactive movie. The characters in this game are all great, with great voice-acting and unique personalities. April, the talking crow, the sailor, the guy at the cafe, each character, those that had a large part and those that didn't, have a place in the story and I'll miss'em.

The game is four discs long, and it is a loooooong journey. Depending how much you like the game, you'll be spending a long time with it. The puzzles are pretty hard, and can take some work to solve.

The game is filled with lots of humor, and after you beat it you can access outtakes and other extras. THAT is a great thing, and more games should do that. The Bad Allright, the story is just dumb. The premise of the story - girl dreams of a world, finds out the world is real, goes and saves the universe - has been done before, but it's still a nice idea. Unfortunately, like far too many games of every genre, you can't progress anywhere in the story until you finish running errands for EVERYBODY. It's not the case in every part of the game. In fact, most of the things you do in the game have to do with the story - like placing the monkey in the garbage to fool the guard so you can sneak into the building or something - but there are way too many times when you have to get help from a certain character, but they won't help you until you do them a favor, which leads to another, and another, and another, and another until you've almost forgotten why you needed the guy's help in the first place.

Some of the puzzles aren't very practical at all. Also like most adventure games, every puzzle has but one sollution and there's no other way around it. It's up to you to solve the puzzle, but you can't do it in a practical way. Like, say, you have to fix a broken electrical wire in the subway. Call a technician? No, you have to use a rubber duck (this is actually a part of the game, though I can't remember exactly how it went about). How do you get the rubber duck? You throw gum out the window...maybe in the end, the idea works (use the rubber to ground the electricity or something), but who would ever think to do the things that get it done in the first place?!

At one point of the game, you have to hear a bunch of stories. Allright, now I'm fine with playing a long game that has a lot of different stories to be told, but I'm not up for sitting down and waiting for an hour while a bunch of bird-people tell me about their history. It's a vital part of the story to hear these stories, too.

The entire story of the game, while executed poorly, was good enough to get you by until the very end. Toward the end, the story just went "kaplooey" and left me pretty damned confused.

April is too ditsy to really be taken seriously. Ever. I wouldn't trust her to take care of my cat, let alone two universes.

The FMV cinematics are awful. The in-game characters looked more realistic than April did. In the cinematics, she looks like she has two black eyes and just got beat up. The animation doesn't seem as good as the in-game animation, either, which is pretty dumb. The FMV is there for dramatic effect, but with a little less effect and better animation, it could have been done in-game and produce the same thing.

There's a race in the game that doesn't live on the same "plane of time". Oh shut up. If it could tell the future, it would have been useful to tell me how I end up solving the damned puzzles. The Bottom Line Despite my ranting, as an adventure game it is fun. The story's kind of annoying, but the characters - especially the crow - are great. The graphics are wonderful and you'll spend hours and hours in this game. If you're an adventure fan, get it. If not, save yourself the aggrivation.

Windows · by kbmb (415) · 2002

The Good Really strong start, April soon starts having strange dreams which begin to manifest themselves in reality; the everyday life of an art student in 2209 Venice gets very strange. The story is good, there's two realms, Stark, a futuristic version of our own and Arcadia, a realm of magic and prophecy.

The game is pretty arty, the lead Character April Ryan is after all an art student, as a result there are detailed and often very beautiful backgrounds. The voice acting is pretty decent, good job for the lead character, and is often very funny. The game has a gritty atmosphere, especially in the futuristic setting, expect plenty of swearing, one character swears nearly every other word, but it's nearly always in character.

I won't go into the story too much, which I think is the games greatest strength, but The Balance, The Guardian, Shifting, Alltounge, the Vanguard and the Sentinels will all become very familiar. A fantastical story is delivered with a realistic edge. There's lots of dialogue, great storytelling, you'll learn about the history of the characters you’ll meet along the way. A few of the people you'll bump into - Brian Westhouse, the whiskey drinking and panama hat wearing chap you meet in Arcadia who's actually from your own world, there's Abnaxus, who exists in all times and places and has terrible trouble with his tenses, your best friends and fellow students from Venice, Charlie and Emma, and the three forest dwelling stick men.

