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A Journey Worth Taking

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: September 14, 2002
Author: Amazon User

The Longest Journey came out in 2001, after first being released successfully in Europe. The hype surrounding this effort from Funcom is well deserved. TLJ is a massive adventure game with detailed graphics, a smart interface, and a thoroughly engaging storyline. Subject matter is for a more mature gamer, and an appreciation of fantasy also helps make the ride smoother. Without a doubt, and in a few words, if you like adventure games, this is a must have. Recommended if you liked Grim Fandango, Passage to India, or The Last Express.

The Longest Journey in more ways than one...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 249 / 276
Date: September 21, 2002
Author: Amazon User

When I purchased this game, it was because of the rave reviews it has recieved by gaming magazines and organizations, as well as my own personal love of adventure games. It had been a long time since a worthy adventure game had hit the market (Grim Fandango springs easily to mind), and I was looking forward to the stunning visuals and in-depth gameplay I had read about.

Well, the visuals did indeed impress me, and the voice acting was extremely high-quality, a virtual rarity for such games. And the game's story and characters are very in-depth. Indeed. VERY in-depth.

Believe it or not, this is where my major complaint with the game is. I do believe that story and dialogue are important for a good interactive adventure game, and Longest Journey has it. In abundance. Perhaps a bit too much. The puzzles are inventive, the characters multi-faceted, the story captivating, and the background well developed. But after the game gets past the initial introductions, there are certain spots in the game where I found myself clawing my eyes out waiting for the in-depth dialogue to end. Do I want story and interaction? Yes. Do I want to spend forty-five minutes listening to two people drone on about the historical background of the game while I sit hunched over clicking the mouse every fifteen seconds to keep the conversation going? No. To be prefectly honest, I got about two thirds of the way through the game before I gave up and stopped playing. I was weary of the lengthy conversations going nowhere, and my carpal tunnel was really acting up.

Interesting dialogue is important, but I'm not willing to suffer for it, which is sadly what I ended up doing. The key word is "Game", and I'd prefer to play the game instead of watching it like a hand-crank powered television. This game has much to offer it, but the extensive padding eventually turned it into the Longest Journey on several different levels.

In short: If you love adventure games, then you definitely want to check this out, but be prepared for some exceedingly long stretches of boring dialogue that hold you captive to your mouse.

.....Ms. Ryan

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: September 24, 2002
Author: Amazon User

April Ryan is a teenage art student who embraces an incredible adventure. There is a balance between the two worlds of Stark and Aracadia that gets disrupted by chaos. April starts an adventure through the advice of a character that will discover the truth. This game has REAL locations like her apartment and the cafe, to name a few. April has the power to shift between the two worlds and with it she discovers pieces of the puzzle that will lead her closer to her own being while helping others along the way. This journey is long but you will feel like you are right there with her as she takes you across two worlds that will throw you into an adventure that you will never forget. There are more than 50 locations and people to interact with. I hoped it never ended but I also discovered that April Ryan is a PC adventure ledgend.

Adventure Resurrection

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: November 07, 2002
Author: Amazon User

A friend told me about "The Longest Journey" telling me it was like all those dumb Sierra games(I swear by Gabriel Knight and Quest for Glory) you used to love. I told him they didnt make games like that anymore...............I was dead wrong. The Longest Journey not only boasts a top notch adventuring story line(equipped with well written dialogue and voice acting), it also comes with a classic adventure interface that could have came straight out of a Sierra series.

You really get to like the Main character April Ryan(wisecracking art student/reality shifter), which is why its kind of sad that its a pretty self contained story, so there isnt much room for a sequel featuring her. Anyway kudos to the good people at Funcom for helping ressurect the dying adventure genre.
-christian

An excellent adventure game...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 22 / 22
Date: November 29, 2002
Author: Amazon User

