It's ok.

I'm aware at this point that Stray has been dissected to hell and back, but I did want to get my thoughts out there in relation to a lot of the similar games that I've dubbed "Journey-likes" that I've also gone through somewhat recently. You know, those games where you travel from point A to B to C with tons of emphasis on atmospheric exploration and environmental storytelling with maybe some minor puzzles and other limited interactions involved. Keep in mind that this review may have minor spoilers in the form of me discussing gameplay and story design choices, but I'll try to make the discussion general enough as to not impact overall plot enjoyment.

While playing through the first hour and a half of Stray, I kept thinking back to this video by Matthewmatosis, in which he argues that an over-reliance upon context sensitivity in modern games both limits player control ("press X to initiate cutscene of action for every case") and player agency (that is, just walking around in an environment until a context-sensitive prompt tells you that something can be interacted with) and thus results in less interesting experiences. Granted, I'd like to think that I'm acclimated to Journey-likes at this point, and so came in not expecting too much difficult or deep interaction, and yet I still think that Stray goes too damn far in abusing context sensitivity as to significantly reduce meaningful engagement or difficulty.

The main gameplay loop consists as follows; as a cat, you walk around various environments, and simply perform the correct context sensitive interaction when you approach the relevant objects/individuals. There are plenty of walls and rugs to scratch that are marked by a triangle button prompt, plenty of NPCs to talk to that are marked with a square button prompt, and plenty of objects and ledges to jump to that prompt you to press the X button every time. The latter is easily the most problematic case here, because this turns navigation into what is more or less a task of walking forward until the context sensitive prompt tells you to press X to jump forward. There isn't even a risk of falling off ledges or jumping into the abyss; just keep moving forward until the prompt tells you to jump to the next object. Again, I understand that Journey-likes are generally not difficult at all, but this design decision oversimplifies gameplay to a baffling extent beyond other Journey-likes, and it could have been easily fixed if the game was just a regular 3D platformer; I know I'm not the only one who's brought this up either.

If the strict gameplay loop for the entire game was just what I experienced in the first hour and a half, I would most likely be even more disappointed than I am now. Fortunately, Stray eventually opens up to a few "hub" areas in its runtime where you can meander about to find scattered secrets and memories as well as chat up NPCs. However, it's not quite entirely removed from the Journey-like formula, as there are two caveats. Firstly, these hub areas are still governed by the rule of context-sensitive jumps, so exploration can almost feel automatic at times just walking around and mashing X to see where the cat will jump next. Secondly, while there are sidequests and main-story quests of fetching key items, talking to important NPCs, and solving some fairly basic visual recognition puzzles, there's really only one "solution" for every problem, resulting in what is ultimately a pretty linear approach for finishing the side quests and following the main story fetch quests in these hub areas. I admit here that I'm nitpicking, as this is probably the least significant case of railroading in Stray, but I do lament that there was a great opportunity here for more player creativity and that ultimately, it's just a well disguised case of sending the player down the preconceived path that kills a lot of the joy of discovery for me.

Let's quickly go over a few of the other more gameplay-heavy segments inbetween these hubs too. After the first robot city hub, there's a "puzzle" section where you have to outmanuever and trap these goo monsters (called the Zurk) to safely progress; while this section is not particularly difficult either, it's at least engaging in that successfully luring and shutting traps on the Zurk brings some degree of satisfaction since you can actually die (albeit still fairly unlikely). There are also multiple straight corridors where you just have to outrun the Zurk; again, there's not much difficulty once you realize that strictly holding down R2 and tilting the analog stick forward will allow you to avoid most of the Zurk, but it at least provides a nice rush thanks to the hurried and tense accompanying tracks and the scourge of Zurk just descending upon you.

As a counterpart to these running sections, Stray also features a more horror-game inspired survival section filled with dimly lit tight corridors, alien red pulsating webs, and sloshing sewer water infested with Zurk eggs. This is probably the most engaging section of the game, since you're provided with a zapper that can eliminate the Zurk, and since it overheats quite easily, you often have to kite and funnel Zurk to successfully dispatch them; it's a slight shame that you don't get to play with your toy for too long, but it most definitely does not outstay its welcome.

