[Review] The Longing - Nintendo Switch

Developed and Published By: Application System Heidelberg/ASHGames
Categories: Idle, Adventure
Release Date: 04.14.21

Gamers are usually the kind of folk who want instant gratification. You do something, you get rewarded, it feels good, repeat. However, there’s a world of games that don’t push for that, games that even are in real time. The kind of game you don’t just play for three hours and feel you played it all. The Longing is that kind of game. A point and click about time.

The Longing is an incredibly accurate name. You play as a Shade, your king sleeps for 400 days and forbids you to leave the cave…but do you listen? Four Hundred Long Days. Go back to your room and wait it out…or not. Explore the cave. It’s a slow trek to get where ever you’re going and it’s a huge cave, maze like even. You move slow and a lot of the cave looks similar, but you’ll occasionally manage to find these beautiful, unique rooms. From the drab, drank, brown caves, to color.

You’ll often run into possible dead ends. A ledge too high to climb up. There’s some water dropping, you should come back later, it’ll probably fill up eventually, allowing you swim up, not climb up. A door might be really big and take a long time to open, wait a few hours. The Longing is a game about waiting for better or worse. This is definitely not the game you try and play all day to accomplish something. Play for bit one day, maybe come back a few days later, find what’s new. Like mention earlier, if you feel inclined, just sit out the 400 days in your room, sitting, waiting. That’s boring though, go on an adventure, discover things.

Your room is empty, so on your journey in the cave, pick up anything you find. Pieces of your instrument to play songs. The shade liked to draw, so grab those colors you find and make beautiful art to fill your room. Materials for firewood. Whatever you can do to spruce your room up…maybe waiting won’t be so bad now, that is if you want to wait.

The whole game has a sketch like artstyle, like a picture book. Despite a lot of brown and black filling the game, it’s a pleasant game to look at. The lighting is pretty good when the game calls for it, and at any time you can dim or lighten the screen. Infact, you can disable a lot of stuff, even the music if you get sick of it in all of your waiting.

There is always something the Shade has to say, about his loneliness, how the room looks, what he picks up, a task he needs to do, etc… This in itself makes the game feel not to lonely, it adds character to the game. When the Shade reads, you can ofcourse read as well, turning pages when you’re done. It feels more like it’s a game wit you and the Shade, not just the Shade.

The Longing is an interesting game, but unless you get incredibly invested in the game, the intrinsic value might fly past you. This isn’t a game to play and marathon, you’ll need to take your time. Play The Longing as something in the background. It’s a bit too slow for my liking and isn’t exactly a fun game to me, but for fans of idle games, I can imagine they’d get enjoyment out of the game.