[DarthBull]

Come join us as we play through:

The Longest Journey



The game is broken up into 13 chapters, plus a prologue and an epilogue. The prologue is short (10-15 minutes) but the chapters are longer (3-4 hours?) so the plan is to play a chapter a week.

Links:

Purchase the game from Steam
Purchase the game from GOG
Download the soundtrack
How to run the game in a window

I'll be playing the Steam version on Windows 7. I'm happy to say it just worked (full screen with black bars at the sides). I've always wanted to play this but have been intimidated by the length. This will be a good excuse to finally play through it and I'm looking forward to discussions with the people here.

To get started, let's play through the prologue and chapter 1 over the next week. We'll move on to chapter 2 starting on Tuesday January 25.

Prologue: A Lion is in the Streets
Chapter 1: Penumbra

[Idrisguitar]

woo, will get started tonight

[alcoatjez]

Great!
I just finished The Lost Crown and was thinking what to play next. I have the game, both the original and the GOG version.
I'm pretty new here, so I was waiting for a nice community playthrough

[zane]

I just spent over an hour searching for discs 5 and 6, only to realize those discs never existed O_o
i dont know what game i confused it with to have that many.
But the game installed fine and once i changed the compatibility settings it seems to be working fine

[JenniBee]

Oh good. This game is on my backlist of games to finish since I bought it from GOG.com last year.

[AnneS]

I'm delighted that this is the next community play through; my participation in the Santitarium one was waylaid by a combination of technical difficulties and real life. I've never played The Longest Journey but it's something I've been meaning to do for ages.

Anyway, I've now played through the prologue and Chapter One and I'm intrigued so far. The visual design of the game is excellent (even if the characters haven't aged as well as the beautiful environments) and the plot has certainly sucked me in. The world building is great so far, and I liked the background references to future history. Nice straight-forward control system as well.

On the less good side, I can see why some people complain about this game having LONG dialogues. Not that I mind having a lot of talking in games, and on the whole I like the dialogue so far. However, April frequently banters back and forth with people for some time without the player having anything to do, even choosing another dialogue option. I confess that I sometimes found my interest wandering during those sequences. Also, I haven't run into many actual puzzles so far, but I imagine there will be more as the story goes on.

A question for those who have played before: is this a game where you can get stuck if you don't do the right things in the right order? I think I may have missed some possible activities in Chapter One and I'm worried it might come back and bite me later. Death I don't mind; at least if I'm dead I know I need to reload. (Unless I'm playing Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island or something.) Dead ends, on the other hand, drive me up the wall.

Now I just need to wait impatiently for next week! And make a resolution not to disappear half way through this play through when Dragon Age II comes out.

[zane]

Just finished the prologue, impressions so far: its been about 10 years since i last played this game and i really didnt remember anything about this beginning. Its a pretty cool opening sequence with the neat dream.
Im not even really sure how far i originally played through this game, i just remember thinking i was pretty far. My main complaint back then was that i felt rail-roaded and the game didnt give me much room for exploration. But i always intended to finish the game and just got distracted. So i look forward to seeing if i feel differently about the game now and finally finishing what i started a decade ago.
On to chapter 1...

[KasiaD]

I will try to join as TLJ is one of my favourites, I hope to reanimate my laptop which sort of rioted during the Sanitarium playthrough. As soon as I manage that I'm in.

[7h30n]

Woke up, got surprised with birthday presents, just installed The Longest Journey and finished the prologue.

I've never played the game so to give out some impressions:

- graphics are old and in-game characters models are really horrible
- visually the game is astonishing!
- I prefer 2D adventure games because 3D ones rarely get it right, but this one seems ok for now
- the story is nicely set
- dialogues are enjoyable and voice acting isn't annoying
- so far I am wondering why the hell haven't I played the game before

[Fien]

Originally Posted by AnneS

A question for those who have played before: is this a game where you can get stuck if you don't do the right things in the right order?

I don't remember any dead ends, but after all this time that's not saying much.

[Periglo]

Originally Posted by Fien

I don't remember any dead ends, but after all this time that's not saying much.

I'm pretty sure that's not possible. Dead ends are rather hard to find in modern AGs, I think, or any kind of games. It's been a while since I don't find myself in one, at any rate.

I might join this playthrough, which would make my third replay of this nice game. Any chance Dreamfall is the next one?

[drunk]

As I enjoyed reading the playthroughs here a lot I would like to take the chance to participate in this one.
TLJ is one of my favourite games (I always wanted to write an essay about it). So this will be my third replay and I am really looking forward to it.
(Hope, real life won't interfer to much).

[inm8#2]

I'll try to join when I fix my system. Don't know when that will be...

[AnneS]

Originally Posted by Periglo

I'm pretty sure that's not possible. Dead ends are rather hard to find in modern AGs, I think, or any kind of games. It's been a while since I don't find myself in one, at any rate.

Heh. I'm just paranoid, having acquired my adventure gaming habit in the early nineties. One of the first games I played was Return to Zork, and I killed the bonding plant. Many, many hours later I came to regret this.

Anyway, glad to hear that The Longest Journey has no memorable dead ends. I'll press forward next week and hope for the best.

[seagul]

Wonderfull, can't wait till weekend to start playing the game.
Must be my 4th time i play the game.

[Fantasysci5]

Ah, "The Longest Journey". A favorite of mine. I love how mysterious the opening credits are, and that it makes sense by the end of it. And something the old lady said, about all good stories beginning where they end, really rang true for me. Well, the only other example I could think of was "The Lord of the Rings", but I still think that's true.

The dream with the Mother is lovely, and how you already get a sense that something is wrong with the arrival of the "dark object" in April's dream.

There is a lot of dialogue in this game, which is obvious by the time you speak to Fiona. I even get bogged down here with all of the backstory dialogue, but I still think it's worth it to know all of the little details of this great world.

[alcoatjez]

Unfortunately I can't join this playthrough. I can't get the FMVs working under Windows 7 64-bit. I have the 4-disc and the GOG version, both with the same result

[zane]

^did you put it in compatibility mode for xp? Thats what i did and its been running fine in win7 64.

[harald]

Well, the English DVD version works on my Windows 7 laptop (with hardware acceleration disabled). I'll probably switch to 4-disc Swedish version as soon as I get that other computer, though.

I'm almost done with chapter 1 but I'm a bit too tired to continue. Hope I will post my thoughts tomorrow.

[domith88]

I have been perusing this page for years now, always thinking about posting but just never have. Avid adventure gamer for about 20 years now, started when I was 10! I always thought an "adventure game" club would be awesome, like a book club where gamers can discuss adventure games as they play them "together". So thanks for doing this whomever started it, I just may have to join you all on this !