I came to The Longest Journey expecting a classic, critically aclaimed point & click adventure with a great story, and the game really delivered. This has to be one of the best written games I have ever played, without any exaggeration.

The thing with game plots and game characters is that we usually compare them to other game plots and characters when we praise them, so "slightly less superficial than everything else" gets named "brilliant writing". The Longest Journey's writing could easily have been a book or a good movie screenplay however, and it definitely is shockingly better than most games I can name. Characters have personalities, distinct voices, motivations, relationships, lives. Their conversations make sense and are interesting. You get to care about everyone, and you can empathize with your down-to-earth yet epically heroic protagonist. The world-building and exposition never feels like a boring dictation that you need to click through to go on. Even the in-game Diary serves an actual purpose, adds to the story and delivers hints in writing that you really want to read. There is drama and silly jokes, grand adventures that get toned down with humor, an epic sci-fi/fantasy save-the-world plot with twists that make actual sense and don't leave gaping plotholes behind. It's all quite a feat, especially considering the theme.

And yes, the graphics didn't age all that great, the gameplay doesn't reinvent the wheel, there's the long back and forth running through mutiple screens to patiently wait for, and some of the puzzles are what you'd expect from classic point & click adventures - namely not all that brilliant. But it honestly doesn't matter. If you like the genre, you have to play this game, there is a reason it's still getting mentioned so often. It's not just a true classic, it's also very much a joy to play.

I came to The Longest Journey expecting a classic, critically aclaimed point & click adventure with a great story, and the game really delivered. This has to be one of the best written games I have ever played, without any exaggeration. The thing with game plots and game characters is that we usually compare them to other game plots and characters when we praise them, so "slightly less superficial than everything else" gets named "brilliant writing". The Longest Journey's writing could easily have been a book or a good movie screenplay however, and it definitely is shockingly better than most games I can name. Characters have personalities, distinct voices, motivations, relationships, lives. Their conversations make sense and are interesting. You get to care about everyone, and you can empathize with your down-to-earth yet epically heroic protagonist. The world-building and exposition never feels like a boring dictation that you need to click through to go on. Even the in-game Diary serves an actual purpose, adds to the story and delivers hints in writing that you really want to read. There is drama and silly jokes, grand adventures that get toned down with humor, an epic sci-fi/fantasy save-the-world plot with twists that make actual sense and don't leave gaping plotholes behind. It's all quite a feat, especially considering the theme. And yes, the graphics didn't age all that great, the gameplay doesn't reinvent the wheel, there's the long back and forth running through mutiple screens to patiently wait for, and some of the puzzles are what you'd expect from classic point & click adventures - namely not all that brilliant. But it honestly doesn't matter. If you like the genre, you have to play this game, there is a reason it's still getting mentioned so often. It's not just a true classic, it's also very much a joy to play.