At this point, I feel like I’ve been playing Journey for half of my life. I’ve played through underwater Journey, forest Journey, air Journey, space Journey, cat Journey, and even boring Journey. Yet upon my yearly ascent in the original Journey on New Year’s Day, I find myself just as floored as when I first picked it up years ago, in spite of clone after clone exhausting my goodwill. What exactly then, is present in the original’s realized game design philosophy that every other spiritual successor has found themselves bereft of?
To answer this question, I want you to imagine a world where Journey doesn’t exist. A world where the formula to indie developers meant something more than just mindlessly tilting up on the left joystick to walk towards the next checkpoint while some narrator waxed poetic in the background. Before Journey, before Flower even, the closest ancestor we had was Ico. Fumito Ueda described his game as an execution of “boy meets girl,” and what it boiled down to was a minimalist adventure game with some puzzles cleverly disguised as platforming and timing segments. Occasionally, you also whack a few shadows while protecting and pulling your female companion Yorda through vast and still castle ruins. It wasn’t a perfect game by any means; the combat was frankly tedious, Yorda lacked much of an identity outside of pointing at objects of interest/opening doors/getting kidnapped, and at the end of the day, there really wasn’t much in the way of a balanced and developed relationship when the player was calling all the shots, but it was still the start of something beautiful. It wasn’t mechanically complex or esoteric in any fashion, but it was different. It was different, and it felt dangerous.
This write-up is not intended to be a critique of Ico, nor is it meant to imply that games proceeding Team Ico's philosophy of “design by subtraction” have since been inferior. Rather, I bring up Ico in particular, because there seems to be this general perception that minimalism results in a crippling lack of mechanical depth. That is, many seem to believe that discarding and minimizing a game’s various elements results in a dearth of tangible mechanics or imagery to cling onto, and thus appears to result in an empty and vacuous experience with little to justify further replays or deeper dives. To me though, this line of thought fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of addition by subtraction. It was never about creating mechanically deep systems with limitless possibilities like an immersive sim or a sandbox. Rather, the philosophy aimed to remove excess layers that distracted from the game’s “more realistic feeling of presence”, such as removing optional bosses and landmarks in Shadow of the Colossus or reducing enemy types in Ico to just a single design. In fairness, the goal wasn't just to remove extraneous elements that made something feel overly “gamey,” but also to marry mechanics in a way where the invisible layer of intended design never made itself too apparent (i.e. hiding the user interface in Shadow of the Colossus outside of fights). It was not just addition by subtraction; it was also addition through illusion.
To that end, I firmly believe that Journey is the best Team Ico game that Fumito Ueda never directed. Journey’s design philosophy was not necessarily revolutionary for its time, considering its predecessors in the forms of Flower and Ico, nor was its ultimate goal of reaching a final destination via walking/jumping/flying mechanics particularly exemplary. What was exemplary was its level of care and precision in how it implemented said minimalist design philosophy. Every time I play through Journey, I pick up more subtle details through its fusion of audio-visual presentation and gameplay that seemed so clear and intuitive that I had taken their presence for granted. There are the obvious strengths, like how Journey wordlessly conveys your path forward by keeping the shining peak of the mountain visible at all times while outside, or how it uses consistent visual language through cloth creatures and strips to demarcate safe zones where the player can recharge their scarf. But there’s more beneath the surface; what about the game's sneaky introduction to the sand-sliding mechanic from the introductory dune so it’s no longer unfamiliar during the exhilarating and committal descent, or how there’s a section of the underground that’s filled with these scarf jellyfish tinted in blue allowing you to remain in flight that evokes the feeling of being underwater, foreshadowing the next section as a tower ascension where the player must continually breach the surface to “swim” and escape? Sure, everyone knows about how the bitter cold disempowers the player by slowing their movement and lowering the scarf’s energy gauge, but I usually don’t hear about how strong winds can chip away at the scarf’s capacity itself or how it reduces the volume and area of effect of your shouts, making it far more difficult to restore your energy gauge from the growing frostbite.
There’s also the overlooked audio aspect of Journey. Granted, everyone loves to discuss the soundtrack’s thematics, like how the final chord of Journey’s motif never resolves a single time in any track until the end of Apotheosis or for that matter, how all the instruments are never fully present until that final ascent, when the entire orchestra finally comes together as one only to slowly fall away as the player and the world fade away. Yet, the sound design regarding Journey’s implementation of said soundtrack often goes underappreciated. Again, there are plenty of clear strengths that have been widely discussed, such as the punctuated stillness of the desert dunes providing room for the piddle paddle of the player’s footsteps amongst the vast desert winds and eventually swelling into triumphant bursts of adventure. But again, there are little subtleties that speak to the soundtrack’s interactivity, like how the backing drum during the aforementioned underwater section gives the track the impression of being muted and seamlessly drops this filter once the player breaches the surface, or how the player’s shouts are always in the key of the backing track’s scale, meaning that the introduced notes remain within the game’s tonality. It’s these little things that further round out Journey’s experience; the music is so seamlessly woven in that it takes a discerning ear to pick out every specific detail, in such a way where it feels like the soundtrack is organically supplementing every memorable moment of the game.
Of course, it’s not enough to just handle the basics well, even if there’s a master’s touch present to carefully disguise these additions so silently. As I mentioned before, popular works need compelling hooks to draw in an audience, but they also need an element of danger to keep that audience engaged. In the case of Journey, Thatgamecompany tackles this through their stealth multiplayer. This is where Journey easily outclasses its successors and may in fact, even have one-upped Ico. If Ico’s main limitation was a lack of autonomy for any non-player characters, then Journey circumvents this problem entirely by replacing the AI with real players instead. The loose implementation adds a catch: nothing in the game aside from the final completion screen listing your companion(s)’ name(s) ever hints on this, and not once is the player given instructions or suggestions on how to interact with said players. The only obvious mechanical incentive from cooperating with other players is the ability to recharge one another’s scarves via proximity/shouts, and there’s no consequence to merely abandoning random players or quitting in the middle of a session. It’s what makes this multiplayer so compelling; many times you’ll find other players just wandering about by themselves, despawning, or quickly rushing ahead without care towards your presence. There’s no guarantee that they’ll cooperate… which makes that one instance where they do that much more memorable. In this sense, I think Jenova Chen and his team solved two problems at once: the aforementioned challenge of granting outside elements a degree of realism, and his own personal challenge of creating a minimalist environment where players had no incentives to act in bad faith despite never having any major incentives to cooperate either, resulting in seemingly organic interactions.
Perhaps it is cheating to state that this spontaneous element is what gives Journey a step-up over its peers, but I also can’t deny that this same feature is exactly what lends the game its identity. It’s hard to provide drastically different experiences for focused single player games after all; no matter how much Fumito Ueda may have insisted that he was inspired by emergent gameplay mechanics and player autonomy to allow for more diverse experiences, there remains an upper limit upon how far those experiences can unravel. However, Thatgamecompany’s take upon the “single-player odyssey” alongside the game’s cyclical nature and short runtime means that Journey is a far more replayable experience while remaining every bit as compelling as its competition. Even after multiple trips up the summit, I continue to be amazed by the thoughtfulness shown to me by other players. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fallen down the temple from being blown away by the wind, only for my companion to jump down with me, or how many trips through the blizzard were spent slowly trudging together mashing my shout, just like strangers on a cold winter’s night huddling together for warmth while shouting cries of encouragement to take one more step forward. In essence, Journey didn't need an intricate or elaborate story told with fanciful cutscenes and voice-acting; it simply needed to provide a backbone with no other contradicting elements, allowing players to form their own stories by experiencing the game on their own terms.