Near the end of the game are three forced stealth sections, one right after another. Nothing like a good ol fashioned "stay outside of the lit cone of sight" segment to slow the pace down a bit and get a bit more out of the price tag, right? Interestingly, most of the forced stealth is actually somewhat trivial, because there are really few lasting consequences to getting spotted by the drones. You can just run at max velocity through all of the stealth sections, dodging the bullets by maintaining your speed and rounding corners, and then just mash circle when you see the circle button prompt to dive into a cardboard box at the end of the segment and wait for the drones to deaggro and leave once they're gone. Which leaves me with this question: if it's this easy to cheese and disregard the forced stealth sections, then why were they implemented in the game in the first place?

I've mostly been lambasting the gameplay for the last few paragraphs, so I'll give the game props where it's due; I really do enjoy the ruined yet nostalgic backdrops of Stray. The ambient tunes that drop in and out as you explore the subterranean wastelands as well as the decaying posters and hastily scribbled graffiti on the concrete walls really help etch this feeling that while something great has definitely gone to pass, there still linger a few strays (no pun intended) that seek to find their own sources of hope in the sprawling underground. I do appreciate that the game really lets you take your time soaking in all the details here and there, with plenty of snug nooks where your cat can curl up while the camera slowly pans out to let you breathe in and forget about life for a while.

Ultimately, I find myself somewhat frustrated because as great of an idea as they have shown in the final product, I feel like they could have done so much more. I love the little moments like the cat walking on the keyboard to communicate with the AI or random jumbled notes being played as the cat walks across the piano keyboards, so why are these cute cat interactions with the environment so sparse? The interactions between your cat and your lil beep boop buddy are heartwarming and set up the mood perfectly, so why do the writers also insist on inserting so many side characters in an already short timespan that leave after an hour or so with not enough time to develop any strong lasting impressions? It's a ton of fun just mashing circle to hear meowing through the speaker while attracting Zurks, but why is that NPCs have no strong reactions to my cat's meow? There's a section near the end of the game where you have to communicate and cooperate with another big beep-boop without your robot buddy translating, and it's a fantastic subversion after getting used to just reading so many textboxes of translation from random NPCs, but this subversion is ultimately over within ten minutes or so, and I really feel like there was a fantastic squandered opportunity to force players to think outside of the box a bit more.

I won't dismiss the possibility that perhaps, I'm just a bit jaded after playing plenty of fairly structurally similar games over the last twelve months, with a few more potentially on the docket. That said, I can't help but lament that as fantastic as the concept is on paper, the way it plays out leaves a lot to be desired on my end. Even while considering the often hackneyed genre of Journey-likes, Stray feels too safe, too straightforward, and too scripted. As cute as it is jumping and scratching your way back to the surface, I feel like it could have been so much more compelling.

I’m sorry, Spiritfarer. I never really gave you enough of a fighting chance, and you came back right when I needed you again. Consider this review my apology.

After playing through That Dragon, Cancer this summer, I realized that I wasn’t being fair to this genre of “games for impact.” We don’t all play games for the same reason. Sure, plenty of games market themselves as straight entertainment, played for pleasure and excitement. But there are games that aim to not necessarily be fun, but rather be compelling. Games that seek to provoke a wide range of emotions and questions rather than just provide means to an end.

Spiritfarer was one such title that I admit I originally approached with the wrong mindset. It did not do me any favors to rush through in order to complete the game on my limited PC Game Pass, or to try and move onto the next title on my growing backlog, because this is a game both about taking your time while making the most of every moment possible. I also found myself stymied by the supposedly “shallow” gameplay loop while also complaining about its excessive runtime. That’s why upon my second playthrough of Spiritfarer, finally buying my own copy on Steam, I found myself constantly surprised and overwhelmed that all of these preconceptions turned out to be wrong. It all starts by properly contextualizing Spiritfarer’s appeal and purpose.

Just like That Dragon, Cancer, Spiritfarer grapples with the omnipresence of death differently. Death may be a game mechanic, but it is not a punishment; rather, it is the final destination. Heavily inspired by Spirited Away’s hotel for spirits, Spiritfarer tackles one important question; what if we didn’t fear death as much? As part of the Death Positivity movement, the game encourages its players to think of death as more than just a mechanism or taboo subject, and to have healthy and open conversations as to speak more freely regarding all the consequences and feelings surrounding it. To better handle its subject matter, Thunder Lotus focuses the gameplay loop on preparing you to care for souls at the end of their lives as well as the various processes associated with the cycle of grief.

As the newly dubbed Spiritfarer, the player character as Stella must find lone spirits scattered across the vast seas, and handle their final requests. These requests can range from a variety of fetch quests, to constructing little homes and decorations for them, to feeding them their favorite meals and handling their last regrets and affairs with other characters. As a backbone for this request structure, Stella must construct other various facilities and travel to other locales to gather resources and both upgrade the ship and gain new abilities to access new events. Once these last requests have been fulfilled, the spirit will ask to be taken away to the Everdoor, and pass on to the afterlife.

