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The desing is amazing and so the story. It´s a mystery that relies on the player to pay attention to the plot and the little clues that the characters provide. There are several ways to fail the game, which was very original back in the day and I think is still not that much common in the genre, and "random clicking and objects combinations" don´t work, unlike most adventure games of the time.
To me personally it meant a lot, as it was the first adventure game that I played that was serious and allowed to failure. Before that I was all about Lucas arts and the Sherlock Holmes Case of the Rose Tatto game (which I never finished because of a game breaking bug involving one object). Most puzzles are solved via an error and trail method that involves dying and rewind your save till the moment your actions were starting to get you on the wrong way, sometimes you died or fail and the game made your save rewing for almost the entire day, it was frustrating in the good way.
I think that this game didn´t get the praise it deserved, or if it did I didn´t notice, but it´s not as remmeber as other adventure games of the time that were in fact, in my opinion, worst games.
PD: Since I mentioned Sherlock Holmes, why so many sherlock holmes games in steam but not the good ones? The Case of the Serrated Scalpel (1992), and The Case of the Rose Tattoo (1996) both developed by Mythos software? THOSE ARE THE ONES!!! Such fine games, and no steam release even with all the ♥♥♥♥ that is being uploaded lately :´(
no, it really didn't...i played this a few years after release, but not long enough so that it had dated (at least not to the degree it has now), & was also a HUGE fan as a kid (to this day i still call it one of my top games ever) & the reviews were pretty shockingly uniform...lots of 7/10 type scores. the game was released in a very different era though, & in many ways i think that probably ended up hurting it. it didn't have a single 'traditional' (in my mind, gimmicky) puzzle & had a few 'action' sequences that required timing. sounds like TWD, right? but back then it was unheard of for an adventure game to do those things i guess.
mechner also (correctly & quite beautifully & ingeniously) dodged FMV, which was in its bloated prime then, but i don't think was appreciated to the degree that it would be today.
some of my opinion has to do w/ some personal biases i had as a kid & probably still do, really (fascination w/ the period, a character like kronos, & train travel in general) but if the game hadn't been designed in such a perfect manner it wouldnt have mattered; the old titanic adventure out of time game is proof of that. i enjoyed it plenty, but i never felt it was a good (certainly not great) game.
-i would also just have to say that the 'improvements' in this game...well, the original game just didnt have it, there was no hud of any kind, no hints, no tutorial stuff. inventory was a lot slicker. the menu to select a game & rewind/fastforward the clock was much more naturally done. i like having this version but i think only because its different; i can't say i think its different in a good way, given how immersive the original was for me.
I agree on you on the "improbements". It just makes things easier, even the chapter entrances with clues to what is your next step...I think that may kill a lot of the game for new players.
I know that, for me, a big part of this game was not having that much idea about what to do. I ended up memorizing the patterns on the characters, where would x passenger be at this time, with who, speaking about what... When you already know what to do there´s a lot of wasted time in the game, tons of times where you will be just standing waiting for a half hour to pass by and things like that.
PD: WHat a shame the second part never did get to appear. Not too many games like The Last Express out there regarding some of it´s mechanics.
I never played the original but really loved this and am finally catching up on all the others I never got to play as a kid. So, any recommendations of similar games are totally welcome.
Men, I WHISH. To be honest, I don´t think there are similar adventure games around men.
I mean, the narrative, the "free roaming", the setting, the art directions...It´s just too much...Unique!!. I certainly remmeber the serious plots adventure games of the time, most of them were not that much impressive. TO beging with, it was all about 3D giving it´s first steps, and first person view (in last Express as well, but you deff get to see Robert Cat a lot more than the character in those games back then), and none of those games did have a time progression like The LAst Express, and the begging of World War I setting...Men, there´s like 0 games with that setting, specially ones that are not focus on the war itself and aren´t FPS (and even then we know the industry prefers World War II, because...well, not the place for me to rant about the way european history is usually portrait today).
And the sad thing is that, after that, adventure games was gone for a long time since it was not "popular" enough as we all know and some of remmeber very well and paintfully, with many things going down the toilet.
If I were to look similar games I think that the closes is TellTale´s actual adventure games and Fahrenheit (known as well as Indigo Prophecy). Or at least in tone, adding time into the "puzzles", a certain "free roaming" experience withing the genre (given by dialoge most of the time in TellTale example)... I don´t know, just like The LAst Express, you could do things differently in these examples as well, and for me that was always the main feature in The Last Express, was my first adventure game that was not "x item into y item and proced", there´s that, but you could do it in several ways, different times, or even don´t do it and the game won´t stop there.
But other than that...I just can´t think of another game that resembles The Last Express sadly. It´s one trully unique thing, and I will always consider that the game does not recieved enough prized for it. I mean, people usually mention Myst more often as reference, as an important game to the industry and so on and on, and, quiet frankly, that series bored me to death even back then, while this? Men, i pay it again to play it again, got all cheevos and is still gonna be one of my favorite games of my whole library, no matter genres and time of the initial release.
PD: BLADE RUNNER!! I can´t believe I forgot about it, check that awesome adventure game. Altough I think there´s no steam version sadly.
I am a huge point and click adventure games fan and I can tell you - I miss the wit that used to be put in these games in the 90s - I am a fan of Lucasarts (Loom, Monkey Island series, The Dig, Indiana jones...) and I also love other games too such as Maniac Mansion, DOT.... They made you think, were not easy and they were fun! Plus the dialogue was smart too
The Last Express is definitely more grown up, but it offers a fantastic, intelligent storyline as much as the others... Love it.
Long answer: Man. There is no game like this game. If all games were like The Last Express, I would spend my whole paycheck on Steam downloads.
The brilliance of this game, something I have not found anywhere else, is how the plot moves forward even if you don't do anything. It's the most immersive game I've ever played because unlike most videogames where every character stands around until it's their turn to interact with you, everyone in here goes about their business and most of them don't wish to be bothered.
It's even possible in many of the endings for you not to become involved with the plot at all. Why don't you just sit down, relax and read the news while everyone else is doing the fancy stuff? You can be the lazies protagonist ever, only in The Last Express.
Other games: The only two games that have evoked some of that Last Express feelings on me have been The Walking Dead Game and a little strategy game called Expeditions: Conquistador.
Granted, I don't play many games, so my second example might not be the best example of it's genre, but to me it felt a little like The Last Express because it allows the possibility of failing your mission, or refusing it altogether, and the plot moves forward as canonically as if you had succeeded. You can lose every battle and you won't find a game over - only the logical consequences (such as injured teammates and a low morale).
In short, The Last Express deals with action (or non-action) and consequence, and these two games do too. I recommend you guys check them out.
The story is good, the puzzles are good, the dialogue is good, the voice acting is good. Everything is good except the unbelievably bad quick time events.
Some of the FIRST quick time events in the history. QUick time events did not exist as a canon feature back then kiddo, and this game was one of the first to bring it. The fact that as to this day that feature is a primer form of gameplay, even most of it in some genres (narrative adventure games) speaks more on a positive note about the innovation of this game back then than a negative one about it´s problem as you suggest.
Context and history kidd, this are the kind of things adults use to justify an oppinion about a certain matter. Relax, it will come with age.
(and yes, this is a pretty trolling message, but I had a pretty bad day and that message was asking for it, speaking about bad quick time events when the concept was not even invented and did not had a name, shame on you)