Journey isn’t mechanically rich or wildly innovative in terms of its scope, but it doesn’t have to be. Rather, it’s a deceptively simple yet meticulous and thoughtfully different approach upon a respected design philosophy, which aimed to further refine said formula by whittling down any elements that detracted from the game’s constructed sense of reality. Similarly, it doesn't feel the need to present a grandiose narrative, instead stripping away any specific contextual layers as to allow players to create memorable experiences with no conflicting moments in-between. I should be sick of this formula after tackling so many misguided copycats, and I can't deny that I was afraid to label yet another old favorite as propped up by nostalgia. Thankfully, my fears have been assuaged. I keep waiting for the day where I’ll finally be content putting this down forever… but that day has yet to come. I was not the first adventurer to embark upon this pilgrimage, nor will I be the last. Maybe I just need to get over my cynicism and accept that there was never anything to be cynical of to begin with. I’m sure more developers will continue to lazily carbon copy one of my favorites until the end of time, but that doesn’t mean the good times have to end.
Thanks for reading, everyone. Happy new year, and here’s to another journey around the sun.
To answer this question, I want you to imagine a world where Journey doesn’t exist. A world where the formula to indie developers meant something more than just mindlessly tilting up on the left joystick to walk towards the next checkpoint while some narrator waxed poetic in the background. Before Journey, before Flower even, the closest ancestor we had was Ico. Fumito Ueda described his game as an execution of “boy meets girl,” and what it boiled down to was a minimalist adventure game with some puzzles cleverly disguised as platforming and timing segments. Occasionally, you also whack a few shadows while protecting and pulling your female companion Yorda through vast and still castle ruins. It wasn’t a perfect game by any means; the combat was frankly tedious, Yorda lacked much of an identity outside of pointing at objects of interest/opening doors/getting kidnapped, and at the end of the day, there really wasn’t much in the way of a balanced and developed relationship when the player was calling all the shots, but it was still the start of something beautiful. It wasn’t mechanically complex or esoteric in any fashion, but it was different. It was different, and it felt dangerous.
This write-up is not intended to be a critique of Ico, nor is it meant to imply that games proceeding Team Ico's philosophy of “design by subtraction” have since been inferior. Rather, I bring up Ico in particular, because there seems to be this general perception that minimalism results in a crippling lack of mechanical depth. That is, many seem to believe that discarding and minimizing a game’s various elements results in a dearth of tangible mechanics or imagery to cling onto, and thus appears to result in an empty and vacuous experience with little to justify further replays or deeper dives. To me though, this line of thought fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of addition by subtraction. It was never about creating mechanically deep systems with limitless possibilities like an immersive sim or a sandbox. Rather, the philosophy aimed to remove excess layers that distracted from the game’s “more realistic feeling of presence”, such as removing optional bosses and landmarks in Shadow of the Colossus or reducing enemy types in Ico to just a single design. In fairness, the goal wasn't just to remove extraneous elements that made something feel overly “gamey,” but also to marry mechanics in a way where the invisible layer of intended design never made itself too apparent (i.e. hiding the user interface in Shadow of the Colossus outside of fights). It was not just addition by subtraction; it was also addition through illusion.
To that end, I firmly believe that Journey is the best Team Ico game that Fumito Ueda never directed. Journey’s design philosophy was not necessarily revolutionary for its time, considering its predecessors in the forms of Flower and Ico, nor was its ultimate goal of reaching a final destination via walking/jumping/flying mechanics particularly exemplary. What was exemplary was its level of care and precision in how it implemented said minimalist design philosophy. Every time I play through Journey, I pick up more subtle details through its fusion of audio-visual presentation and gameplay that seemed so clear and intuitive that I had taken their presence for granted. There are the obvious strengths, like how Journey wordlessly conveys your path forward by keeping the shining peak of the mountain visible at all times while outside, or how it uses consistent visual language through cloth creatures and strips to demarcate safe zones where the player can recharge their scarf. But there’s more beneath the surface; what about the game's sneaky introduction to the sand-sliding mechanic from the introductory dune so it’s no longer unfamiliar during the exhilarating and committal descent, or how there’s a section of the underground that’s filled with these scarf jellyfish tinted in blue allowing you to remain in flight that evokes the feeling of being underwater, foreshadowing the next section as a tower ascension where the player must continually breach the surface to “swim” and escape? Sure, everyone knows about how the bitter cold disempowers the player by slowing their movement and lowering the scarf’s energy gauge, but I usually don’t hear about how strong winds can chip away at the scarf’s capacity itself or how it reduces the volume and area of effect of your shouts, making it far more difficult to restore your energy gauge from the growing frostbite.
There’s also the overlooked audio aspect of Journey. Granted, everyone loves to discuss the soundtrack’s thematics, like how the final chord of Journey’s motif never resolves a single time in any track until the end of Apotheosis or for that matter, how all the instruments are never fully present until that final ascent, when the entire orchestra finally comes together as one only to slowly fall away as the player and the world fade away. Yet, the sound design regarding Journey’s implementation of said soundtrack often goes underappreciated. Again, there are plenty of clear strengths that have been widely discussed, such as the punctuated stillness of the desert dunes providing room for the piddle paddle of the player’s footsteps amongst the vast desert winds and eventually swelling into triumphant bursts of adventure. But again, there are little subtleties that speak to the soundtrack’s interactivity, like how the backing drum during the aforementioned underwater section gives the track the impression of being muted and seamlessly drops this filter once the player breaches the surface, or how the player’s shouts are always in the key of the backing track’s scale, meaning that the introduced notes remain within the game’s tonality. It’s these little things that further round out Journey’s experience; the music is so seamlessly woven in that it takes a discerning ear to pick out every specific detail, in such a way where it feels like the soundtrack is organically supplementing every memorable moment of the game.
Of course, it’s not enough to just handle the basics well, even if there’s a master’s touch present to carefully disguise these additions so silently. As I mentioned before, popular works need compelling hooks to draw in an audience, but they also need an element of danger to keep that audience engaged. In the case of Journey, Thatgamecompany tackles this through their stealth multiplayer. This is where Journey easily outclasses its successors and may in fact, even have one-upped Ico. If Ico’s main limitation was a lack of autonomy for any non-player characters, then Journey circumvents this problem entirely by replacing the AI with real players instead. The loose implementation adds a catch: nothing in the game aside from the final completion screen listing your companion(s)’ name(s) ever hints on this, and not once is the player given instructions or suggestions on how to interact with said players. The only obvious mechanical incentive from cooperating with other players is the ability to recharge one another’s scarves via proximity/shouts, and there’s no consequence to merely abandoning random players or quitting in the middle of a session. It’s what makes this multiplayer so compelling; many times you’ll find other players just wandering about by themselves, despawning, or quickly rushing ahead without care towards your presence. There’s no guarantee that they’ll cooperate… which makes that one instance where they do that much more memorable. In this sense, I think Jenova Chen and his team solved two problems at once: the aforementioned challenge of granting outside elements a degree of realism, and his own personal challenge of creating a minimalist environment where players had no incentives to act in bad faith despite never having any major incentives to cooperate either, resulting in seemingly organic interactions.
Perhaps it is cheating to state that this spontaneous element is what gives Journey a step-up over its peers, but I also can’t deny that this same feature is exactly what lends the game its identity. It’s hard to provide drastically different experiences for focused single player games after all; no matter how much Fumito Ueda may have insisted that he was inspired by emergent gameplay mechanics and player autonomy to allow for more diverse experiences, there remains an upper limit upon how far those experiences can unravel. However, Thatgamecompany’s take upon the “single-player odyssey” alongside the game’s cyclical nature and short runtime means that Journey is a far more replayable experience while remaining every bit as compelling as its competition. Even after multiple trips up the summit, I continue to be amazed by the thoughtfulness shown to me by other players. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fallen down the temple from being blown away by the wind, only for my companion to jump down with me, or how many trips through the blizzard were spent slowly trudging together mashing my shout, just like strangers on a cold winter’s night huddling together for warmth while shouting cries of encouragement to take one more step forward. In essence, Journey didn't need an intricate or elaborate story told with fanciful cutscenes and voice-acting; it simply needed to provide a backbone with no other contradicting elements, allowing players to form their own stories by experiencing the game on their own terms.
