Holy shiiiiiiiiit
That was GOOD.
Much better than my expectations going in. It's crazy to think this is the same company that made FLOW, a game about swimming in a circle for an hour with shitty motion controls. Flower was a much better experience and this is as big of jump as FLOW was to FLOWER. Really amazing how far this small team has come in 3 games.
Extremely impressive experience. It's one of those games when the PS4 is out, people will say "Journey was one of the reasons to own a PS3". Sure it borrows HEAVILY from SoTC and a bit of ICO, but hey, those are good games to borrow from! The only thing I didn't like was
spoiler (click to show/hide)
the snow area. I got that they were trying to represent the TOUGH SURVIVAL to the player, but it just wasn't fun to play and was a grueling experience. I can see myself replaying all the rest of the game except that section. Also the enemies were kind of annoying because you wouldn't see the spotlight until it was right on you and it's too late.
Those were the only 2 annoyances though, the rest is 4/4 star material from start to finish. Going to replay this with my gf this weekend, this is the kind of experience you can totally enjoy with non-gamers. I wonder if Roger Ebert will play it. It's a wonderful piece of interactive art.
THAT BEING SAID
The game also depresses the hell out of me. Why? Because a team of like 5 people were able to make a better looking HD game than 6 years of Japan working with 5-20 million dollar budgets. Graphically, the game is insanely impressive. From the Sand (which is how I thought Uncharted 3 was going to be during the Desert section), to the glistening lighting, to the expansive environments and killer cell shading. The game is one of the best looking games I've seen and it screams THIS IS ONLY POSSIBLE ON PS3/X360 GENERATION SYSTEM. If Japan had their shit together this gen, I imagine that we would have tons of games that looked like this. Imagine Okami with visuals like these! Hell, I'd love to see a Team ICO game in a world like this visually.
It's also depressing because they created this incredible looking world to move through, but there's not a whole lot of game there. And games that have "game" parts don't have worlds that are half as interesting as this. I would like someone at Sony to borrow the world and make an actually game-y game in it, lol.
Also impressive considering people always say Sony's Phryengine sucked, but uh, it looked REALLY GOOD here.
4/4 stars
Bebpo seal of approval :heart
Went through this again with my gf. Still a nice experience, I didn't notice how much the online co-op with randoms can really make the experience until I got to the spoiler (click to show/hide)
top of the snow summit alone this time and it was a totally different experience than doing it side by side with another person, pushing against the blizzard, only to watch your buddy collapse in the snow moments before you do
Also this is definitely more of a "game" than their previous stuff. My gf, who is a non-gamer, couldn't pass a lot of parts and I had to take the controller and do it for her. You have to have some ability to do 3d platforming in order to get through Journey. Still, as a non-gamer, she enjoyed the experience. Especially the art and music.
And I actually understood the plot this time around, haha. I didn't pay enough attention to the wall scroll parts in the first play but now they all make sense. spoiler (click to show/hide)
ancient civilization is granted/discovers the power of the SCARF, uses it to build modern cities and destroy the environment, eventually they fight over the power and tear it, then they build giant attack robots and go to war with each other which destroys the civilization leaving only ruins and dust and a hell of a lot of grave markers. Then you come along and climb the mountain into the light.