Bar what seemed to be an incomprehensible solution near the beginning the puzzles mostly make good sense. The Bad Conversations can drag out a little too long on occasions.

Near the end of the game there's the odd encounter which is very easy to solve and doesn't really seem to fit with the game. The Bottom Line A very enjoyable experience, the story and world(s) really drew me in.

Windows · by Jack Lightbeard (2685) · 2007

If only it were the Never-Ending Journey

The Good I love practically everything about The Longest Journey. The quest is one as engaging as those of JRR Tolkien. The characters are great, especially your unofficial sidekick/comic relief, Crow, and the chronologically-omnipresent Abnaxus, whose lack of time perception makes conversation interesting. "I will. I did. I invite you to my home...my home was in the Marcuria city green and you will find it in the morning...I am explaining everything and you understood"

The pre-rendered background scenes are beautiful. Arcadia looks like a Yes album cover, and Stark looks like something from Blade Runner. The 3D models of the characters react well to their environment, especially in terms of lighting. The inventory system is the mostly-standard "Big-box-o'-stuff" that most adventure games use, and when you pull an item from it and use it something, the icon of the selected item flashes as you move it over your target to verify that your attempt is valid. This ereases some of the tedium of trying to figure out what item you should be using, and eleminites entirely the annoying "I don't really want to do that." type dialogue that accompanies an incorrect item usage. The Bad Several people have said that the dialogue is too lengthy, but the story is one of the pillars on which this game relies, thus long dialogue is an asset. My only gripes are that the ending leaves you wanting more, and the language is a little coarse, with no option for filtering it. The former problem is fairly subjective, as a good story SHOULD make you want more, while the latter is problematic only in that it narrows the playing audience, making it inaccessible to those of more sensitive constitutions. The Bottom Line It's not all fantasy, it's not all futuristic, it's not all internal or external struggle, it's all of these things, and even a little more. There's no point at which you really have everything figured out, even if you think you do.

Windows · by MA17 (252) · 2001

Nomen est omen

The Good The biggest boon of The Longest Journey is its world and lore. The story is about two parallel worlds - Stark, the world of science, and Arcadia, the world of chaos - which in itself is not the most original story idea. However, Ragnar Tørnquist obviously spent a lot of time working out every little detail, which makes even the most long-winded exposition dump a delight to hear. I especially like Arcadia, which manages to avoid most usual Tolkien/D&D tropes and offers original races and aspects.

The dialogue writing is only serviceable - they are way too wordy and exposition-heavy - but the characters are still interesting and likeable (at least the ones which are supposed to be). The plot itself is also not especially innovative if you cut out the fluff, but thanks to the lore and characters it always stays fascinating until the surprisingly heart-warming ending. The protagonist April Ryan is not very interesting, but fortunately her excellent voice actor saves the day. The Bad The title The Longest Journey is well-chosen: even for 2000 standards, this is a very long adventure game. Unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. There are various endless long animations which have to be endured over and over again. For example, at one time the player needs to read multiple lore books in a library and the librarian takes almost a full minute to retrieve a book from the shelf. Many people speak very slowly and overemphasize every single sentence because they are supposed to be profound. The game is full of useless screens which are only present to watch April walk through them frequently. Very slowly of course - and this refers to her running speed. This makes the game a chore to play, even when using the escape key to skip many animations (which has to be enabled in the game options and can skip important sequences if not used carefully).

I usually don't talk about graphics in my reviews, but boy is this game ugly. The backgrounds are pretty, but the characters look like they were directly taken from a grotesque horror movie. Especially the rendered cutscenes are bad, with questionable animations and horrible faces - April looks more like The Nameless One than a teenage girl.

The puzzle design is atrocious. I don't think I need to repeat the famous tale of the rubber duck which proudly even beats the cat mustache in infamy. However, this is only the most prominent example; the whole game is full of stupid puzzles. They make no sense, they don't fit the world and their only purpose is to slow down the game even more. The Bottom Line I loved The Longest Journey back in the day, I really did. I started my replay with the expectation to write a glowing review for one of my favorite adventures of all times. It is a shame it is held down by bad gameplay and its slowness, because the world, the lore and the characters are among the most interesting in adventure game history. Unfortunately I believe this is a game which is only digestible for people who enjoyed it close to its original release and those should probably not ruin their good memories by playing it again.

