[After a brisk nap]

I recently sat down and played through The Longest Journey for the first time. I've had the game since it came out, but when I bought it my computer wasn't powerful enough to run it well, and later I never got around to it. So I had never actually got past the first chapter before.

Actually, the game I played was Den Lengste Reisen, the original Norwegian version of TLJ. Since it's the only noteworthy adventure game ever made in Norway, I thought I should support the home country. And it's certainly a game that should be cause for some nationalistic pride for Norwegian adventure fans.

Chauvinism aside, I thought it was a solid, fairly good game that fails to quite achieve greatness. The story was pretty entertaining, and it had a number of good puzzles and obstacle. I particularly liked how well-rounded many of the characters were, and the dialogue that positively sparkles in many conversations. However, many good elements seemed to be clumsily stuck together. The pacing was severely off, with a slow, somewhat dull section up front, followed by a ridiculously extensive information dump before the game starts up properly.

Whenever I read criticisms of the game, how the dialogue went on for too long, how the puzzles were silly, I always thought "that stuff doesn't bother me." Well, it did. I did enjoy a lot of the lengthy conversations, but on a few occasions they stretched even my considerable patience far past breaking point. Similarly, having to read dozens of indifferently written stories in the library to dig up some nuggets of information became quite tedious.

As for the silly puzzles, I didn't mind them so much in themselves. It was more that there seemed to be a negative correlation between how serious a task was and how difficult it was to achieve. Completely arbitrary, frivolous obstacles turned into major quests, while challenges of mythical proportions could be solved with no mental effort and just a couple of mouse clicks.

Spoiler:

For instance, waking a sleeping giant just so his snoring won't disturb a bunch of stickmen involves one of the most complex (and best) puzzles in the game, while in order to prove that you're the legendary Windbringer, savior of the Alatians, you simply have to talk to each of them. Similarly, to get hold of a pizza box you have to trip a number of (unrelated) triggers, while getting hold of an extremely valuable anti-grav unit is so easy that I had already fetched it when Flipper asked me for it.

I also thought the story, while generally quite satisfying, was short on surprises. I would really have liked to see a twist somewhere. There are hints that things aren't exactly as they seem... but they come to nothing.

Spoiler:

Arguably, the fact that April isn't the next Guardian after all is a twist, but unfortunately I had been spoilered by her appearance in Dreamfall, and never expected her to.

I also thought the game worlds were somewhat thin. Stark is "generic scifi world" and Arcadia "generic fantasy world." Especially in Arcadia, I had very little sense that the world existed outside of the screens I could visit. It was difficult, for example, not to notice that the world of the Dark-Men consisted of a single screen with one (pretty sketchy) character model. On the whole, I preferred Stark, which was blissfully short on small furry creatures. Unfortunately, most of the game takes place in Arcadia.

As for the presentation, it was... uneven. The pre-rendered backgrounds are nice, but awfully static. In the harbor, the waves are frozen on the sea. Also, the walkbehinds aren't exact (and in one screen they're totally wrong), which ruins the illusion completely. April's model is nice, but many of the others are pretty ugly. The Guardian, in particular, is freakishly deformed, and he walks like a sleepwalking zombie ninja. Worse, the CGI puppets in the cutscenes are even more hideous, making April look like a blow-up doll.

Despite these and other complaints, I did genuinely enjoy the game. I wouldn't rank it all the way up there with the classics, but it definitely makes me look forward to Dreamfall. A lot of the problems can be chalked up to inexperience and budget constraints, and I have a lot of faith that Ragnar and the other guys at FunCom can outdo themselves next time.

Finally, a few words about playing the game in Norwegian vs English. Although it was made in Norway and first released in Norwegian, it's pretty obvious that it was always aimed at an English-speaking market. It's set (at least partly) in the US, and the names of people and places are in English. Even the dialogue appears to have been translated from English, rather than the other way around as you'd expect. Anglicisms (English idioms translated literally, word-by-word) abound, and characters will even stick in an English word here and there. (There are a number of "****"s, which is not totally unreasonable since the Norwegian language has actually picked it up as a swear word.)

