Starting from The Longest Journey, to Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, and then to Chapters, would you say they're a must play? Don't concern yourselves with what I enjoy, as I enjoy any genre as long as it's good, I just want to know if in your opinion, these are important games to play. I'm just curious, since it seems special to many as far as I can tell, but what do you think about it? Thanks.

I was in the same boat as you. I bought the first one and thought the characters and the story were cool in the first few hours. But then I got to the fantasy land and all my enthusiasm just went away.

I really would like to get on board with the series, people talk highly of it, and Chapters looks really cool.

Never played it, never heard about it... well you asked.

I just bought the The Longest Journey and Dreamfall bundle, so I guess I'll see how they are. I'm still curious what people think about them though, so don't end any discussion here about what you love (or hate) about the game. I'm sure I'll be back to want to discuss it at some point.

Short answer: If you're into story-heavy games, absolutely. 100 % yes. If you're not into story-heavy games, I'd look elsewhere.

Somewhat longer answer: I've played all the games in this franchise, starting with The Longest Journey at it's time of release. That game blew me away when I first played it, as it was so damn different from anything else on the market. It was a vehicle for it's tremendous story, and the writing was on a level that you hadn't seen in a video-game by that point. (Then Planescape: Torment came out a month later, and swiftly dethroned TLJ)

The sequel was very much the same. They did some really smart changes to the UI, etc, tackled on a terrible combat system (Which you never use in the game except on 3 occasions or so, hello Planescape, my old friend.) And continued telling that superb story in that unique way of writing of theirs.

Dreamfall Chapters is by far the greatest deviation from the rest of the franchise. They've scrapped the crappy combat, they've completely redone the style of the game, making it far more akin to a Telltale game than the previous titles. It's the new style of adventure game after all, and they really pull it off well. Where-as the Telltale games often feel clunky, Dreamfall Chapters is constantly flaunting just how smooth and good it looks. It's a cinematic, elegant experience. It's worth noting that the game sports both linear, bombastic segments and large, open areas for you explore, so you get a nice balance between taking in the well-realized world, and finding yourself in strange and wonderful scenarios. There's also a ton of choices to make, decisions that at the very least seem important. I'm unable to say just how much of an impact these decisions will have at this point, as the full game ain't out yet, but it seems really promising in that regard, as well as in every other.

I'd recommend you watch the Quick Look on the site, and then decide for yourself if you think it could be something you'd enjoy. Personally, I can't recommend it enough, but like Kentucky Route Zero, it's not for everyone. But then again, how could you ever say no to Shitbot?

Just got done playing about two hours of The Longest Journey. I'm really into it so far, enough to want to keep playing even though I'm tired, but I have to work later, so I stopped.

@do_the_manta_ray: All sounds good to me.

I've been with series for a long time.

After playing chapters I strongly reccommend at a minimum playing dream fall: the longest journey first. You could probably get by without playing the longest journey itself if you want, but really chapters relies on a lot of prior knowledge of the plot of dream fall: tlj as it ties the story very tightly with that game. It's more like the second half of that story than something new altogether. You can still enjoy chapters without it, but no question the story loses a lot of impact without that prior knowledge.

This is a fantastic game but made for existing fans of the story.

Really you should play both, in my estimation they hold up pretty well and are among the best adventure games ever made

I didn't play the first game but I remember loving the second game.

I did try to play the first one later but it didn't age very well it isn't optimized for newer systems.

I played through the Longest Journey and loved it. I suck at adventure game puzzles so I used the Universal Hint website which gives increasingly more revealing hints but often gives you just enough of a push that you don't get jammed for too long.

Yes for the writing and characters! Dreamfall: TLJ does have a really bad cliffhanger & annoying clunky combat but is still worthwhile. I really need to play Chapters but I adore the first game so much.

Yes. The Longest Journey would benefit from an HD re-release or something, but that game is hella good and definitely one of the best adventure games out there. Dreamfall isn't as good and is kinda clunky, but I guess you need to know that game's plot, which isn't that easy to follow, to be honest, to enjoy Chapters.

@ghostiet: An HD re-release would be interesting, but I would hope it'd be on consoles too, because I'd fear it probably wouldn't work too well on my PC if they did enough to it.

@slag: I got the first two last night and played the first for about two hours; I'm really enjoying it so far. I'm about to play more of it, which is why I'm on really.

@ravelle: I don't know, I have a relatively new PC and it works fine for me. In terms of aging well, visually? Not really (though it does some neat stuff and I still like the environments), gameplay wise that just depends on how much you enjoy it., so it aging doesn't matter in that respect. I enjoy playing it enough, and the visuals don't bother me that much, though it'd be nice to at least raise the resolution, and properly have anti aliasing. It's not that bad though.