One particular complaint kept popping up in the back of my mind as I fulfilled my duties. A year ago, a close friend and I had a discussion regarding Spiritfarer, when he complained that Spiritfarer didn’t feel cozy at all. If anything, he felt pressured and constantly anxious that there was always something more to do. There were new crops to tend to, or more ore to smelt, or more fish to find and more dishes to cook, and so on so forth. I certainly related to his dilemma; in fact, during quiescent nights where I had the option to go to sleep to start a new day, I often found myself cleaning up my remaining tasks and frantically checking my stockpiles to see if anything else had to be worked on. I simply could not afford to lose time; if daytime was the only acceptable time to travel in order to explore new islands, then even my nighttime had to be optimized to fulfill my obligations and stay “on schedule.”

It was then that I realized, that there was a method to Spiritfarer’s madness. This constant state of scrambling and juggling tasks to keep everyone happy that had made me feel so uncomfortable… was the same exact state experienced by those in palliative care. Moreover, those were the same feelings that my family went through when taking care of my grandmother and grandfather on my mother’s side during their last years. They were often fickle with exactly what had to be done; sometimes, I didn’t know if they even knew what they really wanted. We often left my grandma’s apartment with this sense of restlessness that kept us up at night, unsure if there was even anything left we could do to ease their final moments. It was this delicate but never-ending push and pull that we had become so accustomed to, that I had almost forgotten the sensation after my grandma left us in March 2020. I can sincerely say that no other video game I have ever played has forced me to reconfront my feelings and memories from back then… and I can’t help but respect Thunder Lotus for the audacity to not only address it, but also impart those feelings so effectively through gameplay as an compelling example of player perspective.

To Spiritfarer’s credit, I later came to understand that this sense of coziness is not lost at all, because there are plenty of surrounding elements that alleviate this heaviness. The art style, as well as the color palette, are key factors; the graphics are heavily influenced by the Japanese woodblock painter Hiroshi Yoshida, which the lead artist stated as “bringing [her] serenity.” That tranquility and desire to explore the landscape was a key motivation behind the lush and vibrant environments of Spiritfarer, combined with the use of soft pastels and a lack of the color “black;” darkness is instead communicated through softer alternatives such as dark reds, blues, and greys. It’s not without its use of contrast either (see: Bruce and Mickey’s “McMansion” of clashing red and white), which both allows the game to express more clearly express character personalities while providing the opportunity to allow for the player to experience “negative feelings” such as sadness in a softer environment. Finally, Spiritfarer’s fluid hand-drawn animation also breathes life into its many characters while promoting mobility through Spiritfarer’s expressive gameplay.

Spiritfarer also shows further care in establishing mood and ambience as to gently tuck players into an emotional experience outside of the art style. Firstly, Max LL’s accompanying soundtrack appropriately imparts moods without the need for excessive flair and gusto. Simple piano, string, and flute melodies provide ambient backdrops in tunes such as At Sea or At Night. More exotic instruments play important parts in tracks such as Furogawa to convey curiosity, or more upbeat pieces such as Hummingberg excite players into romping around the island to soak in the sights. Then, you’ve got your frenetic tunes such as Freeing the Dragon and Pulsar Pursuit to spur the player into action and snag as many timed collectibles as possible to assuage the spirits’ wants and fears. Finally, epics such as Last Voyage convey emotional upwellings through volume swells while establishing a sensation of finality to bring journeys to a close. Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for a more fitting soundtrack to instill a sense of adventure for Spiritfarer while appropriately illustrating more thoughtful moods along the way.

Secondly, while many post-death games are often filled with hostile and frightening creatures, Spiritfarer instead chooses to surround the player with friendly and welcoming personalities. Of course, there’s the spirits themselves; while some spirits can initially come off as aloof or even acerbic and uncompromising at times, you soon get to learn more about their backstories and interests that allow you to warm up and celebrate with them. Around the vast expanses of Spiritfarer are also many sea creatures and island inhabitants that are sincerely interested in you, with many going out of their way to help you in your role of caring for your friends. There’s also a lot of silly “dumb” jokes and melancholy humor across many of these characters to poke light fun at the world they live in and the situations that Stella finds herself in, all while providing a welcome distraction when juxtaposed with the emotional subject matter of the game itself.