The Norwegian voice acting is quite good, though a little theatrical. Since the voice-acting community in Norway is pathetically small, a lot of the voices will be familiar to anyone who's seen a dubbed film or TV show. A few actors voice several characters, and sometimes it's noticeable. I was more annoyed by the actors who were "doing" voices. The mole men voices they were putting on were particularly insufferable. Most of the major parts are well cast. In a masterstroke, McAllen is voiced by Swedish actor Torsten Wahlund, and all his lines are in Swedish (both spoken and subtitled).

I downloaded the English demo to compare voices and writing, and have to say that I think it's better than the Norwegian. Though I like Synnøve Svabø's April, Sarah Hamilton gives her a stronger, more impish sense of humor (ironically, since Svabø is a comedian, and a quite impish one at that). The script seems to flow more naturally in English, and I didn't notice tics like the ones that bothered me in the Norwegian version.

I just might have to buy it again to play it in English.

[Ninth]

I'm in complete agreement with you, especially on this part :

Originally Posted by Snarky

Whenever I read criticisms of the game, how the dialogue went on for too long, how the puzzles were silly, I always thought "that stuff
doesn't bother me." Well, it did.

Good, but not quite great.

On a side note, the french voice overs were pretty good.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

It didn't bother me that much, probably because I fell asleep from boredom during that part.

[AFGNCAAP]

On a side side note which will interest nobody , the Polish voice-overs were the best I've ever heard in a localised adventure game, and even (with a possible exception of Planescape: Torment) in any localised game regardless of genre. Makes me sad that Dreamfall will most likely not get dubbing of such an exceptional quality.

Snarky, I believe your "impressions" are thorough enough to post in "Reader Reviews" section (though that subforum is less frequented, so maybe it's not as much of a compliment as I intended it to be ). I enjoyed reading them and I'd like to specifically thank you for bringing up the issue of lack of correlation between task's importance and its difficulty level. Good point.

[plattyaj]

When I played adventure games ten years ago long dialogs really made me bored. TLJ was one of the first ones I played after a long hiatus and I often wonder why I did play it - given the descriptions of the lengthy dialog. I'm so glad I did - sure there was a lot of it, but it was well written, well acted and really part of the story. And I guess my older self has a lot more patience - must come from having kids I guess!

Andy.

[After a brisk nap]

Assuming we're all talking about the scene where Vestrum Tobias explains 10,000 years of backstory, my reaction was something like: "I sit through enough PowerPoint presentations at work. Why does Ragnar have to inflict them on me in a game?" I thought the real shame was that because the way it was communicated to the player, it came across as hackneyed, pointlessly complex fantasy drivel. (Which, admittedly, to some extent it was.) Besides, seeing the character model cycle through the same animation over and over again for ten minutes has a weirdly hypnotic effect.

Playing TLJ really made me appreciate some of the things that have been announced about Dreamfall. The changes in the formula seem very much to address the problems with the first game. Like when they talk of including action sequences, and how the challenges will emerge naturally from the story, I think of the puzzles that were crowbarred into the first game, and the ridiculous "fights" where your enemy wouldn't attack you, and you simply had to click on them (or something else) to win. I think it's hard to argue that it wouldn't have made more sense for TLJ to actually have you fight Snapjaw.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Snarky

Assuming we're all talking about the scene where Vestrum Tobias explains 10,000 years of backstory, my reaction was something like: "I sit through enough PowerPoint presentations at work. Why does Ragnar have to inflict them on me in a game?" I thought the real shame was that because the way it was communicated to the player, it came across as hackneyed, pointlessly complex fantasy drivel. (Which, admittedly, to some extent it was.) Besides, seeing the character model cycle through the same animation over and over again for ten minutes has a weirdly hypnotic effect.

It was ultimately not so much the narrative information itself, but how that entire sequence was handled. I remember, having to put up with it, thinking how it could have been far more dynamic. Most of the information wasn't necessary to the gameplay itself, but served to deepen the player's sense of feeling more involved, therefore it could easily have been dispersed evenly in optional places in that part of the story. One idea was to split it into little CG cutscenes with Tobias and April strolling through the beautiful scenes. Another idea would be to spread the history told among several characters, perhaps an assistant of Tobias, some other staff working nearby, the village elder, etc. There were other, far less boring ways of doing it.