Windows · by Patrick Bregger (301772) · 2021

Stunning. Absolutely brilliant.

The Good I just finished TLJ, so I'm writing this with a very vivid memory of the game. And the conclusion? The Longest Journey is one of the most beautiful, immersive, spectacular games I've ever played.

The thing that strikes most about TLJ is its unique story; I'll admit I haven't read all that many books in my day, but I've yet to meet a story that's quite as... esoteric as that of TLJ. Somewhat reminiscent of an old favorite of mine, a movie called Flight of Dragons, TLJ manages to beautifully combine a classic fantasy world and a dark, futuristic yet contemporary Earth. The beauty of TLJ is how the writers managed to handle the distinction: Stark and Arcadia, the world of Logic and the world of Magic. The game is absolutely immersive: the open landscape and auspicious landmarks of Arcadia, next to the dark, claustrophobic Stark. Where in Arcadia I felt enthralled and free, in Stark the atmosphere is dark, brooding - as if evil is rampant on every corner... not once did I nearly jump from my seat, not because something surprising happened on the screen, but because the creepy atmosphere made me so nervous a creak or footstep in the house would freak me out.

Add to this the astounding artwork, the variety of settings (futuristic post-industrial world, a fantastic town, underwater city, deserted island and middle-of-center-of-everywhere realm) that are so beautifully thought out and drawn you can almost feel like you're there, spectacular background stories and depth of the game universe, and terrific voice acting to boot - and you've got yourself one of the deepest, most immersive games I've played since Star Control 2 .

If that's not enough, this game has what is quite possibly the single best soundtrack ever to be featured in a computer game, written and perfected by Bjorn Arve Lagim. The soundtrack alone is worth the purchase, take my word for it. The Bad Unfortunately TLJ is not without its flaws, two serious and one minor. To begin with, the game is plagued with bugs. On my machine (AMD Athlon 1GHz, A7V133 and GeForce2GTS) -- and, to my understanding, on most NVidia-based video cards -- the game crashes whenever I try to enter the police station through the front door. Luckily there's another way of doing this, but that's hardly an excuse. Moreover, the game refuses to run at 32 bits per pixel on my machine, resulting in very dithered animation, thereby detracting from the beautiful graphics. And, to top it off, whenever I switch tasks (using Win2k), the 3D textures and alpha become corrupt and I have to restart the game.

That isn't a big deal, but worse is the fact that at least three or four times throughout the game I got stuck because I failed my pixel-searching (specifically, I didn't locate the valve on the machine next to the Boarding House, the light switch in the police station toilettes and another something I can't remember offhand). Also, being a linear game (which, so long as not blatantly obvious a la Max Payne , is not necessarily a bad thing) it happened once or twice that I didn't realize I had to do something before another event occured (for example [ spoiler alert ]: giving the map to Flipper before the pizza appears in the trashcan). That is the only reason I had to use a walkthrough, and I hate using walkthroughs.

The third problem is the fact that towards the end of the game (starting from the sixth episode or so where it's not as apparent, becoming a much bigger issue towards the tenth episode) some puzzles get much, much easier; for example, killing the snapjaw and finding the talisman isn't even a puzzle; neither is getting rid of the Chaos Vortex and helping Adrian fend off Gordon. The fact that monsters like The Gribbler and the mutant at the end don't even give you a run for your money is both good and bad: good because it means you can't die and won't have to reload, bad because it emphasizes the linearity of the game (or rather shouts it out loud).

Finally I'd just like to say that while the above detracts from the game, it by no means makes it unplayable -- just be prepared for an occasional grunting. The Bottom Line An incredible game with a deep storyline, great graphics and incredible music. Recommended for anyone who loves adventures.

Windows · by Tomer Gabel (4536) · 2001

Great adventure until it reaches the end.

