Not sure if it's best to revive this old "Playthrough" thread, or to start a new one, but as I'd like to comment on a few things that were written back then I thought I'd choose the first option. If (for whatever reason) that was the wrong option, someone please let me know...
I remember the adverts for "The Last Express" back when it came it in the late 90's, but was unconvinced about it at the time - think it was the "realtime" asect that left me worried, not wanting a game where you just had to "click. click, click" as opposed to thinking about your decisions. So I didn't play it at the time. Over the last year or two, when browsing on here, I've noticed that a few players, whose opinions on other games are similar to my own, were clearly fans of TLE. Fien being the most obvious example, but also one or two others. So downloaded it (I think off GOG) a couple of months ago, and finished it last weekend. Having read the comments from the walkthrough, and a few other bits, just wanted to throw my own views out there & see if there's interest from others - I promised Fien I'd let her know my end conclusions:
A unique game. That's my first comment. There are a lot of adventures out there where you can compare & contrast, see what inspired something else, and so on. Not with TLE. It really is something quite different. I'm struggling to find any computer game that compares at all. I guess Fahrenheit slightly with the real time aspects, but can't come up with anything else. Closest maybe is the film "Murder on the Orient Express" which (if my memory serves me correctly - it's been abut 25 years!) not only (obviously) has the setting in common, but also consisted of Poirot gathering snippets of information and only working out over time how they fitted together - very similar to TLE.
Other plus points:
1. The setting & storyline - complex, clearly well-researched, re-creating beautifully a feeling for that early 20th Century society. Anyone with an interest in early 20th century history would surely be gripped by it from the start, and the details like the newspapers added to that. Of course, anybody without an interest in the period would be missing out on a major element of the game.
2. The characters - also well created, even the minor roles like the guards/attendents who discussed the political situation a couple of times when they were alone, with varying perspectives. Yes, there were a couple of cliches, Hr Schmidt most obviously, and also Abbott, but even they were brought to life and worked well.
3. The voice acting - follows on from number 2. It amazes me how people can be so full of praise for games like Black Mirror (1) and Secret Files when the characterisation & voice acting is so poor. No a problem that TLE has - it definitely goes in the top category of voice acting (with Longest Jouney/Dreamfall, GK (excepting Tim Curry in GK3), & Grey Matter). I don't think there's a single character where the voice acting comes across poorly. Connected to that is the fact that all (I think?) of the actors actually come from the country the character does & so can also speak the native language fluently.
4. Production Values - I read somewhere (maybe on here) that it was the most expensive game to produce at the time, and that doesn't surprise me. The care taken with the voice acting was clearly also used elsewhere. Graphics are rarely crucial to me, but the style they use in TLE works well.
5. Languages & Geography - unlike so many games, language really played a part. Apart from the fact that it's nice to hear varying languages being used naturally (as opposed to always English for no reason) and with (as far as I'm able ot judge) native speaker quality, it also gave the game a certainl tension as you weren't able to understand everything. Excellent. There were a couple of oddities though: Why did Hr Schmidt & Fr Wolff mainly speak to each other in English? It is possible that German wouldn't be her native language if (as I think she said) she was actually born in Hungary, but she's clearly fluent in it. Similarly, Tatiana & Alexei often speak in English I think.
6. Openness - the fact that there are lots of different things you can do in the game. The fact that I will probably replay the game very soon to hear bits I missed. It's a pretty unusual thing in an adventure game..
Ok, think they're the main positives as I found them. However, there are definitely some negatives. But that's enough for this post, I'll come to them soon...
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