[EasilyConfused]

Good points about the repetition of Tobias' lectures. Also,

Spoiler:

Could it have been any more boring than to have to watch that animation--PLUS dialogue--every time you wanted to examine a book from the library? I got into the habit of positioning April exactly where she needed to be to tap the monk on the shoulder (it's been quite a while since I played the game, I may have not have the details right) only to watch him jump in surprise EVERY time she requested something.

It simply isn't fair to make a player sit through this kind of "busy work" for information, especially when much of the information is non-essential or available elsewhere in-game. As I've complained in other places, the long dialogue trees at the beginning of the game were often Deep Background.

At the same time, I like that there's that richness there if you want it. What's missing is some kind of cue to the player that the dialogue isn't essential--making the dialogue something like the RPG equivalent of a side-quest. I can't recall if this is being addressed in Dreamfall; I do feel like some games have dealt with this problem. (Clearly, in the Monkey Island games, you didn't have to try EVERY response to every question to progress; some were there for fun and replay value.)

Just a footnote on Stark and Arcadia--I liked Arcadia a lot better than Stark. I like small furry creatures and find the whole scifi thing to be overdone--not in games, perhaps, but certainly in films. Had Stark been more . . . stark, more revolutionary, more chilling . . . I might have found it an interesting place to be. As it was, it seemed pretty familiar, a gritty urban setting with the added (and un-thrilling) feature of a spaceport. Thrillsville.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

I would KILL to own and live in that house of Captain Nebevay (sp?) on that cliff over the water.

[TM3]

My first completed, commercial, adventure game! A few of the puzzles were a bit crazy, most of the conversations dragged on (some characters I didn't mind like Flipper), and the "action scenes" didn't come out well. I would've preffered if the game just moves on for you.

[samIamsad]

Originally Posted by TM3

and the "action scenes" didn't come out well.

Yeah, they were a bit underrepresented, weren't they?

[After a brisk nap]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

It was ultimately not so much the narrative information itself, but how that entire sequence was handled. I remember, having to put up with it, thinking how it could have been far more dynamic. Most of the information wasn't necessary to the gameplay itself, but served to deepen the player's sense of feeling more involved, therefore it could easily have been dispersed evenly in optional places in that part of the story. One idea was to split it into little CG cutscenes with Tobias and April strolling through the beautiful scenes. Another idea would be to spread the history told among several characters, perhaps an assistant of Tobias, some other staff working nearby, the village elder, etc. There were other, far less boring ways of doing it.

I think a good comparison is Sophia's Atlantis talk in Indy:FOA. The two sequences serve similar purposes, and both are told in a fairly static manner. Still, the FOA exposition works much better than the one on TLJ.

Why? First of all, it's shorter. It's just the very basic outline of the backstory, and the details are filled in throughout the game. Second, it has pictures. They are just very basic, static images, slides as Sophia is talking, but they add visual interest to the story. TLJ has murals, but their relationship to the story is vague at best, and also the player has already seen most of them before! Third, Sophia's talk is broken up with asides between Indy and the janitor. Fourth, there's actually an interactive puzzle in the middle of her presentation (getting the stage ghost to fly out). Finally, the game doesn't take the whole thing seriously! Sophia is a fraud, and her talk is presented as cheap entertainment with no basis in history. Of course, it all turns out to be true, but the game designers knew that at this point in the story, players wouldn't be ready to take sunken Atlantis completely seriously.

I like TLJ a lot, and by all accounts it's one of the very best "modern" adventures. But I think it's striking how many of the design principles and best practices have been forgotten since the golden age of AGs, only ten-fifteen years ago.

I can think of one idea for how TLJ could have conveyed its backstory in a way that would (in my opinion) have been more interesting and dynamic. What if there were no Vestrums or Minstrums to fill April in? What if the temple and the library were abandoned? April would have to look at the murals (which would have to be made more clearly narrative, like the multi-panel church art that tell the stories of saints), and correlate it with fragments of texts found in the library. The fragments themselves would be out of order, obscure and difficult to interpret without the pictures, and the pictures by themselves wouldn't be explicit enough to convey the details of the story. Put them together, figure out which fragments relate to which panels, and the whole story becomes clear.