The Good | Prelude | Like any other adventure fan, I rushed to get this game after I saw it's potential for releasing interesting vibes and graphical pleasure... although took me a few years longer than I expected. After a full installation of 2+ gigabytes of space and no need for CD-ROM drive, I ran this game to great amazement, I wonder what my face looked like when I saw what I was missing for so long by constantly postponing its getting. It started promising, very promising and very cunning in its own veil of mystery, but it didn't take me too long to realise just how they managed to make a simple wanna-be-epic story out of this game and thus turning the screws into the opposite direction of 'good.'

| And a big + goes to... |

• Promises -- this game doesn't save on promises, it promises more and more by the minute you play it. It builds up your expectation and suspense around you giving you more and more questions for you to satisfy your curiosity... but answers are sparse and occasionally turning very silly. Promises are vast, but expectations dust it fully away.
• Female heroine -- a cute little female ball called April Ryan is one of the most unique characters that ever entered the stage of computer game protagonists, and as well as the story, her aura radiates promises of lots of fun during the gameplay. Sadly, she turns out just to be a little more stupid than any NPC you encounter along the way, ruining many neatly served situations along the way.
• Visuals -- undoubtedly, visuals in this game have no flaws whatsoever, pre-rendered backgrounds feel alive and breathe alive. FMVs that look just bigger if not better are making its way on the scene equally nice, but aren't something to look forward to since game itself creates an amazing graphic experience.
• Language -- vulgar and rather unexpected from a game, but neat fit from the call of reality. Dialogues are vivid and rather pointless, which is what we can hear everyday and that remarkably creates a booster for the atmosphere.
• Text -- there's lots of text, and it's completely voice-acted. One wouldn't expect less from a game that spans across four CDs, though.
• Locations -- this game has various of exotic locations and they're all as tempting as they are beautiful in its might of artwork. Starting location is especially amazing as it looks and feels not giving you the slightest hint of the journey you'll actually have to embark on.
• Mouse cursor -- mouse cursor tends to lighten up whenever you can do something or look at something, or use something on something. This eliminates futile attempts of doing fully nonsense permutations when you are clueless about your next step.
• Original ideas -- idea of actually splitting world of magic and world of science into two different yet connected worlds where people just act normally as they were raised (people from the world of science, like in our reality, would be afraid of something unknown or known as magic) is neatly created with lots of possibilities and... ah, promises. **The Bad** | And a li'l - goes to... |
• Story -- although promising at start, it reaches its peak to something impossible on occasion and utilize its incompetence to create a perfect circle in the end.
• Narration -- the entire story is actually your own narration, or call it story-telling. That automatically creates huge boundaries of possibilities. Perhaps that may not be the case in a game or especially in a work of fiction, but it lets you know some things for sure, like, if you're telling the game, then you certainly won't die anywhere in it, and you know you won't end up doing some prophesied deed or who knows what else you might do outside of those bonds. That sort of point sets a huge drawback on a story and makes possible sequel look even more silly if you will be playing it also somewhere before your storytelling time, or if not then it might seriously screw up the original making them incorrectly connected.
• Music -- although music is what one might call very atmospheric and fits the situations on the plate, there are no rememberable songs even though there are so many to be found.
• Natural selection -- making some bird talk might seem okay if all the other birds and animals could talk as well, otherwise, this just seems incredibly silly. Why would one bird be treated as something more and another as a simple animal.
• Wannabe epic -- this game above all wants to build up to become some sort of epic, and by very trying so it erases most of the means that would make it mucho better. **The Bottom Line** An adventure game that makes a splendid presentation of how you can make a wrong turn even when you're equipped with all the means to create a masterpiece or a classic.