Journey isn’t mechanically rich or wildly innovative in terms of its scope, but it doesn’t have to be. Rather, it’s a deceptively simple yet meticulous and thoughtfully different approach upon a respected design philosophy, which aimed to further refine said formula by whittling down any elements that detracted from the game’s constructed sense of reality. Similarly, it doesn't feel the need to present a grandiose narrative, instead stripping away any specific contextual layers as to allow players to create memorable experiences with no conflicting moments in-between. I should be sick of this formula after tackling so many misguided copycats, and I can't deny that I was afraid to label yet another old favorite as propped up by nostalgia. Thankfully, my fears have been assuaged. I keep waiting for the day where I’ll finally be content putting this down forever… but that day has yet to come. I was not the first adventurer to embark upon this pilgrimage, nor will I be the last. Maybe I just need to get over my cynicism and accept that there was never anything to be cynical of to begin with. I’m sure more developers will continue to lazily carbon copy one of my favorites until the end of time, but that doesn’t mean the good times have to end.
Thanks for reading, everyone. Happy new year, and here’s to another journey around the sun.
Look, as much as I treasure this game I completely understand the (usually clear-headed and astute) swathe of middling reappraisals that I've noticed recently. I think the uniformly positive SHOCK 2 THE INDUSTRY reception this had, along with its legendary/unassailable art game™ status, are somewhat responsible for a glut of lazy contrarian game design theorizing--and the now VERY tired trend of copycat "nonviolent guideposted explorathons" that reek of a certain elitist hostility toward any games that dont fall into this hyper-accessible, beauty obsessed, pseudomeditative format. I'm sick of this very narrow concept of what constitutes an artistic or thoughtful game too!
However, I can't blame Journey for the cultural response that engulfed it, especially because I truly believe that Chen and Santiago operated from an honest and inquisitive place of creation while chasing the ideas that most captivated them--not out of some pompous guiding impulse to shake up the system or merely prove that games could be "more". Watching interviews with Chen where he barely holds back a giant beaming smile while discussing his inspiration for Journey--the sense of disempowerment, awe, and unity felt by those who had seen the Earth from space--showcase an entirely uncynical fascination for an implicitly compelling subject to explore through gameplay. Journey feels incredibly bright eyed and open: its taut aesthetic beauty, welcoming accessibility, ambiguous spirituality, and intimate nonverbal social system don't come across as demands or provocations to me, but as the shared passions of a group of artists culminating into this radiant, excited thing. A lot of the game actually feels metaphorical of the game-creation process for this small studio of friends experimenting together: the stone-carved glyphs and histories of bombastic past creators are present and noted, of course, but they're merely abstract window dressing in the much more personal collaborative journey being discovered.
I do think ThatGameCompany's prominent reputation HAS affected their process, and no longer feel the same spark in their work. I don't know if I believe in the whole "art has a singular soul" concept or even invest too seriously one way or the other in auteur theory in general, but I do know that for me, Journey emits a purity of spirit that makes me feel an intense affinity with those who created it--one that isn't matched by later games with very similar structural trappings. Maybe it's not possible to feel that anymore if you're coming to it with the foreknowledge of the game's reputation and legacy, or if you've already had this sort of experience with one of its many stylistic second cousins. I'm not sure.
However, I can't blame Journey for the cultural response that engulfed it, especially because I truly believe that Chen and Santiago operated from an honest and inquisitive place of creation while chasing the ideas that most captivated them--not out of some pompous guiding impulse to shake up the system or merely prove that games could be "more". Watching interviews with Chen where he barely holds back a giant beaming smile while discussing his inspiration for Journey--the sense of disempowerment, awe, and unity felt by those who had seen the Earth from space--showcase an entirely uncynical fascination for an implicitly compelling subject to explore through gameplay. Journey feels incredibly bright eyed and open: its taut aesthetic beauty, welcoming accessibility, ambiguous spirituality, and intimate nonverbal social system don't come across as demands or provocations to me, but as the shared passions of a group of artists culminating into this radiant, excited thing. A lot of the game actually feels metaphorical of the game-creation process for this small studio of friends experimenting together: the stone-carved glyphs and histories of bombastic past creators are present and noted, of course, but they're merely abstract window dressing in the much more personal collaborative journey being discovered.
I do think ThatGameCompany's prominent reputation HAS affected their process, and no longer feel the same spark in their work. I don't know if I believe in the whole "art has a singular soul" concept or even invest too seriously one way or the other in auteur theory in general, but I do know that for me, Journey emits a purity of spirit that makes me feel an intense affinity with those who created it--one that isn't matched by later games with very similar structural trappings. Maybe it's not possible to feel that anymore if you're coming to it with the foreknowledge of the game's reputation and legacy, or if you've already had this sort of experience with one of its many stylistic second cousins. I'm not sure.
there was once a session where i was in the midst of a depression and the help from other players was enough to move me to tears because it helped me remember that there's still good in the world.
Played through the summit and Apotheosis one more time for New Year's Day. Still as breathtakingly beautiful as when I first picked it up.
Pra mim oque Journey tenta retratar é nada mais do que a vida. Começamos sozinhos, nessa jornada com um único rumo, mas que cada um vive à sua maneira, aprendendo sobre o mundo que estamos agora trilhando, tomando nossos próprios desvios e encontrando companhias ímpares, com quem podemos trilhar até o final. É de uma sensibilidade tão linda a forma como retratam essa passagem da vida para a morte, e não só esse sistema, onde somos acompanhados de outros jogadores, é genial e inovador, também serve um propósito artístico muito bem-posto. A gameplay no geral não tem nada de muito diferente além desse ponto, mas todos os seus aspectos são tão harmoniosos e conversam tão bem para o que o jogo quer contar (também algo simples), que torna Journey uma obra tão sólida.
I don't like sand. It's coarse, rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.
a work of art.
Proof that less can be more.
Being different and being good aren't always the same thing. Many games have tried to stand out above other titles by using radically different game mechanics and simply failed due to trying to shoe horn them in where they are completely unnecessary. Journey is not one of those games. It's unique yes, stands out and does everything differently to almost any game I have played yet it works wonderfully well.
The game does exactly as the name implies, takes the player on a Journey. Though there are little scenes available at the end of each level showing the fall of the civilization who's remains you travel through, Journey is not a story heavy title, but more one about solitude.
At the start you are alone, walking into the winds of an apparently empty sand dunes pressing towards a mountain in the distance. The wind and occasional ruins peeking out of the sand your only companion. Before long though you will bump into other lone figures in the distance.
And it's amazing how quickly you will find yourself running to them. Journey is a co-op game where games meld together seamlessly, if you lose your partner, another will appear as you travel for you to Journey with. Their usernames are withheld, there are no mics, just a musical note your character can play as an almost silent form of communication and it's simply tremendous because of it.
There is something, whimsical, almost emotional about Journey. More often than not if a partner I had played a couple of levels with left I felt genuinely sad and alone. It isn't necessary to play together, the game is very easy regardless of being alone or together yet there is something about human nature that draws us together and Journey does a simply wonderful job of showing this.
The gameplay itself is incredibly simple with each level being a get from point A to point B affair. In some levels there are bits of cloth using your musical note you can activate, murals to find or glyphs to unlock which extend your little characters jump, not a great deal of complicated tasks to perform. It's the exploring that is really where Journey's fun is though.
One thing I will mention though that brought a smile and a little giggle when I first got to it is the sand surfing. Your character can slide down dunes like on ski's or a board using their feet. Sounds simple but it's amazing just how excellent it really is when in action. While you can do it on a variety of dunes there are while sections of the game dedicated to it and it's simply one of the more charming game aspects I have experienced in quite a long time.
