I’m not sure if Journey can really be seen as a game. It has its qualities. The art style is good, the music is fine, it has some cool collectibles/achievements and it has some special moments. But it’s also slow, cutscenes can’t be skipped unless you select a chapter, story is incredibly vague, movements are sluggish, you can’t pick a co-op partner and there isn’t enough gameplay to keep things interesting. I enjoyed the surfing and stealth sections for being more involved but they’re rare compared to the rest. With movements, they made jumps cost stamina without charging automatically. You have to interact with charge papers that are not always nearby to be able to jump/float again. Your co-op partner can also help you charge when you’re close to them. It makes platforming a chore until you unlock the white robe by collecting all symbols. This mechanic should have been the default way to play the game. As for co-op, I expected to play the game with my best friend. I made him buy a copy and we tried to find each other for at least an hour with no luck. Maybe this goes against the point of the game but it would have made the game 10 times better instead of being forced to play with randoms and not being able to do anything about it. You can’t even play the game alone unless you’re offline.

At the end of the day, paying around €2 during sale is not a lot. I got to experience it and I don’t have to be curious about it anymore. But I would have also been fine not playing it. I kept asking myself what I got out of it after spending 6.4 hours to 100% the game (aside from waiting for a week for one achievement). Not much really. Get it if you’re curious about the game too but don’t expect some real gameplay. It’s more about the feels and going through the motions. A game to play when you don’t have the energy to do anything else. Rime did it better imo.