Well when it comes to Video Games first opinions do matter, and I can safely say that my first playthrough of Journey was one of the most extraordinary gaming experiences I have ever...experienced. One which I hadn't felt in any other game making this very unique so let me explain why. This, (that comma there is a VERY dramatic lengthy pause) is Journey:
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| That little red person there is the player |
Now before I properly start I have to say this,
Do not read this post if you haven't played Journey. I say this because Journey is an experience and giving off any hint of what that experience is beforehand is spoiler. I've posted advice on what you should do to prepare for your first playthrough here:
6 Tips on playing Journey
So once you've read that particular post play Journey and then you can read the rest of this. So if you haven't played it, have a good time and I'll see you in a bit. If you have played it then read on, though note that this whole post will be written in a way that makes it seem that the reader hasn't played Journey. I write like that just to make it easier for me.
Ok well I'll start off by saying what you do in journey, which is walking and gliding towards a mountain. That's about it in regards to the main aim of the game. The gliding mechanic works by your character having a scarf which is powered by cloth, or rather energy found in cloth "creatures" and "plants" which exist in the land you traverse. You hold down the X button to levitate yourself until the energy in your scarf runs out and you can make your scarf permanently longer (meaning that you'll be able to hold more energy) by finding special glowing symbols of energy.
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See those little pieces of cloth floating around the player?
Those are an example of some of the creatures that supply you with the energy that power your scarf |
Due to the fact that the player will want to glide as much as possible he/she will want to encounter the cloth strewn about the about the land, and interacting with the cloth creatures in particular gives the world some life, some immersion. The gliding is glorious, it's impossible to properly "fall" quickly and the camera doesn't move too fast so there's this really graceful feel to the movement of the player. This is then enhanced by one of the first unique aspects you'll notice about Journey, that being the visual style.
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| Journey has some of the greatest visuals I've ever seen in a Video Game |
The game looks gorgeous with a minimalist style that gives you a feeling that you're journeying through a painting. That combined with the glide mechanic...well let me tell you swooping high in the air being able to see the stunning landscape before you, made up of beautiful colours is just something else you know? Believe me when I say it feels fantastic.
So what do the visuals consist of? Well one of the most notable aspects is the rolling sand on the dunes which glitter in the sun, with each level giving a different colour towards it. You can see in the above screenshots that one of the first levels the sand is orange in a slightly closed off environment (but still large enough to have fun gliding around). The next level however looks like an endless sea of pink dunes against a green sky, it really gave me an epic feel to my journey. And when I say epic I MEAN epic, I'm not using it as a casual slang. The level after gave me my greatest moment in gaming and for me contained the best visuals within Journey (and all of gaming) though I think I'll talk about that at the end of this post.
The aesthetics of the game also provide an excellent execution of distinct environments. An example of this would be when you fall into the underground ruins, the dark blue colours and floating twinkling dust gives it a sense of being underwater. Now here this is combined with the gliding which now in a way makes it seem that you're swimming in the sea, especially as the little cloth creature seem like fish, with even some that resemble jellyfish, whales and the long thin extending pieces of cloth attached to the ground look like seaweed. At that point since the mountain isn't in your view you feel like you're at the depths of the ocean exploring something really special.
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| A lot of the cloth presented in this level looks like seaweed |
Another environment, the last one, would be the snowy mountains. Now for me snowy environments give a feeling of the end of the world, not in an apocalyptic sense, but as in if the world were flat for example then that snowy harsh environment would be the furthest place from civilisation right at the edge. So it gave me an this feeling that I was closely reaching the end of my Journey when I did get there, that sort of atmosphere was perfect in my opinion. However whether or not it was directly intentional I don't know because snow in most religions represents death in the sense that it's the end of the seasonal year. So whereas my sense of "the end" atmosphere was more of a geographical one, it could be that for other people it would be more symbolic of "the end" in terms of time. The fact that it can be open to interpretation is one of the games strongest accomplishments in that regards, enough artistic input to actually have meaning yet vague enough that people can adapt and experience their own individual emotions from it.
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| The Warm Colours of the Desert |
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| The dark blue of the ruins that gives a sense of being underwater |
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| The pale white harshness of the snowy mountain |
The next thing to talk about would be the music (composed by Austin Wintory), which is top notch and is definitely one of the best uses of music in a Video Game. The soundtrack is dynamic so it changes depending on what you are doing in the level. The ethereal calm that it produces for the first couple of levels really gives a sense of peace and most importantly freedom when gliding around atop the sand. But it gets exciting when sliding down for one particular level, which is the level I'll talk about later.