This is largely due to the simply stunning visuals. The physics for the sand when walking or sliding through or cloth blowing in the wind are simply outstanding. The use of light and particle effects are all also exquisite. Wrap that up with it's unique art style and Journey is one of the best looking games on PS3. It really took my breath away from start to finish.
While immersive as Journey is, the game isn't particularly long, even to find all collectables shouldn't take more than one or two completions, and as afore mentioned the gameplay isn't especially deep. I did however play through it four times start to finish which should tell you it's got decent life.
ThatGameCompany's Journey much like Flower and Flow before it isn't for everyone. I do however urge if you aren't sure to give it a try, it's different in a very good way building on player companionship and exploration rather than story and gameplay mechanics. It's surprisingly emotional and looks and sounds amazing to boot.
+ Beautiful visuals and music.
+ Builds surprising emotional attachment.
+ Completely unique co-op.
- A bit short.
Being different and being good aren't always the same thing. Many games have tried to stand out above other titles by using radically different game mechanics and simply failed due to trying to shoe horn them in where they are completely unnecessary. Journey is not one of those games. It's unique yes, stands out and does everything differently to almost any game I have played yet it works wonderfully well.
The game does exactly as the name implies, takes the player on a Journey. Though there are little scenes available at the end of each level showing the fall of the civilization who's remains you travel through, Journey is not a story heavy title, but more one about solitude.
At the start you are alone, walking into the winds of an apparently empty sand dunes pressing towards a mountain in the distance. The wind and occasional ruins peeking out of the sand your only companion. Before long though you will bump into other lone figures in the distance.
And it's amazing how quickly you will find yourself running to them. Journey is a co-op game where games meld together seamlessly, if you lose your partner, another will appear as you travel for you to Journey with. Their usernames are withheld, there are no mics, just a musical note your character can play as an almost silent form of communication and it's simply tremendous because of it.
There is something, whimsical, almost emotional about Journey. More often than not if a partner I had played a couple of levels with left I felt genuinely sad and alone. It isn't necessary to play together, the game is very easy regardless of being alone or together yet there is something about human nature that draws us together and Journey does a simply wonderful job of showing this.
The gameplay itself is incredibly simple with each level being a get from point A to point B affair. In some levels there are bits of cloth using your musical note you can activate, murals to find or glyphs to unlock which extend your little characters jump, not a great deal of complicated tasks to perform. It's the exploring that is really where Journey's fun is though.
One thing I will mention though that brought a smile and a little giggle when I first got to it is the sand surfing. Your character can slide down dunes like on ski's or a board using their feet. Sounds simple but it's amazing just how excellent it really is when in action. While you can do it on a variety of dunes there are while sections of the game dedicated to it and it's simply one of the more charming game aspects I have experienced in quite a long time.
This is largely due to the simply stunning visuals. The physics for the sand when walking or sliding through or cloth blowing in the wind are simply outstanding. The use of light and particle effects are all also exquisite. Wrap that up with it's unique art style and Journey is one of the best looking games on PS3. It really took my breath away from start to finish.
While immersive as Journey is, the game isn't particularly long, even to find all collectables shouldn't take more than one or two completions, and as afore mentioned the gameplay isn't especially deep. I did however play through it four times start to finish which should tell you it's got decent life.
ThatGameCompany's Journey much like Flower and Flow before it isn't for everyone. I do however urge if you aren't sure to give it a try, it's different in a very good way building on player companionship and exploration rather than story and gameplay mechanics. It's surprisingly emotional and looks and sounds amazing to boot.
+ Beautiful visuals and music.
+ Builds surprising emotional attachment.
+ Completely unique co-op.
- A bit short.
I wish I had played this game at launch knowing nothing and had that same unforgettable experience that a lot of others had with this game. Instead I played it years later and just thought it was a pretty neat indie.
A glorified, pretentious walking simulator that does absolutely nothing interesting with the medium it chose to exist in
If this were a movie, I'd let it pass since it does feature stunning visuals and a somewhat touching story, as barebones as it is, but I fail to see where the game is supposed to be.
If this were a movie, I'd let it pass since it does feature stunning visuals and a somewhat touching story, as barebones as it is, but I fail to see where the game is supposed to be.
« It's not about the destination, it's about the journey » blahblahblah. But can a 1-hour walking sim be qualified as a "journey"? What audacity.
It annoys me because I think I felt good into the game 15 minutes before the end. The scenery, the music, everything was there to please me, but here's the thing: it's too short. It leans more towards the arty side than the gamy one, and that's a shame.
It annoys me because I think I felt good into the game 15 minutes before the end. The scenery, the music, everything was there to please me, but here's the thing: it's too short. It leans more towards the arty side than the gamy one, and that's a shame.
It's hard to think of a gaming experience that so profoundly rewired my expectations for the medium as this one.
At age 9 I saw a review of it on an Australian TV show called Good Game Spawn Point, and, like a parasite, it wiggled itself into my psyche ever since.
Once I finally got my hands on it a few years later I was spellbound. The colours, the movement, the atmospheres, it all coalesced into this beautiful moving painting. In retrospect, this is kind of my introduction to arthouse cinema, which probably best describes the actual appeal of Journey. It's just the right length that it feels like an interactive film to a more literal degree than most games do.
But it retains a glorious level of maneuverability, and the images it allows reach a level of poignancy I've rarely found elsewhere.
It also, most importantly for me, takes advantage of one of gaming's greatest assets, collaboration. The companion system, which I had somehow totally forgotten before this playthrough, elevates the entire experience. The way they drop in and out, the way you can boost each other, it's as though you've really found another wayward soul who happens to be on the same, well, 'journey' that you are. The later snow stages especially feel all the more affecting as you slowly watch the characters lose the ability to huddle together for warmth. Probably the emotional climax of the experience for me.
For years I've been telling people this was a favourite, but I had no idea how it'd actually hold up. This is a perfect 'once a decade' treat for the soul, and still feels radical for the form. To top it all off, over ten years later, its still just drop dead gorgeous.
At age 9 I saw a review of it on an Australian TV show called Good Game Spawn Point, and, like a parasite, it wiggled itself into my psyche ever since.
Once I finally got my hands on it a few years later I was spellbound. The colours, the movement, the atmospheres, it all coalesced into this beautiful moving painting. In retrospect, this is kind of my introduction to arthouse cinema, which probably best describes the actual appeal of Journey. It's just the right length that it feels like an interactive film to a more literal degree than most games do.
But it retains a glorious level of maneuverability, and the images it allows reach a level of poignancy I've rarely found elsewhere.
It also, most importantly for me, takes advantage of one of gaming's greatest assets, collaboration. The companion system, which I had somehow totally forgotten before this playthrough, elevates the entire experience. The way they drop in and out, the way you can boost each other, it's as though you've really found another wayward soul who happens to be on the same, well, 'journey' that you are. The later snow stages especially feel all the more affecting as you slowly watch the characters lose the ability to huddle together for warmth. Probably the emotional climax of the experience for me.
For years I've been telling people this was a favourite, but I had no idea how it'd actually hold up. This is a perfect 'once a decade' treat for the soul, and still feels radical for the form. To top it all off, over ten years later, its still just drop dead gorgeous.
stunning beyond words. every sentence i try to type beyond that feels wrong. this is a masterpiece
regardless of how many times I play it, the ending still fucks me up every time
I have only played this once and I'll never play it again...
... because I will never be able to recreate the beautiful emotional existential journey I had the first time. Spent the 2nd half with 1 person. Felt like I made a soul friend. Music is so uplifting (Austin Wintory is a genius). Definitely cried at the end.
... because I will never be able to recreate the beautiful emotional existential journey I had the first time. Spent the 2nd half with 1 person. Felt like I made a soul friend. Music is so uplifting (Austin Wintory is a genius). Definitely cried at the end.