Further adding to this coziness is the lack of a permanent “fail-state” within Spiritfarer. There’s no way to reach a “game-over” screen or enter a state where the player is directly punished for errors. For example, mining requires a specific timing of holding down and releasing the X button, but holding for too long doesn’t lead to negative consequences such as losing resources or health. Rather, you receive a cutely animated sequence where Stella accidentally drops her pickaxe and glances back at what happens, before she picks up the pickaxe again with a smile on her face. It’s like the game is gently encouraging you to try again; sure, you didn’t play optimally and messed up your timing, but it’s okay, for you can always give it another go. Vice versa, you’re also rewarded for playing well due to the ability to save time from optional animations and the potential to gain additional resources (i.e. cutting planks strictly by the lines gets you double the amount of planks you would have gained otherwise), but failure in these cases is not so much a permanent setback, but rather a delayed success.

Similarly, this “feeling” of failure translates to the spirits themselves. If the spirits aren’t fed properly, they will complain to Stella and have lowered mood. Again, this isn’t a permanent setback, because this mood can be risen by feeding them their favorite dishes and hugging them. Of course, there are visible consequences here to playing “well;” happy and ecstatic characters will often aid Stella by playing music to make other characters happier as well, or participate in the ship’s tasks by giving you valuable resources (raw ingredients, ingots, dishes, luxury sellables, etc). Most importantly though, these characters feel alive, both because of their written design/stories (often heavily based off the development team’s friends and families, resulting in a lot of personal investment) and because the gameplay loop of performing their last rites and caring for them creates attachment; you get to learn their histories a bit better based off the stories they tell you as they request specific chores that reflect upon their quirks and personalities.

As a result, I found Spiritfarer’s gameplay loop engaging due to its great emotional investment; not only does it give you just enough time to grow attached to spirits before sending them off, it also emulates aspects of grieving extremely well in a video game setting. For example, as characters finally depart for the Everdoor, all other characters on the ship will gather around the departing rowboat to say their farewells, similar to how friends and family surround loved ones on their deathbeds. Another example of this occurs during scripted resource gathering events scattered across the map; you would typically need to speak to a specific spirit to begin the event, but once that character has departed, Stella must instead start the event from the departed spirit’s door. This connection, as well as the inability to remove the deceased spirit’s former house (now analogous to that of a tombstone), constantly reminds the player of the experiences and memories of those who have moved on, and emulates the process of revisiting final resting places or old ramblings of deceased loved ones. Thus, Spiritfarer thoughtfully embeds traces of former spirits to instill both metaphorical meaning and surface meaning that their lives will forever remain with you. By constantly exposing the player to so many different spirits and their transitory stays, Thunder Lotus is able to properly guide players to express these healthy mechanisms that come with loss.

As a related aside, Spiritfarer, similarly to That Dragon, Cancer, utilizes the medium’s ability to capture specific instances to allow players to properly adjust for events in-game. We’ve already talked about the game’s leniency with regards to its fail-states, since every “negative” externality can be quickly superseded with the proper actions; as a result, there are no lasting consequences to playing at your own pace and no real “wrong” choices to be made. However, Spiritfarer also creates opportunities to let the player soak in emotionally-heavy moments without the passage of time interfering, such as the Everdoor scenes. Here, the player can reflect in this frozen moment in ludic space and take all the time they need to absorb the reality of the situation. But as with That Dragon, Cancer, the player must eventually progress and move on, just like real life.

My prior emphasis upon this emotional attachment to characters through the busying gameplay loop might imply that the game itself is mechanically lacking… but I honestly don’t believe that's true. Spiritfarer controls extremely well, especially for a game where the emphasis isn’t necessarily precision platforming. By the end of the game, you’ve got expanded abilities to double jump, mid-air dash, float, and cling to ziplines to quickly zoom up and down and build up momentum. These movement options are further aided by the everchanging landscape of the ship itself, which naturally evolves over time, both from a want to create more aesthetically pleasing or simple to navigate structures, and from a need to construct additional facilities for resource gathering/housing spirits. Furthermore, this structure serves an important purpose, not just as a playground where Stella can bounce and run around, but also as the main stage where resource gather events at sea take place, and Stella must quickly move around the ship to snatch as many collectibles as possible before time runs out. Finally, traversing the expanding ship can be aided by constructing optional devices such as bouncy umbrellas or air-draft machines, should raw jumping on top of houses not suffice enough for clean movement. As such, these movement mechanics and design opportunities provide welcome outlets for creative expression and player agency, which contrasts nicely with the lack of control that often comes attached to games about death.