When landing in the underground ruins there is a sense of
tranquillity but very different from that given off from the music of the first few levels on the sand dunes. Rather than giving a sense of openness and freedom, the music is perhaps more...humble I suppose would be the word. It's not upbeat like that found on the upper sand dune levels but yet is still calm, it really does enforce the idea of being in an underwater, completely different, unexplored world.
The amount of tranquil music means that the more tense and sad music has an even bigger effect on the player, it really does provide quite an impact. Journey can be considered a prime example of how important soundtracks are in Video Games, providing joy, melancholy, tension, it provides these without the player consciously even noticing. It's especially important when the player's characters are mute and direct words are not spoken
However what I haven't talked about so far is probably Journey's greatest accomplishment, you can see it in the pictures above and it's the fact that Journey is an online 2 player co-operative game. BUT, and this is a really important BUT, you can't communicate with the other player (either verbally or through text) except by "singing" or perhaps it would more accurate to call it chirping a note. You don't know who the other player is either, their name isn't displayed, you just meet a player on your journey and you can choose to go together or not. This lack of communication means that you don't fall into the pitfalls of conversations, no trolling, no judging a person on the way that they talk, no judging a person on their gender or nationality. Instead you judge the person purely based on their avatar, this immerses you even more into the game and most importantly gives you a positive emotional connection with another REAL player. Something that no other game that I've played so far has managed to achieve to this extent. The joy you feel from gliding around in the air with a red friend by your side, the sadness of losing someone that you've been travelling with for a while whether it be because of a disconnection or you just wandered too far apart. It was just such a new and unique experience for me, and it really is something because at the end you get a list of all the people you met along the way and sometimes people will send messages via PSN thanking you for the journey. It's just extraordinary.
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| Journey is a game where online co-op contributes (one of the largest contributors in fact) to the emotional impact of the experience |
The game's short length of 2-3 hours is perfect because it means you and your partner can experience your journey to the end making it special. If it were longer then you'd have to stop playing the game and leave your partner, then when you want to play it again you'd have to continue with another person. It kind of makes the person with you more of a disposable ghost than anything else, whereas if they've stuck with you to the end you form a proper emotional connection since they don't feel like a drop-in drop-out random, instead they really do feel like your companion.
Seeing the whole thing in one sitting is important because stopping and starting a game in itself is immersion breaking obviously. A true understanding and emotional effect of the pacing within Journey can really only be experienced if you traverse through the whole narrative, which is why having a shorter game means having a greater control on how the players are affected for each gaming session. However I should note that doesn't mean that greater control doesn't mean absolute control, this is a Video Game after all and that means input from the player. This is something which thatgamecompany know and is an ethos that they've applied extensively because each Journey can be different depending on who you meet. Maybe you met someone who on the first run stuck with you, but unfortunately left just before the end leaving you to finish your journey alone. Or perhaps instead you felt joy in meeting many people on one journey and had fun either gliding around or singing together as you met and left some really cool people. Or maybe you just wanted to go on the journey alone, focusing on the task at hand yet being free to explore by yourself. It's your choice, your experience and it's different each time.
What makes Journey shine even more though is how all these different aspects: gameplay, visuals, sound design, music and narrative complement each other. It's difficult to single out just one aspect and say this is what's making me feel this way at this particular moment, because all of them are always acting on you and most importantly always contribute to the same emotion and never really falter in their execution. The gameplay never contradicts what the other creative assets are trying to feel, something which a lot of games do. It appears to be a game where each department knew exactly what the other was trying to achieve which gives a sense synergy in its creation making it more than the sum of it's parts. I assume that communication of aims and ideas between staff when developing this was pretty damn efficient to achieve what they did.
Now I'm going to talk about a particular level of Journey, one that provided me with my favourite moment in Video Games so far. It's the sand sliding level, I call it road of trials after the music that plays over it, I can't remember the real name I think it's "The sunken city" or something like that. Anyway after soaring around the vast desert and helping some cloth creatures, the music gets more exciting and you're dropped by one of those creatures into a valley on a hill. At this point it gets so joyous as you slide smoothly and do flips and hops over gaps and rocks, the sand glistening. Then it comes to the moment I was talking about which is when the music starts to calm and the sand glows golden as the sun sets and the camera switches to a side view of your characters "surfing" within some ruins and you can see the rest of the city behind you in a wide shot as the sun sets behind the mountain...I mean as I write this I'm getting annoyed that I can't express what I felt into words. At the very least here's a few pictures of what the level looks like:
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| Here's a shot of a player sliding down the level with the cloth creatures playfully following |
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| Here is another player looking up at the ruins |
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| And here is my favourite moment in gaming...I mean just look at it |
To hear, see and most importantly play Journey is an experience that has emotionally affected me in way that nothing before has from any work of art from any medium. Like I keep on saying it is a unique experience and it is for those reasons that I consider it to be my favourite game of all time.
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| Cheerio! |