The history behind and outside of Journey it’s almost as enthralling at the game itself; Chris Bell, former producer and designer at ThatGameCompany, has told of the anecdote of the time he got lost in Japan during a trip to the country, and it was the kindness of a woman that, without ex-changing any words and by Bell only showing her a photo, grabbed him by the arm and lead him to its destination. Personal experiences giving new design ideas is nothing rare in the videogame medium or in any form of art as a whole, but it’s clear that this experience stuck with Chris Bell on deep level; he would go on to make Way cooperative online game where two players have to interact and help each other to reach the end without using any words. If this idea sounds oddly familiar… well… makes sense, as it was most likely developed either before or after a game he worked that would release just a year after Way, one that would through the company though a spiral of development hell and complications… and one that would change and inspire so many to go through their own journey.
But I’m getting ahead of myself with the melodramatics (yes, this is going to be one of those), ‘cause when I said the outside history of the game is really interesting, I meant it; Journey was the third game to be developed by ThatGameCompany under their contract with Sony Interactive Studios, it was going to have a 1 year development cycle with a team of merely 7 people and none never really managed to settle on an idea aside of Bell’s concept, Jenova Chen’s direction and that it was going to have some kind of online component, I would love to tell you that development went smooth as butter, but the paper that I got regarding that only said ‘’shit is fucked’’. The team increased from 7 participants to 18, and the expected 1 year development cycle turned into an almost 3 year race against the clock where that company almost had to face absolute financial loss. To say that everyone that had a hand in the game had to face hardship would be an understatement, and Journey had to go through many changes and cuts before it became the final product we know today… but one thing that really struck me as I read interviews and behind the scenes accounts is that, despite the absolute hell and pressure and pain, everyone involved loves Journey, not in a sense that they feel proud in making it after the fact, but rather that the team really wanted to make this game something really special, and it caused them as much pain to see some ideas not be realized (in fact extra hours were CUT both to avoid tensions and so that the money could go to the game itself) as it generated within them a profound happiness to play for themselves they very thing they all worked together to create; and all of this story and knowing all of this background makes it unbelievable to me that the game that we ended up getting is as majestic as it is… and makes it easier to drawn some strange yet beautiful parallelisms with the game itself. While you can throw out names like accomplishment like Chris Bell coming up with the original idea or Jenova Chen’s fantastic direction, I think no one single participant is solely responsible for the game we got, nor the story of Journey seems to be conceived as a parallelism of one person or the team’s feelings at the moment of making it; it’s the accomplishment of a team of a few passionate people that even with misunderstandings and difficulties along the way, worked together for what they thought it was worth making, and funnily enough, I believe it was that search of ideas until something clicked and the cuts so that that the game could release… what would end up making it so beautiful.
Journey is a short and simple voyage across an endless desert, and even if across all of the experience it feels profoundly quiet and humble, it could say to me at the start ‘’Hold on to your seat motherducker, you are about to get journeyed’’ and I wouldn’t complain a bit, like, hell yeah man this is amazing, you earned yourself some arrogance and showing off!... But no, it never does that, Journey, even at its most spectacular and bombastic, it always feels… nice, it feels self-contained and just… striking and pretty. It’s honestly really funny to go from the hopeless and dead wasteland of It Comes in Waves to the constantly changing and colorful dunes of Journey; melancholy is a sentiment present in each ‘’level’’, this constant reminder of something that was once grander than life and prospered now is abandoned and left in ruin, but this sensations meld with the wonder and mystery that each locations inspires; even when it gets scary, this sensation of hopeful adventure and that the end is at hand is ever-present, and it helps that you feel like you are a part of all of this despite you limited available actions. Moving and emitting sounds are your only tools that are always at your disposal, as jumping (or rather, flying) is only granted to you by the flying particles fabric and the strange creatures also seemingly made of the same fabric, and it’s that exact dependance of the environment and your interactions, that necessity of analyzing the ruins that surround you and guessing what to do next while never feeling unnatural or challenging, it what makes it so compelling to explore everything, and it’s what made me submerge in this world, in its sounds and music and in its wordless sad tragedy… well, that’s not entirely true. This is a mountain that can be climb alone, yes… but isn’t it nice to have someone by your side?
Co-op in Journey has little-to-none extrinsic value: at no point there is a puzzle or some kind of platforming challenge that requires two players to complete it, there may be the occasional section where two players might be able to accomplish a task faster than if it was only one, but Journey is so linear in most of its sections than it never really accomplishes anything in the grander scheme thing… and that’s precisely the point. Even going beyond and ignoring the fact that someday Journey will be impossible to play online (even if luckily that fate seems far off from today), at a purely the level, that it’s not the point of this co-op. Other players appear as you advance in your adventure, as if you were encountering other travelers in a long route, and… it feels almost like magic. No words are needed, the only for of communication are the sounds you can emit, and this strange language means nothing… and everything at the same time. The boops that respond to the tooms, the high sounds you can make by maintaining the button pressed that grant the other player energy to fly that almost feel like hugs, and sometimes the sounds aren’t even needed: the kindness of waiting for each other, other players showing you the location of secrets you couldn’t even imagine… You form a connection with people you don’t even know their Steam name until the game is over, let alone talk, and that’s something beyond my wildest imaginations of what a game could ever accomplish, and turns moments that on their own have a ton of impact and emotional charge, into some of the most memorable experiences I have seen in the entirety of the media, and it turns the hopeless into the hopeful.
Journey came out in a time where both players and game journalist seemingly threw their arms up and screamed desperate to prove that videogames were art, when many games had long released and proved it by that time, and while now we turn back upon how we looked at certain games in a different light, not only now I understand how and why Journey was held in such high regards, but also why it inspired an entire generation of games inspired by its ideals and how the game itself is so special. It isn’t the first contemplative game, it isn’t a game that shakes the videogame industry as we know it, it isn’t the definitive proof that games are art… but it a damn good example of it, it’s a fantastic example of how the conditions that both inspire a work and under the ones it’s made can make it so unique and fascinating. Journey is a treasure, one that understandably isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and people have smarter than me have already sing their praises and problems with it; in that sense, I’m a passerby, one that’s incredibly happy of walking this amazing road and sharing it with the strangers that put a huge smile on my face, and even with the adversities that came before, during and after it, is one I will walk again, I have no doubt about it in the slightest… and hey, I might not have cried, but that didn’t stop from knowing that yeah… that was lovely.
But I’m getting ahead of myself with the melodramatics (yes, this is going to be one of those), ‘cause when I said the outside history of the game is really interesting, I meant it; Journey was the third game to be developed by ThatGameCompany under their contract with Sony Interactive Studios, it was going to have a 1 year development cycle with a team of merely 7 people and none never really managed to settle on an idea aside of Bell’s concept, Jenova Chen’s direction and that it was going to have some kind of online component, I would love to tell you that development went smooth as butter, but the paper that I got regarding that only said ‘’shit is fucked’’. The team increased from 7 participants to 18, and the expected 1 year development cycle turned into an almost 3 year race against the clock where that company almost had to face absolute financial loss. To say that everyone that had a hand in the game had to face hardship would be an understatement, and Journey had to go through many changes and cuts before it became the final product we know today… but one thing that really struck me as I read interviews and behind the scenes accounts is that, despite the absolute hell and pressure and pain, everyone involved loves Journey, not in a sense that they feel proud in making it after the fact, but rather that the team really wanted to make this game something really special, and it caused them as much pain to see some ideas not be realized (in fact extra hours were CUT both to avoid tensions and so that the money could go to the game itself) as it generated within them a profound happiness to play for themselves they very thing they all worked together to create; and all of this story and knowing all of this background makes it unbelievable to me that the game that we ended up getting is as majestic as it is… and makes it easier to drawn some strange yet beautiful parallelisms with the game itself. While you can throw out names like accomplishment like Chris Bell coming up with the original idea or Jenova Chen’s fantastic direction, I think no one single participant is solely responsible for the game we got, nor the story of Journey seems to be conceived as a parallelism of one person or the team’s feelings at the moment of making it; it’s the accomplishment of a team of a few passionate people that even with misunderstandings and difficulties along the way, worked together for what they thought it was worth making, and funnily enough, I believe it was that search of ideas until something clicked and the cuts so that that the game could release… what would end up making it so beautiful.
