The Longest Journey

The Good
I love practically everything about The Longest Journey. The quest is one as engaging as those of JRR Tolkien. The characters are great, especially your unofficial sidekick/comic relief, Crow, and the chronologically-omnipresent Abnaxus, whose lack of time perception makes conversation interesting. "I will. I did. I invite you to my home...my home was in the Marcuria city green and you will find it in the morning...I am explaining everything and you understood"

The pre-rendered background scenes are beautiful. Arcadia looks like a Yes album cover, and Stark looks like something from Blade Runner. The 3D models of the characters react well to their environment, especially in terms of lighting. The inventory system is the mostly-standard "Big-box-o'-stuff" that most adventure games use, and when you pull an item from it and use it something, the icon of the selected item flashes as you move it over your target to verify that your attempt is valid. This ereases some of the tedium of trying to figure out what item you should be using, and eleminites entirely the annoying "I don't really want to do that." type dialogue that accompanies an incorrect item usage.

The Bad
Several people have said that the dialogue is too lengthy, but the story is one of the pillars on which this game relies, thus long dialogue is an asset. My only gripes are that the ending leaves you wanting more, and the language is a little coarse, with no option for filtering it. The former problem is fairly subjective, as a good story SHOULD make you want more, while the latter is problematic only in that it narrows the playing audience, making it inaccessible to those of more sensitive constitutions.

The Bottom Line
It's not all fantasy, it's not all futuristic, it's not all internal or external struggle, it's all of these things, and even a little more. There's no point at which you really have everything figured out, even if you think you do.