I got about halfway through the first one and really enjoying it, before I got sick of the infamous adventure game "logic" and dropped it altogether. I liked the second one a lot more and don't remember having an issue with missing a bunch of story from the first game. It sounds like the first game is clicking for you, so hopefully you get through it okay, but don't be afraid to skip ahead to the second one if the game wears on you.

I envy you a little about getting to play them all so close together. I'm afraid a bunch of stuff was lost on me in Chapters after forgetting basically everything about the first two. Heck, maybe I should go back and try to get through Longest Journey during this long-ass gap between Chapter's Book 1 and 2.

@teddie: I am. I'm only a few hours in, and while things can change, I'm really liking it so far, and quite surprised by some of it, honestly, down to even it being mature. I'm not one to skip stuff if I plan on playing its sequel, even if I don't enjoy it, so I'll go through this one. I've know about this series probably since it started, but I never really knew what it was about. Only reason I stopped playing it is because I like talking about it, and I can't contain whatever enthusiasm I have for games I play. I'm going back to it now.

I remember the subtitles being a yellow pixelated mess that got absorbed in to the background most of the time, it was rough reading them.

@ravelle: Hm. I don't know what to say. It's fine for me. Perhaps you tried forcing the anti aliasing? I tried that on the control panel, and it made things blurrier. I thought it looked okay, but items that can be selected shimmered, and then of course the blur. I didn't feel it looked right, as if the game wasn't accepting it as correct, so I just went back to normal. It would have been nice to set it to 1920 x 1080, or whatever the appropriate resolution is, but I'm okay with how it is as it's not bother me.

It's been a while, I'll give it another shot and see if it's as bad as I remember.

The series is among my favorites. Each game is definitely worth playing.

It may hard to go back to the first game. It definitely shows its age. But I would still argue that it's the best adventure game ever despite its flaws (a couple obnoxiously convoluted puzzles, too much much walking/backtracking, low resolution). If you can't make it through it it's not a huge deal. The sequel (which is also a fantastic game and is much easier to play even with its clunky and unnecessary combat system) does an okay job of catching you up and the story doesn't really depend on you knowing everything that happened in the first game.

@dudeglove: What turned you off of The Longest Journey, as compared to its sequel?

@hsghsghsg: I'll finish it. Yeah, I really, really hate to look at walkthroughs, but there was just one moment in which I had to since I didn't want to be there longer than I had to, so I can experience more of the game. I wish some of the stuff was highlighted, because I couldn't make progress due to not noticing that there was a valve I needed to turn. Not sure if you remember that part early on, but you have to get the key from inside the subway, so you have to do a few things first, and that part I was a bit stuck on. I'm going to from now on make sure to use all my items on everything I notice, even if it makes no damn sense as to why it would work. I just got back out of the alternate world (starts with an a, but I don't quite have the names memorized yet, though I know Stark is our world). I'm also against, for myself, going through a sequel if I have the first already, so I'll definitely finish the first before I do Dreamfall.

@ravelle: Yeah, it's pretty good to me, so hopefully it works out for you and you'll be able to experience to a degree you're okay with.

I doubt it, honestly, that it would be that power consuming. It might come, since they have confirmed that after Dreamfall they plan to finish April Ryan's story with The Longest Journey Home, which is supposed to be visually and mechanically similar to the original The Longest Journey. They wanted to greenlight it during development of Dreamfall Chapters if they reached a stretch goal, but they said that they will do it anyway, just later.

@ghostiet: Yeah, I was just saying, like an all new update instead of just an HD re-release (more like Halo Anniversary, then say the Ico Collection.) Anyways, thanks for the info, that sounds cool! Don't tell me as this'll be rhetoric and me simply wondering, but I was wondering what April's journey had to do with the rest, leading into Dreamfall. I'm assuming not much other than perhaps some references and the world that the characters inhabit, which I guess I'll see when I get to Dreamfall. I'm 11 hours in on The Longest Journey now and really liking it aside from having to look a couple of times at walkthroughs to see what I'm not getting. I like figuring those things out myself, and often can, but I also like to move along and not stay in an area longer than I feel I should.

Finished The Longest Journey. I liked it a lot. There were a few too many moments in which I just didn't get what I had to do, so I resorted to a walkthrough on and off enough to an extent that I simply gave up in certain moments when there was some stuff in plain sight but I didn't notice its importance. I also thought the ending 'twist' was predictable from the time April meets the old woman, but it was kind of sad to me in a way. Now, onto Dreamfall.