Journey is a short and simple voyage across an endless desert, and even if across all of the experience it feels profoundly quiet and humble, it could say to me at the start ‘’Hold on to your seat motherducker, you are about to get journeyed’’ and I wouldn’t complain a bit, like, hell yeah man this is amazing, you earned yourself some arrogance and showing off!... But no, it never does that, Journey, even at its most spectacular and bombastic, it always feels… nice, it feels self-contained and just… striking and pretty. It’s honestly really funny to go from the hopeless and dead wasteland of It Comes in Waves to the constantly changing and colorful dunes of Journey; melancholy is a sentiment present in each ‘’level’’, this constant reminder of something that was once grander than life and prospered now is abandoned and left in ruin, but this sensations meld with the wonder and mystery that each locations inspires; even when it gets scary, this sensation of hopeful adventure and that the end is at hand is ever-present, and it helps that you feel like you are a part of all of this despite you limited available actions. Moving and emitting sounds are your only tools that are always at your disposal, as jumping (or rather, flying) is only granted to you by the flying particles fabric and the strange creatures also seemingly made of the same fabric, and it’s that exact dependance of the environment and your interactions, that necessity of analyzing the ruins that surround you and guessing what to do next while never feeling unnatural or challenging, it what makes it so compelling to explore everything, and it’s what made me submerge in this world, in its sounds and music and in its wordless sad tragedy… well, that’s not entirely true. This is a mountain that can be climb alone, yes… but isn’t it nice to have someone by your side?
Co-op in Journey has little-to-none extrinsic value: at no point there is a puzzle or some kind of platforming challenge that requires two players to complete it, there may be the occasional section where two players might be able to accomplish a task faster than if it was only one, but Journey is so linear in most of its sections than it never really accomplishes anything in the grander scheme thing… and that’s precisely the point. Even going beyond and ignoring the fact that someday Journey will be impossible to play online (even if luckily that fate seems far off from today), at a purely the level, that it’s not the point of this co-op. Other players appear as you advance in your adventure, as if you were encountering other travelers in a long route, and… it feels almost like magic. No words are needed, the only for of communication are the sounds you can emit, and this strange language means nothing… and everything at the same time. The boops that respond to the tooms, the high sounds you can make by maintaining the button pressed that grant the other player energy to fly that almost feel like hugs, and sometimes the sounds aren’t even needed: the kindness of waiting for each other, other players showing you the location of secrets you couldn’t even imagine… You form a connection with people you don’t even know their Steam name until the game is over, let alone talk, and that’s something beyond my wildest imaginations of what a game could ever accomplish, and turns moments that on their own have a ton of impact and emotional charge, into some of the most memorable experiences I have seen in the entirety of the media, and it turns the hopeless into the hopeful.
Journey came out in a time where both players and game journalist seemingly threw their arms up and screamed desperate to prove that videogames were art, when many games had long released and proved it by that time, and while now we turn back upon how we looked at certain games in a different light, not only now I understand how and why Journey was held in such high regards, but also why it inspired an entire generation of games inspired by its ideals and how the game itself is so special. It isn’t the first contemplative game, it isn’t a game that shakes the videogame industry as we know it, it isn’t the definitive proof that games are art… but it a damn good example of it, it’s a fantastic example of how the conditions that both inspire a work and under the ones it’s made can make it so unique and fascinating. Journey is a treasure, one that understandably isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and people have smarter than me have already sing their praises and problems with it; in that sense, I’m a passerby, one that’s incredibly happy of walking this amazing road and sharing it with the strangers that put a huge smile on my face, and even with the adversities that came before, during and after it, is one I will walk again, I have no doubt about it in the slightest… and hey, I might not have cried, but that didn’t stop from knowing that yeah… that was lovely.
This was my 50th game completed this year (48th out of the ones not previously beaten). How crazy is that? Funnily enough, this is apt game for such a milestone. It's been quite the journey getting here.
Now, this game is pretty much another one of your very artsy games where there is no dialogue and you basically have no idea what the story is until after you've already beaten it up and look up a "game name explained" video on youtube. I dont usually vibe with games like that, but Journey was a good exception. The visuals are gorgeous, theres an area in the middle where you're sliding down golden sand and its just moans. The music while absent a good chunk of the time was wonderful as well and helped make the game more powerful. I didnt get much use of the multiplayer feature as the few companions I met were either AFK or ran off into the distant unknown. My only real complaint about the game (besides my general dislike for ambiguous stories) are the sections with the guardian enemies. Not sure what the point of them is, but they were just annoying and didnt do anything but take away from the rest of it for me. Not a big deal though as they are only in two shortish parts of the game.
In the end, its a short joyful ride that looks and sounds amazing. There's few complaints to have. Go play it. If you want... Im not the boss of you. Expecting a better ending to the review? Maybe one where I talk about the philosophical nuances of the deeper story? Well, you know what they say. Its not about the destination.
Trophy Completion - 57%
Time Played - 2 hours 52 minutes
Nancymeter - 77/100
Game Completion #50 of 2022
April Completion #19
Now, this game is pretty much another one of your very artsy games where there is no dialogue and you basically have no idea what the story is until after you've already beaten it up and look up a "game name explained" video on youtube. I dont usually vibe with games like that, but Journey was a good exception. The visuals are gorgeous, theres an area in the middle where you're sliding down golden sand and its just moans. The music while absent a good chunk of the time was wonderful as well and helped make the game more powerful. I didnt get much use of the multiplayer feature as the few companions I met were either AFK or ran off into the distant unknown. My only real complaint about the game (besides my general dislike for ambiguous stories) are the sections with the guardian enemies. Not sure what the point of them is, but they were just annoying and didnt do anything but take away from the rest of it for me. Not a big deal though as they are only in two shortish parts of the game.
In the end, its a short joyful ride that looks and sounds amazing. There's few complaints to have. Go play it. If you want... Im not the boss of you. Expecting a better ending to the review? Maybe one where I talk about the philosophical nuances of the deeper story? Well, you know what they say. Its not about the destination.
Trophy Completion - 57%
Time Played - 2 hours 52 minutes
Nancymeter - 77/100
Game Completion #50 of 2022
April Completion #19
I played this game while I was at home suffering from a mental cocktail of anxiety and depression because I was furloughed from my job and forced to quarantine because of the 2020 global pandemic, and co-oping with a friendly stranger who helped me no matter how many times I fell down that tower with the lights moved me so much that it made me ugly cry during the credits.
Part of me wants to be cynical and say that the game wouldn't have been as impactful to me if I played it at a different time when I wasn't so emotionally vulnerable, but that part of me also realizes that bringing cynicism to the table when talking about Journey feels like missing the overall message of the game. A big thanks to the developers of this game for giving me just a tiniest drop of hope in an otherwise bleak time. I'd apologize for not playing this game sooner but I realize now that I played it at the perfect time.
Part of me wants to be cynical and say that the game wouldn't have been as impactful to me if I played it at a different time when I wasn't so emotionally vulnerable, but that part of me also realizes that bringing cynicism to the table when talking about Journey feels like missing the overall message of the game. A big thanks to the developers of this game for giving me just a tiniest drop of hope in an otherwise bleak time. I'd apologize for not playing this game sooner but I realize now that I played it at the perfect time.
This game is pretty damn good.
Maybe it's nostalgia, but Journey sure hits differently when you're feeling existential on a rainy afternoon wondering how you're still alive. I can't quite describe why this game means so much to me or even why you should play it. All I can say is that this game holds a special place in my heart and changed my life. Perhaps it will change yours too.