.....I have to admit up front that I'm not usually a big fan of adventure games. I've always been more of a turn-based strategy / role-player type. Most adventure games I've played are just strings of contrived, non-intuitive puzzles and pixel hunts. But, I had read some great reviews for TLJ, and so bought my first adventure title since the King's Quest series ended.
.....First, the graphics are excellent. The backdrops are gorgeous works of art that really bring the in-game world to life. Secondly, the puzzles are, for the most part, intuitive and fun to solve. The game almost won't let you screw yourself by 'using up' or dropping a critical item. The game only allows you to use items where necessary, and removes them from your inventory when no longer needed. But the best part of the game is the characters. They are well-developed and realistic and the voice acting is top-notch. There were a couple of dialogue exchanges where I actually laughed out loud ("PECK it off?!!"), and I don't laugh out loud much.
.....Also worth a mention is that it ran flawlessly without a single crash or lock-up, which is sadly uncommon with most unpatched computer games currently on the market.
.....I did have a few small problems with the game, however. A couple of the puzzles were non-intuitive. Most of the secondary characters, though well-developed, played almost no part in the great scheme of the game. Finally, for a game that was all about story and had great cut-scenes, I would have thought they would be more numerous and longer, especially the game finale.
.....All in all, though, playing TLJ was a fun and memorable experience that was well worth the bargain-bin price its going for now.

Worth looking into

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 14
Date: December 28, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This is an entertaining game. The story is great- not too predictable and spans two separate dimensions which gives you the chance explore several different environments (from deep sea to outer space) and meet amusing and frightening characters(no fighting or dying though). April Ryan, as the main character, is full of sarcasm and wit. The dialogue is funny and real.

Although the background graphics are good, characters' animation aren't the best (the game is a few years old). The cut scenes are done well.

My biggest complaint is that the longest journey isn't long enough. Unless you get stuck on one of the puzzles, it doesn't last long enough, and there is little replay value. Still, this is a good game for the price.

Absolutely great!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: December 28, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I started to play this game about four months ago and I was hooked until it finished (and that was a lot of days afterwards). The game really starts quite simple, just a normal day of a "future" girl, but some things are strange, REALLY strange... And then it just gets more and more complicated, with the story evolving on every step...
...it is really a fantasy experiance of your life!

BUY IT! IT`S WORTH EVERY PENNY!

addictive and enchanting

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: January 22, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is a great game!

Every element is superb, except maybe for some of the puzzles. The characterization and plot are great. April can be a bit shallow at times, but then again she is only 18. But she's witty and has just enough sarcasm to make her interesting. Also, you can play her as more reluctant or more heroic, depending on some of the dialog choices you make. (The plot progresses the same way in either case, but it gives a different spin to things.)

The other characters are amazingly well defined, and really seem like different people, not just plot devices.

And speaking of the plot, it is inventive, fascinating, and most of all *long*. The game spends more effort on plot than "put key A in lock B" puzzles, and this is a good thing.

The only bad thing about the game is that some of the puzzles are a little too dependent on dialogue. There are times when you figure out what April has to do, but the game won't let you do it until you get all the verbal clues from everyone involved. There is no way to jump to the answer immediately and just try it, even when you have all the materials necessary to do so.

I also have a problem with random crashes, some sort of DirectX problem. Too bad there is no Linux port, that would make the game just about perfect....

Ending Spoils the Game. Is There a Sequel?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 12
Date: January 24, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I've been wanting to play this game for the longest time. As it turned out it took the longest time to complete it. But during those 3 full and odd days I played it from dusk to dawn doing nothing else - not because I didn't want to but because I couldn't, the game being so addictive - I was very much entertained and a little let down.

If you enjoy a good thick epic of a fantasy, the next best thing is a fantasy adventure game. The Longest Journey is hands down in the top 10 best fantasy adventure games I've played. The others are Dragonsphere (yes Dragonsphere-the most perfect plot twist in game history, perfect 2D pixel animation!), the two Discworld games with the inimitable voice acting of that British guy whose name no one ever remembers - Eric something, and absurd humor), Another World and Bioforge (which are action/adventure so they may not qualify to make the list, and yet...), Loom, Bad Mojo and Neverhood Chronicles (for originality and unique perspective), and of course I am forgetting the Grim Fandango (which is all-around perfect, save an occassional puzzle).

Phew...

Now that I got that load off my shoulders - to show up all of youse who think The Longest Journey is the best adventure game ever, here is my evaluation.

The Longest Journey is very pretty as regards the background and character renderings. The animations are not top-of-the-line nor are the cut-scenes, which the previous reviewers adulated so. For one, the characters' movements are jerky, not fluid like in the outdated, but never-to-be-outdone animations of the Dragonsphere or the original Prince of Persia, and the shapes frequently overlap each other. The cut-scenes are exceedingly short, just enough to show you the big picture, but never longer than 10 seconds. To be honest, I don't even care for the fluidity of the movements, but the cut-scenes were somewhat of a let-down, so were the characters in the cut-scenes. April always had that frozen bedazzled expression with the half-parted lips and goggling eyes.