Finally, there’s a real sense of progression to be found in Spiritfarer, when compared to other “artistic” and emotional indie titles such as Sea of Solitude. As mentioned prior, the ability to unlock new movement options by visiting shrines help keep the player advancing to the next stage, whether it be a signified by an out-of-reach chest or a traversable element such as an air current that you don’t have the movement tech to exploit. Moreover, these upgrades require obols (which are usually given to the player when new spirits come aboard), just as the ship upgrades that allow you to travel to new areas require Spirit Flowers that are left behind from a spirit’s passing. As a result, the personal investment from meeting and saying good-bye to spirits is matched by the extrinsic investment gained from interacting with the spirits, resulting in a powerful marrying of storytelling and gameplay mechanics. By progressing the story, the player is in turn rewarded with new areas, abilities, and accessories to create further opportunities of discovery and novelty.

That said, there are a few other nitpicks regarding certain aspects of Spiritfarer’s design, such as moments of less focused dialogue writing. Spirits will often run out of things to say, and that might limit interaction on the ships outside of jobs to scant bumps where they tell you they’re hungry, especially when you’re super busy micromanaging other tasks. This honestly doesn’t bother me as much as before (since we as humans will inevitably run out of interesting things to say); however, it is a bit more annoying speaking with non-spirit NPCs and either getting “trapped” in several lines where I had to mash X to move on, or being confronted with terse and meaningless scripts where the NPC would continually parrot some variation of “Hello. Leave me alone now.” This wouldn’t be as problematic if I didn’t feel the need to speak with every generic NPC to try and fulfill the requirement, since the “correct” NPC is not marked.

While I did find the gameplay loop much more palatable upon my second playthrough, I do agree that it’s easy to feel as if there’s a bit of padding near the end of the game as well. By this time, most of the spirits have departed your ship, and it’ll probably be down to Stella and a few remaining hardy spirits to pick up the pieces. It can definitely feel a bit lonely and out of place having to finish the remainder of Stella’s backstory with little spirit interaction in the last few hours. To its credit, Spiritfarer remedies this somewhat by finally allowing you to travel at night to quickly sweep up the story if you so desire, and with most bus stations unlocked and most speed upgrades having been fulfilled at this point, it’s not too arduous of a task. I do wish that there was a way to speed up time in Spiritfarer’s endgame though, since the backstory can only really be accomplished at night. As mentioned prior, you can fall asleep to skip nighttime and proceed with daytime events, so it is a little ironic that Spiritfarer’s endgame suffers from the exact opposite problem of running out of things to do in the day and lacking an analogous mechanism to get right back to the story at night.

I’m willing to look past these minor issues and more though, because ultimately those shortcomings end up making the game feel more human somehow. I tend to be a completionist at heart, wanting to 100% every experience and see everything there is to see. But I had to throw away that mentality and go against all my previous instincts, because Spiritfarer is a game about brevity.

While in the video game space, the developers have provided enough opportunities to artificially extent deadlines when so desired, it is Spiritfarer’s impermanence that makes its experiences so fruitful. I didn’t have enough time to learn every single detail about all the spirits, nor am I sure that the spirits were necessarily prepared to spill their entire life story in a single sitting to someone whom they had just met. Similarly, this experience’s meaning would be greatly diminished if you just let it stretch on to infinity and beyond. You most likely won’t have the time to finish every single task or close every loop… and that’s okay too.

Ultimately, while it can feel off-putting to some that characters can seem inscrutable to some degree (which may urge players to seek additional details on a wiki or in the Spiritfarer Artbook), I found myself content with what I knew. The condensed experiences that I had with these characters more than moved me upon my journey, and in fact put me in a headspace where I constantly found myself translating these experiences to my real life. Atul made me wonder if I really got to know my deceased relatives and friends well enough. Gustav left me contemplative regarding humanity’s eternal struggle with meaning. Stanley left my heart broken that innocence, while powerful, was just as fleeting as life itself. And Alice’s story left me speechless and frightened, because I saw signs of my grandmother within her.

That was, until Christmas night, when my dad received the call that my grandma on my father’s side had suffered a stroke. How bitterly ironic that the exact moment as I finished my second playthrough, my grandmother was left in a coma and I’d be forced to recontextualize my experiences once again. I knew that playing Spiritfarer would prepare me for this… but I wasn’t prepared for it to be this soon.