This is the first "art game" I've played, and while I don't enjoy it as much as others on here, I can see the appeal. Journey felt good as an "experience" rather than as a game. The breathtaking visuals paired with the ambient music is just nice. I also do really like the companion system; it's a very novel concept, and I admit it was fun following a stranger through the game, communicating through simple notes. But the other gameplay elements don't work well, especially at the beggining. A good part of the game is just spent walking. And it sucks because the game has some great flying and sliding physics, but they are held back until certain sections of the game. I get that the game is creating hardship for you and a companion to overcome, and it did work well in the end of the story, but it just felt bad to me most of the time. There are also issues that come with Journey revolving around "silent storytelling". I felt discontent with the story (and still kind of do) because, up until the end, it seemed very minimal. Another issue was that the game sometimes barely communicated on where to go, which lead to me aimlessly walking around to look for a scarf or tickets. (I assume that's what they are?) But I can partially overlook these issues for being purposeful; to encourage experienced players to guide others through the game, and to give players more context through their replay(s).
All in all, I completely respect what the game was going for. Though I don't personally feel the need to replay, the short playtime and the moral duty one may feel to help the unexperienced could be more than enough to get players to replay, in turn getting more players to get to the end, and creating a cycle of positivity and encouragement to those playing. And a message like that is delightful.
All in all, I completely respect what the game was going for. Though I don't personally feel the need to replay, the short playtime and the moral duty one may feel to help the unexperienced could be more than enough to get players to replay, in turn getting more players to get to the end, and creating a cycle of positivity and encouragement to those playing. And a message like that is delightful.
This review contains spoilers
Hmmmmm do I get artsy-fartsy with this one, or do I lament the game's status within the echelon of mainstream acclaim along the weird negative force it's been obtaining cause of it? Eh, PanzyDragoonSaga did the latter greatly, so let's do the former.
I started this late at night, mainly as a way to spend the remaining few hours I have before turning in for work, especially since for some reason I have yet to actually play this despite knowing a lot about it for years. After spending time getting used to the controls - doubly cause I'm using WASD+Mouse for this one - in the starting area, I made my way towards the designated spots and progression activators, marked by ribbons and stones planted around as a way to guide my eyes as well as curiosity around the sand-filled dunes and waves.
After getting the first confluence, a door opens up and reveals a buried spot of bridges and what seems to be houses, or at the very least the microcosm of a once powerful civilization. I already got the clues before and especially after this, but even then my focus was on the enlightenment and ascending past obstacles. I already noted it was becoming more open with objects that increase my ribbon's length being tucked away just right, when going around chanting other flowing fabrics within the wind to become vitalized yet again. Second confluence down, I make my way towards a magenta-colored dune filled with varied hills and pits, as well as what appeared to be a pet in the form of cloth, probably adjacent to the avian of real life. After another comb through the desert and rescuing even more of these creatures, I finally found another person, deep within a sandstorm-riddled place of broken an- wait what the fuck, the game crashed? How!? There wasn't even that much going on!
...After restarting the game, I found a different person, somehow waiting for me as soon as I step forward. I wasn't exactly sure as to what their thought process was, but after redoing my rescue attempts as well as us finding out that I and whoever I'm co-opting with can, more or less, make ourselves float and glide pretty damn far as long as we time our chants and jump heights properly, which made for some cool maneuvering and funny moments throughout. Gotten back to the sandstorm-riddled towers, both of us climbed it and activated our third confluence, and after a bit of separation anxiety, we got back together and pressed onward towards the sinking city, an area I'm very much familiar with since people love to showcase the game's art direction and fascinating use of graphical fidelity with the heavy autumn and deeply orange colors as we slide along the path laid before us, activating yet another confluence vision.
The next part, within the abyss of the ruins, already set me up for weariness. My partner and I got used to doing short-burst communication with the chants, but the deep blues made things rather ominous, accentuated by traversing onward to a jade-colored environment mixed in with a new, rather alien and manufactured being made things a little more tense. My partner got the brunt of its attack due to stepping into its light of influence, whether to be served as bait for me to get through or due to unintentional mistakes I'll never know, but we both managed to make it on by at the end of it all, finding more murals to uncover as well as balls of light to increase the length of our ribbons, again tucked away in manners that make it easy to figure out and distinguish, and doing a Sand Hill-ass sequence as we slid down yet again, this time against two of those creatures, before barely making it to the wall of orange light. Second to last confluence down, we pressed onward.
The second-to-last area, admittedly, was the inverse of the last one. Instead of beaming our way downward towards the blues, we ascended towards orange light and mysticism of the many murals laid around us, though even then we didn't stop and find all of it. After messing around with what essentially become an orange-filled pool of influence and cloth whales, we received our final confluence, and it was here that it really settled in the trek I was making. Having already dabbled with each path and spots was enough, but gaining a new partner that I still knew so little about, alongside them barely holding on within the mural being conscripted, it felt rather uneasy. This was compounded with the last area being a heavy downpour of winds, cold, and another batch of the stone creatures. Granted, it didn't start tough, but after noticing our ribbons getting shorter and frost-riddled as we marched along, barely gaining with via our chants and huddles, I knew it wasn't gonna be easy. Somehow, I was sensing dread and anxiety more than the two actual horror games I completed prior.
After an encounter with the creatures, not really resulting in that many hits this time, we made it to the final onslaught of those winds, as it kept appearing more frequently. My partner got the brunt of it, and fell down shortly before the end of it, while I made it through. The exit was right there, I could escape and ascend upon the faith of the white robes... but would that be right? Would ditching the only other person I made contact with throughout my journey, someone I experienced contingent and tranquility with, truly make the aspect of holiness and tranquility matter? I decided it wasn't, and hopped on down to try and give them a way forward through those bygone ribbons, as we both made our way back up and through the bitterness of it all, only to plop down from exhaustion, and frostbite. Even then though, it seems like we were rewarded for making it this far, and we reached Apotheosis. All of that hardship was worth it, sailing through the skies and gates all around, not giving a care as to what was happening either in-game or even real life, fully grasping that sense of peace and inner-longing of self. So many things, so many views, a lot of memories formed, in just two hours. Also a newly formed hatred of winter, fuck that season.
As I sit here reminiscing my venture with Journey, I'm reminded of the weird cynicism and literal contrarianism it's gained over the years. "It has no replay value" this, "there's nothing there at all" that, even some weird stakes of "style over substance". I understand not everyone is gonna claim this is a masterpiece worthy of the lofted praise and awards it's gotten, but it sadly makes me think of the times back in Seventh Gen where barely anyone gave a shit about the mantra of games being an artform. The inherent obsession of "replay value" has always struck me as an odd one, since I'm usually content with playing a game once and only picking it up down the line when I finally make the time available to do so (plus it's like two hours, that's basically using an afternoon's worth of time), and "style over substance" is such a close-minded way of viewing the expression and creativity the creator(s) have made within the confides of the art and product in question, as well as how that coincides with the theming and intended tone/mood of it all. As for that middle point, well, look at what I wrote beforehand. I got what I wanted from Journey, and I'm pretty comfortable having this staying with me for years to come.
I started this late at night, mainly as a way to spend the remaining few hours I have before turning in for work, especially since for some reason I have yet to actually play this despite knowing a lot about it for years. After spending time getting used to the controls - doubly cause I'm using WASD+Mouse for this one - in the starting area, I made my way towards the designated spots and progression activators, marked by ribbons and stones planted around as a way to guide my eyes as well as curiosity around the sand-filled dunes and waves.
After getting the first confluence, a door opens up and reveals a buried spot of bridges and what seems to be houses, or at the very least the microcosm of a once powerful civilization. I already got the clues before and especially after this, but even then my focus was on the enlightenment and ascending past obstacles. I already noted it was becoming more open with objects that increase my ribbon's length being tucked away just right, when going around chanting other flowing fabrics within the wind to become vitalized yet again. Second confluence down, I make my way towards a magenta-colored dune filled with varied hills and pits, as well as what appeared to be a pet in the form of cloth, probably adjacent to the avian of real life. After another comb through the desert and rescuing even more of these creatures, I finally found another person, deep within a sandstorm-riddled place of broken an- wait what the fuck, the game crashed? How!? There wasn't even that much going on!