Not only would this make the backstory less boring, passive exposition. It would also probably make players absorb more of it. Instead of just scanning the subtitles as quickly as possible and clicking through, the player would be actively engaged in piecing together the story, trying to work out what it meant. Understanding would come gradually, and would therefore be more lasting.

Of course, April would have to get the amulet in some other way, too. (Or just eliminate the amulet from the game. April has to lug far too much mystical crap around already.)

[rtrooney]

>It simply isn't fair to make a player sit through this kind of "busy work" for information, especially when much of the information is non-essential or available elsewhere in-game. As I've complained in other places, the long dialogue trees at the beginning of the game were often Deep Background.

I've never finished the game, although I've recommended it to people who are looking for a TLJ-style game. I wouldn't call the dialog process boring, although it was. Tedious would be my description.

[Ninth]

Originally Posted by Snarky

I think a good comparison is Sophia's Atlantis talk in Indy:FOA. The two sequences serve similar purposes, and both are told in a fairly static manner. Still, the FOA exposition works much better than the one on TLJ.

Exactly. I thinks that's because TLJ takes itself (and not just this history) too seriously.

[AFGNCAAP]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

I would KILL to own and live in that house of Captain Nebevay (sp?) on that cliff over the water.

We didn't see Nebevay's house - he was the captain of the ship that took April on board. I think you mean Brian Something.

[After a brisk nap]

Brian Westhouse. He does have a cool house. To the West...

Yes, one way to make the Tobias backstory scene more palatable would be to add some humor to it. When you're explaining your made-up cosmology, you can't just assume people will take you seriously. Think of Yehova's Witnesses. Suspension of disbelief doesn't go that far.

Since most of what I've said about TLJ has been negative, I want to state once again that I really did like the game. Most of the time I was completely fine with the amount of dialogue. It was only a couple of specific places where I got fed up with the jabbering.

In other news, I've been getting quite excited about the idea I had for a "put together the story" puzzle to convey this kind of deep backstory. I've been thinking up various ways to do it that I think are quite unlike anything that's been done in any adventure game, but still completely in the spirit of the genre and hopefully not that difficult to implement.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by AFGNCAAP

We didn't see Nebevay's house - he was the captain of the ship that took April on board. I think you mean Brian Something.

Oops, yes! That's right, sorry. The guy who drinks a lot and owns a house on the cliff overlooking the water.

[SoccerDude28]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Oops, yes! That's right, sorry. The guy who drinks a lot and owns a house on the cliff overlooking the water.

Oh man I want to retire in a house like that.

Spoiler:

unless the big bad chaos cloud comes after me

[Hawker Typhoon]

Good analysis of the game. That 15 minute stretch of Tobias dialogue was killer; most of us agree on that.

I played TLJ recently on the advice of a co-worker, who described it as a lushly detailed game. First thing I noticed was how the game was slightly dated. No software anti-aliasing of the 3D characters or interactive objects. That’s understandable for a game from 1999 and it didn’t at all ruin the experience for me.

English voice acting was excellent.

The pre-rendered environments were outstanding. So were the cutscenes, but as mentioned earlier in the thread, the human characters could’ve stood a bit more attention to detail, as April looked too cartoony in those sequences. The other creatures you see in the cutscenes looked good in comparison.

The story was very creative, and very well written. The game was nice and long, and it wasn’t too difficult to complete. I found that the opening chapters were the hardest: when the setting changed in the later chapters and you found yourself in remote, isolated areas, you ultimately had less to explore and the solutions were not that hard to come by.

I did feel rather empty by game’s end. Not much closure. On the plus side, the sequel is right around the corner. Not so much of an agonizing wait as it would be for those who played the game in ’99 (though I doubt anyone's losing sleep over it).

[pleto4_ryan]

It was actually "Brian Westhouse" (and yes it's a great place...i wanna see that view)

most of us agree on that.

must be from the ones that don't.

It's been five years, but i can remember that the first time Tobias started telling about the backstory i was still on my chair, volume up, trying not to lose anything. I found it amazing...and those paintings on the walls were great.

Now for a fourth or fifth time...yes it gets "boring"(?) but it's a nice break to go get a snack