Had these lessons imparted upon me not meant anything? Sure, Spiritfarer is a game about dying… but it is also a game about living with death. Honor those who have moved on, so that you make the most of every moment with those who are still here. I hadn’t gotten the chance to see my grandma since a family vacation right before the 2020 outbreak, and I was hoping that someday, I’d get the chance to make it up to her. Now, I might not even get that chance. What could I even do at this point? Was my best not good enough anymore? Was my time spent all for naught?

I don’t really know. I spent a couple of days agonizing over my inability, my words feeling empty and my actions feeling directionless. I’m still waiting, because at this point, that’s all I have left.

But I’d like to think that my time wasn’t wasted. I don’t wish to make the same mistakes again… even if it might be too late this time. I think a game that’s willing to be as boldly emotionally vulnerable as Spiritfarer, despite all its potential pacing and mechanical issues, is something that has to be shared and treasured regardless of consequences. We can’t let trivial issues stop us from discussing that which is feared to be discussed, because we don’t have all the time in the world to pretend that everything’s okay. We wouldn’t improve if we never erred, and even if some missteps can’t be taken back… at least we can try to stop others from following our paths by connecting and sharing stories, right?

I can’t deny that Spiritfarer might not have hit me as hard the second time had these unfortunate events not occurred almost immediately after finishing. But I also can’t deny that Spiritfarer’s narrative power is the reason why I will always associate this game with everything that’s happened, nor can I think of any game that would have better prepared me for this moment and left such an impact upon me than Spiritfarer. Regardless of any gripes I may have had, this game is now a part of me, and I’m honestly not sure if I would change anything that I had experienced, lest I somehow forget about everything I strove to become moving forward.

So, let me leave you with these final thoughts of what I learned from Spiritfarer.

Grief is not a wave; it is an ocean. Every time you glance at it from a distance, you think you’ll be ready, but then it hits you, and you’re still swept away. As it washes over you, you start to wonder what it’s like to drown. Just to linger in that space a little longer, to try and lose yourself again in that gap in time where there was, before there wasn’t.

But there is nothing deep about drowning. Ultimately, we must carry on, for just as life has no meaning without death, those who pass on have no meaning without those who remain. Your ship will keep getting rocked by tide after tide, storm after storm, and you still might not be ready by the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or however many waves hit you over and over. Nevertheless, you learn to navigate the waters a little better each time. There’s nothing wrong with getting seasick, but that doesn’t mean you have to drown.

Love is watching someone die. But love is so much more than that too. Love is a balancing act between letting others in and watching them leave. Love is living every day like it’s your last, but realizing it’s okay to forget about life too. Love is learning to accept everything about us: the pleasures, the turmoil, the fallacies, all of it. Love is preparing for the inevitable while savoring the ephemeral.

Love… is letting go.






Sources referenced:

Representation of Death in Independent Videogames: Providing a Space for Meaningful Death Reflection
Spiritfarer And Death Positivity
Corporate Intervention In Video Games
(also please see Fudj's separate review of Spiritfarer on this site, as I find that it effectively communicates many of its strengths and provided motivation to write this up)
Spiritfarer Explained: Letting Go Is Everything
Mindful Games: Spiritfarer
Spiritfarer Documentary: A Game About Dying
Healing Together on Discord: The Spiritfarer Community
Zero Punctuation: Spiritfarer
Spiritfarer's Art Book: Can be found here or purchased as part of Farewell Editions or separately on GOG/Steam.

In Journey, the player could meditate at any time they wanted to with a simple press of a button. It rarely, if ever, brings attention to this, and once they have found out about this feature, they could choose to partake in the practice at any point for a variety of reasons. In Abzu, the player can go to a designated spot in a "hub" area, press a button that's brought to their attention the moment they step into the vicinity, and can then choose to meditate to look at all the different species of marine life within that "hub". You cannot do it outside these specific spots.

I think you can see the discrepancy of the two approaches

This problem with Abzu becomes more poignant as you go on. More often you are simply strung into grandiose setpieces with the control either mostly or fully pulled away from you just to "observe". You find random craters on the ground where upon activating them, more life sprout into existence. They repeat several jetstream events, ad nauseum, in an attempt to wow and lure you into the fascination and mystique of the ocean, yet rarely giving you natural, organic opportunities dwelling upon what has happened. Sure, there are moments where the game states becomes lax and opens you up to whatever possibility you want to tackle, and even does cool twists to the formula such as being able to walk about near the end, but does that really matter when I'm constantly reminded of my goal just a couple yards away, or how the next section forces me upon one linear path to The End?