Windows · by MAT (240977) · 2012

Let me be the party popper here and express my disappointment over "The Longest Journey"

The Good The heroine is likable enough, if a bit simple, and the story tries to be epic and universal while also lingering on small human moments. Except for the characters, the graphics are great. There's also a lot of game here. The Bad The main things for a game of this sort are Story and Puzzles, and they both fail. The puzzles are mostly tedious affairs, almost without that magic moment of insight that a good puzzle's solution gives you. The story is clearly not written by a professional. If it followed other amateurly written adventures by adapting the form of a tongue in cheek game, it wouldn't suffer so much for it, but here the plot tries to achieve much more than the writers' skills allow for. It makes a caricature out of the depth and breadth of emotion that it tries to convey. The Bottom Line Most adventurers like this game, so go ahead and give it a whirl. It's large, beautiful and it tries hard. For me, the story was uninvolving and the puzzles just tired.

Windows · by ududy (57) · 2001

"That is so... uncool."

The Good This game is regarded as a minor classic. It put its then-young designer on the map, and became one of the bestselling adventure titles of its era. It certainly has great production values, an epic story, plenty of conversation and plenty to do. Other reviewers do a great job heaping praise on it, so I'll just skip to the next part. The Bad The three basic elements that arguably make an adventure game tick are story, characters and atmosphere. So let's see a rundown.

Story : 'The Thirteenth Floor' and 'The Matrix', two films with a similar basic idea both came out about a year before the game was released, but the 'parallel universes' premise was already considered age-old in the 80's ('Labyrinth', 'Ultima 1-6' etc.). This game turns out to be yet another variation on the theme. Nothing groundbreaking.

Characters and Dialogs : this is a biggie. In terms of classic adventure games, it apparently takes a Ron Gilbert or a Jane Jensen to dream up memorable heroes and supporting players, and this game simply doesn't have what it takes. The characters and their dialogs are either lifeless or even worse. In fact, April Ryan of The Longest Journey may well be the single most irritating protagonist in a major adventure game ever. For me anyway. The author clearly made a grave mistake by turning her both 18 and a bland partygirl. Her incessant cries and whines of ' Duh! ' or ' That is so... uncool. ' along with her overemphasized hipster attitude were probably designed to appeal to, well, fellow hipsters I guess. Monkey Island 1-2 or Gabriel Knight did not resort to similar gimmicks and still drew in quite a fanbase. Guybrush Threepwood in particular was 19 without being annoying. Gabriel Knight was a brooding charmer. Zak McKracken was something of a lonely young bachelor. My point is that if you can't grow attached to the protagonist in an adventure game, your experience goes downhill quick. That's what happened to me here. April Ryan is the kind of vapid-girl-in-tight-pants that I wouldn't want as a steady girlfriend -- and even less so as a heroine in an epic adventure game I intend to play through to the end. She does write a diary throughout the story but the things she writes in it read like bits of throwaway chitchat from some high school party. The diary feature adds no layer of much-needed depth to the proceedings, because April has no layer of depth. In turn, none of her friends or associates are fleshed out either: we get two run-of-the-mill best friends who have nothing substantial to say or contribute at all.

Atmosphere : starts great, goes downhill once I realized the earlier points. In other words, the combined lack of a tight, original story and that of full-blooded, endearing characters result an inevitable lack of a strong atmosphere. The Bottom Line I wanted to like this game, as fans of elaborate and serious-minded old-school adventure games are not exactly spoiled since the late 80's to mid 90's boom of those great LucasArts, Sierra and Legend titles. I think The Longest Journey was a nice try, but I couldn't warm up to its semi-recycled story and especially to its blasé hipster heroine. So it's purely up to personal taste. Your mileage may vary, especially if you regard yourself a hipster, I suppose. Deck tassel, cronkite .

Windows · by András Gregorik (59) · 2011

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The Longest Journey

• Dual world setting creates an interesting setting and puzzle dynamic that significantly enhances your adventure in breadth of variety and locations
• Main character development and voice acting provides a wealth of content
• Lack of concrete ending can leave players without sufficient closure and answers to their questions
• Some of the puzzle and environmental actions players need to make have zero context almost necessitating a walkthrough

The Longest Journey offers an interesting array of characters to build a connection with in this well received adventure game from 2000. Utilising point and click adventure game mechanics that popularised the genre during the decade of adventure gaming peak The Longest Journey holds an impressive low 90s score on Metacritic. The Longest Journey doesn’t just offer impressive characters though it also has a multi layered and complex story to really get your brain thinking and keep you mesmerised in the game world that the developer has worked so hard to develop.