...After restarting the game, I found a different person, somehow waiting for me as soon as I step forward. I wasn't exactly sure as to what their thought process was, but after redoing my rescue attempts as well as us finding out that I and whoever I'm co-opting with can, more or less, make ourselves float and glide pretty damn far as long as we time our chants and jump heights properly, which made for some cool maneuvering and funny moments throughout. Gotten back to the sandstorm-riddled towers, both of us climbed it and activated our third confluence, and after a bit of separation anxiety, we got back together and pressed onward towards the sinking city, an area I'm very much familiar with since people love to showcase the game's art direction and fascinating use of graphical fidelity with the heavy autumn and deeply orange colors as we slide along the path laid before us, activating yet another confluence vision.
The next part, within the abyss of the ruins, already set me up for weariness. My partner and I got used to doing short-burst communication with the chants, but the deep blues made things rather ominous, accentuated by traversing onward to a jade-colored environment mixed in with a new, rather alien and manufactured being made things a little more tense. My partner got the brunt of its attack due to stepping into its light of influence, whether to be served as bait for me to get through or due to unintentional mistakes I'll never know, but we both managed to make it on by at the end of it all, finding more murals to uncover as well as balls of light to increase the length of our ribbons, again tucked away in manners that make it easy to figure out and distinguish, and doing a Sand Hill-ass sequence as we slid down yet again, this time against two of those creatures, before barely making it to the wall of orange light. Second to last confluence down, we pressed onward.
The second-to-last area, admittedly, was the inverse of the last one. Instead of beaming our way downward towards the blues, we ascended towards orange light and mysticism of the many murals laid around us, though even then we didn't stop and find all of it. After messing around with what essentially become an orange-filled pool of influence and cloth whales, we received our final confluence, and it was here that it really settled in the trek I was making. Having already dabbled with each path and spots was enough, but gaining a new partner that I still knew so little about, alongside them barely holding on within the mural being conscripted, it felt rather uneasy. This was compounded with the last area being a heavy downpour of winds, cold, and another batch of the stone creatures. Granted, it didn't start tough, but after noticing our ribbons getting shorter and frost-riddled as we marched along, barely gaining with via our chants and huddles, I knew it wasn't gonna be easy. Somehow, I was sensing dread and anxiety more than the two actual horror games I completed prior.
After an encounter with the creatures, not really resulting in that many hits this time, we made it to the final onslaught of those winds, as it kept appearing more frequently. My partner got the brunt of it, and fell down shortly before the end of it, while I made it through. The exit was right there, I could escape and ascend upon the faith of the white robes... but would that be right? Would ditching the only other person I made contact with throughout my journey, someone I experienced contingent and tranquility with, truly make the aspect of holiness and tranquility matter? I decided it wasn't, and hopped on down to try and give them a way forward through those bygone ribbons, as we both made our way back up and through the bitterness of it all, only to plop down from exhaustion, and frostbite. Even then though, it seems like we were rewarded for making it this far, and we reached Apotheosis. All of that hardship was worth it, sailing through the skies and gates all around, not giving a care as to what was happening either in-game or even real life, fully grasping that sense of peace and inner-longing of self. So many things, so many views, a lot of memories formed, in just two hours. Also a newly formed hatred of winter, fuck that season.
As I sit here reminiscing my venture with Journey, I'm reminded of the weird cynicism and literal contrarianism it's gained over the years. "It has no replay value" this, "there's nothing there at all" that, even some weird stakes of "style over substance". I understand not everyone is gonna claim this is a masterpiece worthy of the lofted praise and awards it's gotten, but it sadly makes me think of the times back in Seventh Gen where barely anyone gave a shit about the mantra of games being an artform. The inherent obsession of "replay value" has always struck me as an odd one, since I'm usually content with playing a game once and only picking it up down the line when I finally make the time available to do so (plus it's like two hours, that's basically using an afternoon's worth of time), and "style over substance" is such a close-minded way of viewing the expression and creativity the creator(s) have made within the confides of the art and product in question, as well as how that coincides with the theming and intended tone/mood of it all. As for that middle point, well, look at what I wrote beforehand. I got what I wanted from Journey, and I'm pretty comfortable having this staying with me for years to come.
Diante das inúmeras jornadas que já experienciamos em videogames, Journey surge com enorme destaque para os inúmeros viajantes que completaram essa jornada. Mesmo com a pouca presença de mecânicas mais elaboradas e um objetivo aparentemente cansativo, realizar a peregrinação ao topo da montanha sempre se mostrava uma aventura sólida e gratificante. Seja ao deslizar entre as dunas, explorar as ruínas de sua civilização antiga, contemplar as belezas arenosas da região ou a singela interação com um companheiro anônimo, tudo em Journey se mostrava belo e instigante. Criar laços fortes com o mundo e os outros jogadores encontrados ao longo dessa jornada era quase que uma mecânica por si própria, e ao concluir meu objetivo, eu me via inteiramente deslumbrado com o que a Thatgamecompany, desenvolvedora do jogo, conseguiu me fazer sentir. É um clássico imperdível para amantes do gênero walking simulator, mas recomendo para todos que buscam se encontrar em meio ao deserto de suas vidas!
The nature of Journey means that everyone will have a different experience depending on who they meet. For me, it was rather... lonely. I went in completely blind, and was already getting a reasonable amount of enjoyment just running around the sand dunes. These were pretty enough to keep me going, but I really got hooked when I found another player. I didn’t immediately realize the other cloaked figure was another player, but it was a really cool moment when I did. The two of us continued on throughout the water section, and worked our way up the tower. Despite having no way to communicate properly, there was a kinship that was understood between us. We worked our way forward, I turned a corner, and... they vanished. I spent a few minutes looking, but they were gone. I sadly continued on... for the rest of the game. I met no one else. Huge stretches of walking filled with nothing but my own thoughts. As I trudged through the snow, I felt myself freezing over side by side with the character, waiting to meet anyone else to help me on this Journey. Every step I was yearning to see anyone else, any reason to keep putting one foot in front of the other despite everything wanting to force me back. It never happened, and I watched my character freeze over, all alone. And despite that, they still rose, to finish their Journey. They made the final steps despite having lost the only companion they ever found, and having to fight every step of the way after. For me, the game was a bittersweet experience, and I'm glad it was.
torrenting a file with one seeder feels exactly like this
A good lesson in dialogue-free storytelling. A victim of its own success nowadays, many of the things it did very well were imitated and thus diluted a bit in its novelty. Putting that aside, its still very compelling
Journey é uma jornada emocional e humana sobre a vida, companheirismo, sentimentos e significados.
Se um jogo nunca te fez sentir nada ou ainda não te cativou, journey é esse jogo. Na minha opinião um dos melhores de todos os tempos, além de ser bastante influente na crescente dos jogos menores e indies que tivemos desde 2013-2015
Se um jogo nunca te fez sentir nada ou ainda não te cativou, journey é esse jogo. Na minha opinião um dos melhores de todos os tempos, além de ser bastante influente na crescente dos jogos menores e indies que tivemos desde 2013-2015
Not even feeling a quirky review for this one this was just great
It has become fancy to dunk on Journey but I can't ever bring myself to dislike it.
The joy found in these dunes continues to be a potent antidote to apathy, even a decade later.
The joy found in these dunes continues to be a potent antidote to apathy, even a decade later.
Very few games can interweave a compelling narrative and phenomenal game design the way this game does. Absolutely ethereal, one-of-a-kind experience. A perfect, moving, emotional masterpiece that requires zero dialogue to convey story and feeling. This set the bar for indie games and video games in general.