The music was tremendous, however. No contest there. The story unfolded smoothly and evenly, the puzzles were on the easy side (save the one with the blue crystals), but that was very apropos since they did not interrupt story flow. To you, future game designers and programmers: one of the greatest of all follies in games is the absence of an ESC key to cut short any of your average longest journeys from one corner of the screen which you've explored inside out to the other corner. That key was there(!), which increased the enjoyment of the game, since you could easily whiz past half a dozen screens to arrive at any needed place in the world to test the next inventory item on your list. Another thing, one reviewer mentioned was that the items used and no longer to be used disappeared from the inventory which was very handy. The same regarded the locations on the big map.

To everyone's relief there were NO mazes, vast spans of infinite screens of nothing, timed sequences or reflex-heavy mini-games. Even the soul-gripping, heart-stopping scenes where you had to run away from vat-grown uber-persons in real time was relieved by the fact that you incurred no damage. In that sense, the developers really knew what they were doing, which is a pleasant surprise after the huge disappointments accompanying every purchase of the atrocities the Dreamcatcher is letting loose upon the shelves. Am I right or what?

The story is book-quality. Tornquist is said to have had experience in screenwriting and it shows. The anticipation of the next twist in the fate of April Ryan and superb writing quality, save some places where clicking is incessant and intellection non-existent - the places where you must listen to stories in order to answer questions to them, the stories that have no bearing on the plot and are amateurish and uninteresting-makes the long dialogues an engrossing read although nothing much happens in the game itself. After all there are so many questions April must find answers to. What is her destiny in the world of Balance? The biggest gripe I have with the game is that this nagging question, which drives the game to conclusion and the gamer to the final scene, is not unraveled. The writer leaves the answers to the imagination of the players. And let me tell you, my imagination can run pretty far. And that is of no help at all. The fact is that the prologue is named "threads" and no threads find their ends is at least misleading, if not a pure and simple con. We do not find out what April's destiny is, although we are let in on a hint, it requires a whole other game to make it clear, which means a sequel. And I HATE stories that do not end, especially those that falsely lead you to believe they do. Besides, the ending, much like the beginning was anticlimactic, disappointing and, thus, highly dissatisfying.

SPOILER.
I figured from the start who the old lady is. Besides I hated seeing the pretty leggy April turned into the pie-faced old woman with a squeaky voice and fat ankles. To have us see her grow old is one thing, but to dump it like that on someone is shameful.
END SPOILER.

There must have been a longer cut-scene with flashing lights, tying up loose thread ends, especially those that regard the romantic subplot ( I don't know about Norway, but it is a must for the American audiences used to Hollywood tripe--and I do mean myself), and at least once, one measly single time I would have liked them to justify the mature rating (besides the unncecessary curse words) with a gimpse of April in the buff. After those underwer scenes would that be so much to ask?

Beautiful graphics, but too much talking!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: February 04, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The longest journey is a game filled with beautiful graphics and an amazing amount of different scenes, interesting and/or beautiful characters and storylines. The female character April Ryan, an art student, is taken through a journey to basically save the earth and what's beyond, but it is also a story of coming of age, growing as a person. The puzzles are mostly about taking objects and applying them later-my favorites-, and are not difficult to figure out.
But there seems to be more talking than puzzles to keep the game going. And although the conversations are often enjoyable in the way they show a sense a humour, it gets to be quite annoying due to length of the conversation and the old fashioned way it is incoorperated, namely by choice of lines. Which line you choose often does not matter, the conversation will contain the same information in the end.
Shortcutting the sometimes endless conversations -I read the subtitles much faster than the conversation goes- cannot be done by clicking the mouse, but needs to be done by pressing escape at every sentence.
This is one of the examples which made me conclude that the operation of the game -such as mouse control- is inefficient. I would advice the makers to check out Atlantis III before finalising any sequel! And some scenes seem to be `underused', being just pretty worlds to walk through. But overall, a very impressive adventure game!
Some technical issues:
I played the game (Xplosive/FunCom version, ordered through Amazon UK) in XP and encountered only two problems. One is that the game launcher did not work, but the game provides another file ("game") to start the game. Another problem iwas that the game did not fill the full screen, but I have not figured out whether that is system or game related. Still waiting on a message from the support desk on that!

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