The Longest Journey is set in a number of parallel universes known as Arcadia which is dominated by magical users and Stark which is dominated by industry which creates conflicts between the two worlds. The main character of this adventure an controlled by the player is April Ryan who is a simple student living in Stark with the magical ability to shift between the two very different worlds.

Players join the story soon after April makes her first shift accidently into Arcadia while being asleep. Here she meets the White Dragon who tells her of the part she has to play in the coming adventure with the fates of the two worlds closely tied to her story. Soon after this meeting April is attacked and shifts back into Stark believing the whole thing to be some strange nightmare although can’t shake the feeling of her magical abilities and a greater purpose. From here the story of the two worlds evolves in The Longest Journey and April’s ability starts to unravel as it grows in strength, eventually taking the player to a massive number of uniquely diverse locations (over 150).

Gameplay adheres to the point and click adventure game formula with players interacting with objects as April around the game world and using them to solve a variety of puzzles to move forward through the game’s story. The Longest Journey also makes use of long dialogue sequences to expand on the story and setting which add a lot to the game world compared to other games and part of the reason you’ll feel so immersed and tied to the story of April.

Of note is that this dialogue is predominately voice acted, an expensive investment at the time of original release and a key feature in separating The Longest Journey from other adventure games . To balance this for players that aren’t as heavily invested in game lore usually much of this can be skipped without impact to story progression or ending.

Another consistent mechanic (similar to other adventure titles) is the recurring use of items which players need to obtain from the game world and then use in another location to move the story along. The Longest Journey has hundreds of items in this regard that range from magical and alchemy ingredients to your everyday apple, coin, fishing line, flute, jewels, rope and screwdriver.

With a huge number of locations, wealth of items to collect and use in your environmental based puzzles pairing with the impressive character development and unique setting The Longest Journey is the definition of adventure game from the 2000 era and definitely not a game to be missed from that time by adventure fans.

• Great character and world development from start to finish that will engage players.
• A complex story of two parallel worlds that are starkly different.
• Find, collect and use hundreds of different everyday objects to solve puzzles.
• Classic point and click adventure gameplay mechanics.
• Large amount of voice acted dialogue to draw you into the adventure.
• Buy The Longest Journey (GOG)
• Buy The Longest Journey (Humble Store)

Review Platform: PC

This review was first published on September 13, 2014 . Read our update policy to learn more.

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The Longest Journey

• Currently 4.8/5

Platform: Windows

Categories: adventure , affiliate , classic , download , fantasy , funcom , game , gog , narrative , pointandclick , rating-o , retro , windows.

The game is played with your mouse, clicking on people or objects to interact with them. The game will occasionally display several icons (hand, mouth, and eye) to let you choose how you with to interact. Click on an area to move there, or double-click to make April run to it. When speaking to people, you can hit [ESC] to skip through the current line of dialogue if you've heard it before. Right-Clicking opens April's inventory, and since so much of the game centers around item combination and puzzle solving (more on that later), you'll quickly become used to examining and using everything around you. Since April has the strange but helpful tendency to vocalise her every thought, you should investigate everything you can for clues and information. You can save your game at any time by opening the menu (clicking on the diary icon at the top of the screen), and you should definitely take advantage of this as dangerous situations can arise.

If you've played a point-and-click adventure game before, you're probably used to abstract logic. In fact, when I first saw the game on GOG, I thought, "Oh hey, that's the game with the inflatable duck and the sewer candy". The game's puzzles are memorable in part because they're just so bizarre . Most of them simply center around using the right item or combination of items in the right place at the right time, but figuring out what's required of you can be mind-boggling. The logic behind a lot of them is obscure enough in a few places to drive you to a walkthrough, and unfortunately, there's a lot of backtracking, which makes things more frustrating than they need to be. Mess around with them long enough and you'll eventually figure out the solution, but they're definitely more than a little out there in most cases.

