Before I discuss the particulars of this game, I must offer one caveat: if you don't like adventure games, The Longest Journey will do nothing to change your mind. "For genre fans" is one of the most overworked reviewer cliches ever, but in this case, it is very, very accurate. If the mention of, say, Monkey Island causes your eyes to glaze over with boredom, you need read no further; The Longest Journey is NOT your bar of chocolate.

Still with me? Good. While The Longest Journey is, at the nuts-and-bolts level of play mechanics, an entirely typical adventure game, it gives an impression of polish and intricacy like few others. Technically, TLJ is rock-solid; it offers a wealth of installation and configuration options, and while I tried everything I could think of, I never managed to crash the game or confuse its logic. Furthermore, with a few detail settings turned down, it runs surprisingly well on modest PCs, though a full installation is strongly recommended on slower systems.

The Longest Journey's interface is simple, and reminiscent of many similar games' mechanics, but is more successfully implemented than most. Clicking the mouse pointer on an on-screen location causes protagonist April Ryan to walk to that spot; clicking an object or important piece of scenery allows you to examine it, and if possible, manipulate it with hand (picking things up, moving switches, etc.) or mouth (eating food, playing a flute, etc.) icons. Numerous shortcut keys are available, hotspot detection is excellent, and best of all, pixel-hunting is almost never an issue. If you're supposed to find an object on the floor or a button on the wall, the designers of The Longest Journey have made sure you'll be able to actually SEE it.

The graphical and aural components of The Longest Journey are both generally excellent, with a few stumbles in character animation. The game world is represented by polygonal characters and objects over pre-rendered backdrops, much like the recent Final Fantasies. TLJ's environments are beautifully rendered and animated... ocean waves are particularly impressive... but their inhabitants often look slightly off. The character models are generally detailed and attractive, but their animations are too obviously looped and frequently somewhat jerky. The same goes for the game's many FMV sequences, in which the special effects and settings are stunning, but the rendered "actors" don't always move smoothly and convincingly. In the sound department, music and FX are top drawer, and the staggering amount of dialogue is all competently voiced. Some of the voice acting is fantastic, and some of it a bit over the top, but overall it's well above average.

Where The Longest Journey truly excels, however, is in drawing you fully into its world. I won't give away too much of the story, as it begins revealing its many secrets right from the beginning, but the gist of it is this. April Ryan, an artist and student in Newport City (a futuristic metropolis resembling something out of Blade Runner), has been having strange dreams of dragons, tree spirits, and other strange phenomena...some of them appearing while she's wide awake. One day, she has a run-in with Cortez, a local eccentric, who seems to know far more about April and her mysterious dreams than any stranger should. As the dreams grow more intense, others around April begin to see them as well, and Cortez eventually reveals that Earth is actually divided into two worlds: Stark, the one she knows, a place of science and order, and Arcadia, which she has seen in her dreams, a place of magic and chaos. The existence of both worlds depends on a balance of their forces, and April's dreams are a sign of that balance beginning to deteriorate...

One word that appropriately describes the feeling of working one's way through The Longest Journey is EPIC. April's quest takes her (and you) to many corners of both Stark and Arcadia, from Newport's crime-choked Hope Street to the flying castle of a mad Arcadian alchemist; you'll deal with an impressive cast ranging from your landlord to an ambassador of the Venar, a race to whom past, present, and future are indistinguishable. It is an adventure grand in scope, but its real beauty lies in how fully each location and civilization is fleshed out. Sure, it's not quite Tolkien, but each Arcadian race has its own history and lore, and even your life in Stark comes with an extensive backstory. The game's conversation trees often allow you to chat at length about subjects that aren't germane to the quest, but further increase your understanding of the worlds around you. This goes a long way toward creating the illusion of a cohesive, holistic world, and does wonders for a player's suspension of disbelief and sense of immersion. It is somewhat curious that April will refuse to perform any action that might get her killed, but the inability to die in The Longest Journey does give you the advantage of being able to try anything and everything without having to worry about the old save-and-restore tango.

The Longest Journey loses a few points for its character animation and for a few of adventure games' standard pitfalls. Its replay value is arguably limited, a few puzzles require Martian leaps of logic to solve, there is the occasional bit of hamfisted exposition, and yes, it's a niche title in a fading genre. However, The Longest Journey is also such a polished and engrossing example of that genre, and I enjoyed it so much, that I cannot in good conscience give it any less than a B. This Journey won't be to everyone's taste, but for those who salivate at the idea of one of the best-written graphical adventures ever seen, it's one well worth taking.