The Longest Journey tries its hardest to keep you hooked with typical storyline tropes like vague implication and initially random-seeming events that keep you propelling forward to find out what's going on. Still, these old storytelling tricks can't hide the flaws inherent in many typical adventure games.
Obvious moments where some items can be closely examined and others can't, which must mean they can be interacted with? Check.
Completely nonsensical combinations of items? Check
Moments of "imminent" danger where you're allowed hours to figure out what to do? Check.
Completely unrelated and uninteresting fetch quests? Oh holy HELL, check.
And then at some point about halfway through, not even the storyline can hide the flaws of this game. You get sacked with an oh-so-hilarious bird sidekick (that's sarcasm, kids), the mythos and storyline of the world you're in becomes second place and lost, and moments of exposition to plug up plot holes drone on and on to the point of exhaustion, which wouldn't be that horrible if the story being told was engaging.
Lead character April Ryan's reactions to events were probably the most interesting and "real" feeling part of the game. "Why me? Why do I have to save the world?" ,she asks in exasperation. At some point, me the player began to wonder why as well. And when I took down an enemy with the use of a calculator...I just stopped caring.
Sometimes less is more, and no more is this apparent than in the story of The Longest Journey. While adventure games are expected to transport you into a strange and fascinating world, the universe of this game starts off being the first, and finally ends up failing at being the second. Buyer beware.