I know that name anywhere! He wrote the novel to the only good MMO ever made: Prophet Without Honor

Chapters seems cool. Fantasy parts seem severely less cool. I'd play if I was starved of Dark Souls.

I played through the whole series in the last couple of months. I must know where this madman Ragnar Tørnquist will take the series to!

I am disappointed in Chapters to some extent. The game is janky in a lot of ways, e.g. missing dialogue, graphical glitches, invisible objects or npcs, improper saving, becoming a demon baby from hell... If I was one of the people that played the previous game in 2006 and had to wait for this, I'd be disappointed. Don't take this as a statement that the game is completely broken, it's just very unpolished.

Playing through Dreamfall now, and wow, I'm really impressed by it and liking it so far a lot. I'm two hours in. It is actually really kind of sad going back to Venice in the game, the place you are in the first, and seeing how much it has changed, from in the original, what seems like a low income, yet nice enough place for those that don't have much money and just want to work their way up in life, to a rundown, severely poor area. I really like the characters so far (the little teddy bears are cute and awesome, I just wish he could tag along). The music is great as well. This is definitely a game I'm disappointed that I didn't play around release, but I'm glad I played the first prior.

Damn, so I will need to play through the first one. How long did it take you to finish it? I might just rush through it with a walk-through...

The fantasy world really took the wind out of my sails. The futuristic one had a great atmosphere tho.

@choi: It's about 25 to 30 hours (as Steam puts it, it says 27 hours for me). It's probably 25 or a little shorter if you use the walkthrough. The fantasy stuff is good I think and I don't really agree with those that don't like it, but yeah, I am more into the cyber punk stuff. It's kind of weird, because when in Arcadia (the fantasy world), it's like an E to T rated game, but in Stark (the future, our world), it's M rated. Also, I'm really enjoying Dreamfall. If it weren't for the first one, I probably wouldn't be getting as much out of its sequel, but as it is, I like Dreamfall more. I fully recommend playing the first prior to Dreamfall, as I think you'll get more out of Dreamfall due to its places you go to, the characters you see again, as well the details of the story. The point and click stuff is fine, but it's not as good as freely exploring in 3D like Dreamfall. Alright, going back to Dreamfall.

Just finished Dreamfall. Really, really good game. I can understand why it'd suck to wait so long after its initial release for another one. It being 2006, and Chapters all the way in 2014. Lucky for me though that I can play it now, though I'm not sure I can... I want to, but I fear it may not run well enough on my PC. Dreamfall certainly ended in a way that makes you wonder what happened, and wanting more, but it was also pretty sad. I'm going to have to check Chapters out and see if I want to get it. I recommend playing both the first and second! They are very, very different games in terms of gameplay aside from how your inventory works and journal. Not that anyone here is curious, other than the last post, but The Longest Journey is about 25 to 30 hours. Dreamfall is about 15. It took me 27 for the first, and 14 for Dreamfall.

Glad you enjoyed them duder and nice avatar change!

yeah it's been a rough 8 years waiting for the conclusion to Zoe's story and I guess technically the wait isn't over yet...

fwiw Chapters plays a lot more like Dreamfall than TLJ and has more of that vibe etc. if that helps your decision.

@slag: No, either way I'd play it. My only concern is if it can run. I'll probably just wait a while longer to see if there's any updates about the PS4 version, but if not, I'll go ahead and get the PC one. I know how Chapters plays though, and it looks good to me. A similar game to The Longest Journey in which I still have yet to go through, but unfortunately cannot find (I got them on disc in early 09), is the Syberia games. I moved in August of 09, and I'm not sure what happened to them after that... Yeah, I like the new avatar too. I wished there was more Wonkers in it.

if you don't find your copies, I've noticed the Syberia games frequently on sale on GoG and Steam at super steep discounts (2-3 USdollars per title). I didn't enjoy Syberia much at all, but to be fair I tried it on the Nintendo DS which I retrospect I think was a big mistake...

btw dude Just happened to see the Syberia games on sale for super cheap today $2.99 total for both along with a some other games.

http://www.bundlestars.com/all-bundles/voyager-bundle/

yes really old thread. Unequivocally yes. I won't even tell you what I think of any of them.

@cornbredx: Yep, it's old enough, as I already went through them. Loved the experience.

@slag: I already bought them again and went through the first, and am two hours into the second, but stopped to play other games. I'll go back to it at some point. Thanks though. I finished the first three Blackwell games, and they're okay. I just stopped playing Deception for now.