The story behind the game takes a while to really get rolling, but The Longest Journey does such a good job of immersing you in your surroundings that it's easy to forgive. Since it isn't exactly an action packed title and you spend so much time talking to people, it's a good thing that what they have to say is usually interesting and frequently amusing. The writing is relaxed and natural so that conversations sound real, and the people you meet have a tremendous amount of personality. As the protagonist, April is feisty, cheerful, and instantly likeable, making an excellent guide through the high-fantasy story.

It's true what they say; they really don't make 'em like this anymore. Or at least, not frequently enough for my tastes. The Longest Journey isn't quite perfect, but it gets more things right than not, and offers up a long, engrossing adventure. Don't expect to finish this one in a day, or to forget it the day after you finish it. A quality game with a lot to offer, The Longest Journey already has a lot of fans; give it a chance and it just may make one of you, too.

13 Comments

You know, I did like this game back in - holy smokes, 1999?! I am old. Anyway...

I liked it because the story was nice, and the character development was just really, really great. I thought they really did a good job making April a real character and making you empathize with her like any good movie or game or story should.

I did, however, feel that it had a lot of that tortured logic adventure game syndrome going on, where eventually you'd give up and just start trying to USE everything WITH everything else until two things combined or worked. I can't remember them too well from a decade ago, but one that comes to mind early is

an inflatable rubber duckie and like forceps or something to retrieve something (keys?) from the subway tracks.

But overall I thought it was a good overall experience. It just seems like it would have made a better movie than a game.

Badly, GOG asks too much info to pay: they want all personal info including SSN. JIG should not, ever, recommend giving out so much personal info.

[Any personal information requested for the transaction will be from your card issuer, not GOG. For example, I had to prove to Visa that I was the cardholder, through the GOG payment interface. I had previously set up a password with Visa for my online transactions, such as this, and the Visa window that popped up asked me for that info. It was not GOG asking for the info (they couldn't have known what to ask me for). The connection is encrypted (evidenced by the https:// in the address bar) and I trust the people at GOG. The payment interface works well, and I have tested it myself with an actual purchase. -Jay]

I love adventure games.

This isn't just a good adventure game or a great adventure game, but it is (in my opinion) the best adventure game ever created.

The voice acting, the story, and the storytelling are all the very best the genre has ever offered.

GOG does NOT request any personal info from you beyond a credit card or Pay Pal. As Jay points out, Visa is taking certain security members and requiring you to prove to THEM (not to GOG) that you are the cardholder. GOG does not receive this information.

This was one of my favorite adventure games. It really made an impression at the time.

I tried playing the 'sequel' - Dreamfall - the longest journey 2 (though its really its own game) and it didn't capture me as much. Still quite well done.

Another great adventure favorite of my in this vein is 'Beyond Good and Evil'. Loved it.

Wow... I remember this. I'm only 15 years old,but I remember this game being handed together with a gaming magazine I'm still buying. Back then I couldn't even get past the first chapter. Played it a few months ago, though. I got further this time, but still didn't have the time/patience to finish it. Seriously, people. GET IT. If you don't, you're missing one of the most beautiful adventure games ever made.

The Longest Journey is one of the best P&C adventure titles I've ever played, up there with MYST and Gabriel Knight.

I remember playing this game way back when. It was pretty much amazing. The sequel Dreamfall was also good.. but I think I liked this one more. A 3rd game was set up, but I haven't heard anything on it's production..

I played the sequel to this with my house mate and really liked it, even though it starts of a bit slow and ends a bit abruptly (trequel anyone?). I've been itching to try the first installment.

Thoroughly enjoying this... just wanted that due to a lot of back-tracking, double-clicking a destination or an action will make the progression less painful :)

Just curious: What is it about the game that earned it the M rating?

Hi Tesh! The Longest Journey gets an M rating because there's a fair amount of "casual" profanity (a few of the characters can be more than a little potty-mouthed if you choose certain dialogue options), some innuendo (some subtle and some not), and a bit of violence. I'd say about 70% of the game, if not more, could be safely rated Y (one step above G), but I wanted to err on the side of caution. You're not going to have people swearing at you and coming on to you every five minutes, but I didn't want to surprise anyone either.

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