Mytzenka

I never really liked this game as much as everyone else did. Yes it does have an interesting - though not terribly original - story and at least some of the characters are also interesting. Especially April is excellent. Also, the backgrounds are quite nice to look at and the ending is especially good (and completely unexpected). But this is were the good stuff ends. The puzzles in this game are downright terrible. Arguably the worst in any adventure game and I am not only referring to the now infamous inflatable ducky puzzle. Puzzles require leaps of logic and can mostly really only be solved through trial and error. Also, so often you really have no idea what you should be doing or that there is a puzzle there in the first place. It gets slightly better as the game progresses, but not much really. Then there is the length. The Longest Journey is indeed Long! Too long!! Mostly because the story is extremely stretched-out. Moreover, everything in this game is slow: the character animations are slow, the walking is slow and much of the speaking is slow as well. This, combined with the puzzles, makes the game just a chore to play. Finally there is the character models. Boy do they look HIDEOUS! Both in-game as well as in the cut-scenes characters look like drugged-out alien zombies. April herself is actually the worst offender. She even looks bad on the box art. Cannot imagine how somebody thought this was acceptable, even back in 1999. So there you have it. While this review may sound overly negative I would still recommend this game, but only for it's story - and for the sequel(s) that follow it.

Short version: excellent writing, interesting and likeable main character, surprisingly good puzzles. Long(er) version: I was initially put off by the low res graphics and the first few puzzles in the game. I'm glad I gave it another try though. I ended up being engrossed by this from start to finish with never a dull moment. The only "complaint" worth noting is that it was too short, but I simply didn't want it to end. Indeed I don't like pixel art, but I loved this game despite that. After giving it quite some thought I discovered that characters, voice acting and puzzles are the only things that are game breaking for me when not done right. But of these were top notch! Kathy Rain is a very likeable, very real and very human character. She develops over the course of the game and her voice actor is perfectly cast for the role. All the other characters aren't as fleshed out, but all are voiced well too. The story was well written and paced and definitely had some "Gabriel Knight vibes" going on. It is a very mature story too which can get pretty dark, but thankfully they didn't forget to add in some humor as well. While some were too simple, I found the majority of the puzzles to be just the right amount of difficulty to give you that good feeling of accomplishment without ever becoming a frustrating "how was I supposed to know that" affair. All the puzzles are logical, none require you to combine weird objects in silly ways and there's a good amount of variety too. I also loved that the game doesn't allow you to pick up stuff that you have no idea why you would need. I would have wished that this game had higher resolution graphics but I understand why this isn't the case. They still managed to create atmospheric looking locations that very much helped draw me into the story. The music was entirely forgettable, but this is not something I personally find all that important. It also would have been nice if we saw some more animations and lips actually moving when characters talked, but I understand corners need to be cut with a limited budget. All in all I had great fun with this and I seriously hope there will be a sequel - or even a whole series - because I'd love to see more of Miss Katherine Rain!

I liked this game a lot, even though I don't really care for post-apocalyptic or futuristic settings. But the story was good, voice acting was great and the puzzles were not brain-dead easy or silly cat-mustache moon logic. They all made sense, were not just clicking on things until something works and some really made me pause and think for a while. I am not a fan of pixel art games and especially the character faces were very hard to make out on screen. But at least you got detailed face views during conversation, albeit without moving lips. The ending was a bit rushed and it was overall too short (took me about 10 hours), but that just means I really didn't want the game to end.

This was an okay little game. I enjoyed the sexual puns and the making fun of our current society, even tough I did find the humor a bit too juvenile at times. It was fun to play Larry again in a classic point-and-click fashion and the voice acting (aside from Larry himself) was pretty well done. Better, in fact, than in a AAA game like Skyrim. That being said, I absolutely hated Larry's over the top silly voice. I understand this was done deliberately, but I just hated it. And the puzzles in this game, like in most adventure games, were very bad. The usual moon logic clicking-on-everything-until-it-works fare is present here, although towards the end of the game things get incredible easy. Also bad was the story. Why is there even a story here in the first place? If it was just Larry trying to get laid it would have been better because the overarching story was poorly done and made no sense at all. As far as it's adult nature goes, it was all very tame. Larry games in the past have been raunchier and I think this could have been a little more raunchy as well. Also the cartoon style of the ladies didn't really making things more 'erotic'. In fact the girls in the original "Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards" actually looked more appealing. I would only recommend this game for nostalgic reasons and some fun (sexual) humor. As far as gameplay is concerned it fails and it's ultimately an entirely forgettable little game.