According to gamasutra, it was in newsweek twice, and PC Gamer hailed it as the best adventure game of the year. Unfortunately, I don’t have copies of the original coverage. Here’s the gamasutra article: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3862/the_last_express_revisiting_an_.php?print=1
Rotoscoping has its own charm, and is used in modern projects like the TV series Undone. It’s also a massive undertaking- the whole thing has to be shot on film and then painstakingly painted frame by frame. According to the gamasutra article above, it cost 5 million, which would be an astronomical budget in 1997!
I was a fan of adventure games back when it came out, but somehow missed it. I later bought it in college, when I heard about it online as a “great adventure game from the 90s” and bought a used copy of it off ebay. It’s a very unusual, innovative game, and quite a classic.