This also becomes a bit of a problem when you realize Giant Squid's exact goal was trying to replicate the dreamlike feeling we can cultivate and experience from the blue water, as well as being one of a handful of games using Sumerian practices and utilizing the cosmic ocean philosophy that gets used as influences ever now and then. Really? You immediately brush this aspect away by directly showcasing these two aspects from word "go", the personal aspiration and connection is already washed away cause I'm living someone else's story and not my own. Even if you want to play ball, as I said earlier, the game contains constant reminders that you're on a set path to an endgoal, and rarely allow you to hitch a ride with a fish, or check out other forms of the sea like the kelp, coral, or reefs. This is a minor issue with Flower and even a major reason I didn't enjoy Stray that much, but the former expands and even reiterates itself during the venture and idealistic state, and the latter at least doesn't shy away from the fact that you're playing as a cat and gives you multiple different hubs to act as one.

The application of auteurism in gaming is a rather continuous problem the medium faces, such as a particularly infamous case where an IGN staff member erroneously credits Warren Spector as "the creator of Thief and Deus Ex" directly after dispelling and calling out this cold practice. With that said, despite having some of the same people involved with Journey and/or Flower such as art and creative director Matt Nava and composer Austin Wintory, it doesn't really feel like they were able to follow the same footsteps Jenova Chen, Nicholas Clark, Kellee Santiago and Robin Hunicke laid down. Journey felt like a massive endeavor through various states of the desert to achieve enlightenment in some fashion. Flower, while taking a bit to set itself up, finely crafts a tale about the synaptic relationship humanity and fauna have even within the crux of a more modern, urban setting. Abzu does not feel like this same approach but with the use of Sumerian culture and the cosmic ocean philosophy; it instead feels like a SeaWorld presentation that's so scared it'll lose your attention it constantly has to drag you along, even if you don't want to.

It also didn't help I was already drifting away from the cadences and waves of shifting noise and relistened to some lush samples catering to a nice paradise not too long prior.

Extremely addicting game.

There's so many mechanics, but none of them are overly deep. I wish the combat was better, but overall this is a really great map game.

Ideally I do the humongous world map, and then make all the countries spawn where they actually are IRL, then conquer the world as whatever country I picked. It's very good fun.

When your wheels touched concrete in the summer of 1999, you were sure nothing would ever compare to this. Propelled downhill, less by gravity but more by the venerated asphalt spirit, skaters far and wide convened here, a jam to end all jams. While you were happy doing everything you could, holding on to what you were, you couldn’t help but stare skyward at the street zephyrs soaring suspended; They careened through the air, making waxed wood and molded metal both their playthings. As you crashed down to the soul-shattering gravel, face bloodied and back broken, you could only wonder how they ascended from simple skaterdom, piercing the heavens of the board.

It took a year of shattered bones and busted lines to reclaim those halcyon days. A year of spilt blood and scattered teeth, splintered wood and worn polyurethane. It all felt like a dream then, placing bronze out in Roswell, but the age of simple skating had come and gone. You perfected flatland balance, dual-wheel worship at the altar of Mullen, but even perfection wasn’t enough for elusive gold; the Bullring by the Sea didn’t just cost you your metal, it cost you years of knowing you weren't good enough.

So now we’re here. Somehow, another year felt like two decade’s separation; Gone was the California sun, the first to die in the American Wasteland. A nation of Sparrows and Jackasses, failed projects and unproven theories, crept under wheel, biting at the ankles of the past. The spirit of yesterday was buried underground, leaving today to mourn in remembrance.

Well, maybe for some. The only angels you prayed to struck gold, immortalized in sharp vertexes and warped textures. They would be memorialized not in the world’s destruction, but in a final tour, eight stops; a send-off of olden days.

You forged your craft, refining your spark-casting perfection on the rails of automation, before skating to the north. Calgary’s frost-bitten hospitality was the first real test, but as if guided by Hawk’s holy hand, the snowy providence of Alberta bowed down, hailing 900s and McTwists like the second coming. For the first time in decades, a smile spreads across your face, your cheeks still rosy-red from the icy air…

You blink, and awaken to a crowd cheering your name. Looking down on the masses, faces revered and reviled stare back; Muska, Campbell, Reynolds and Margera. You glance around for Burnquist, hoping to celebrate with the hometown hero, but the master is missing in action. Somehow, you were sure you’d be able to show off this gold to him somewhere down the line.

It repeats, on and on: Suburbia becomes New Jersey, the Airport becomes a Mall. Twenty years made it all blend together. Even now, your second gold medal in hand, it barely feels like you’re awake. When those wheels roll, maple boards of a bygone age, time disappears, rendered in heelflips and darkslides. The pomp and circumstance of it all becomes an excuse, more than anything. In your immortalized element, the past is as real as you remember it.

The final jam beckons; neo-chrome Tokyo glistens, welcoming only the best of the best. The competition rages on, dreams dashed in fractured bones and dislocations. No matter what you do, face-to-face with your idols, no, your contemporaries, there's no break, no chance to cover lost ground. Rivals dwindle as career-ending injuries take one after another, but the legendary Birdman flies past.

Seconds are left in the last heat; only a miracle will change the course of destiny. You think to the future, to the final 900 and the first 1260. As if coming free from its wheels, the board possesses you one last time, as you pivot hard on impact, momentum propelling you into the cosmos.

180. 360. 540.

Tony looks skyward, the same shine that was in your eyes twenty years prior.

Two rotations. The 900. 1080.

Nothing else matters. An amoeba with a mind of its own, an ace of spades, whatever you were and where you come from don't matter. This lone moment, spinning on a golden axis, is what it all comes down to.

Zero seconds. You don't bother looking at the scoreboard; you knew better than to think that's what this is about.

All you were looking for was this lone moment of perfection, a revision of the summer of '99. You wrap your hand tight around your medal - does it even matter what it is? - as you board the plane back to California. Staring out the window, you see the past and future together, a first-hand account of what it's like when worlds collide. You never forget the past, and tomorrow closes in fast, but this single moment is eternal.

All the grand gestures can't ease your wonder. You finally unwrap the medal and take it in.

100% Pure Gold.

Devil May Cry is an interesting game, and I can respect the complicated nature of it's development. However, I can't let that excuse it from being so utterly awkward and clunky to play at several points.
I say several points because despite things, the combat actually becomes very easy to manage once you've aqcuired certain power-ups and weapons, and getting long combos comes in to play as soon as enemies get particularly strong. It was an honestly fun experience as far as fighting the cannon fodder goes, but I can't extend that to most of the boss fights, which were awkward, unfun, and usually only beatable by repetitive, boring methods. Nelo Angelo is the main deviation from this, and his duels are far more in line with what this game is made for.

The story is...kill all the bad guys, that's basically it. There's a bunch of context the game rubs in your face throughout, but all it does is reference past events that the player has likely no knowledge of at this point, and is all there in the manual. The aesthetic of this game, however, is insane, still looking quite nice for a PS2 game (and horribly upscaled to HD) and oozing with style, which was clearly the core concept (even if Dante is, honestly, not very good at sounding cool).

This game is fine, but has gaping flaws that make it a little inaccessible (and even more so if you had the shit, 50hz locked PAL version like me, which is borderline unplayable).

Binary Domain is a thrilling blockbuster action movie built around a...functional game, but with many a broken base.

Let's start with the core gameplay - it's a violently average third person shooter. Cover mechanics that usually work, regenerating health, 2 weapon slots as well as a sidearm and grenades, etc. Where it makes some effort to stand out from the crowd are the enemies - taking full advantage of the fact they're robots, shooting different areas gives different effects, which both looks and feels good.

Another place it stands out is the squad mechanics - and these both make and break the game...mainly break. Firstly, the big gimmick of this game is the squad commands you can issue via a microphone. It's novel! It's futuristic! It's completely fucking broken! It can only understand american accents, and even then, not very well. Just stick to the button inputs instead, it'll save a lot of headache.

The other thing the squad mechanics bring to the table is the trust system, which is largely irrelevant except for determining which of 4 ending variations you get. Unfortunately, the way the trust system works is biased against screwing you over; to gain trust, you have to get lots of headshots/melee kills for a random chance of increasing trust. The other way is dialogue...where you have to agree with everything your teammate says or they get pissed off at you and lose trust. Another way to lose trust is shooting them...which is hard to avoid when the AI constantly throws itself into your line of fire.

All that aside, the story is a ridiculous action packed B-movie, full of explosions, one-liners, and complete nonsense story whenever it's actually relevant. You can just tell this was directed by the Yakuza studio, as a lot of love and detail goes into everything. It's kinda sad, to see so much effort put into the cutscenes and environments only for the game to sell less than 100,000 copies worldwide.

All in all, this game is violently flawed, but if it's a rollercoaster ride you want, I'd recommend grabbing this on sale.