Video Game Review: Journey / Flower / Flow

Earlier this year, "Journey" was released, following up from a lot of hype, and opening with rave reviews.  Now, they've released the game on disc...alongside with Thatgamecompany's other hits, "Flow" and "Flower." But wait, there's more! Each game also comes with their respective soundtracks (which can be exported to the PS3's hard drive), loads of production art (also exportable), game commentaries, documentaries, textless credit sequences, a wealth of PSN avatars and themes, and a month's free trial subscription to PSN+! And that's not all:  the disc also comes with three minigames that have never seen the light of day! My God, this might be the best value for money you could ever ask for from a video game package!

Let's start by looking at the main feature attraction:

Journey

The latest and greatest from Thatgamecompany, and it's every bit as good as the games that have come before it.  In a manner no different than "Flow" or "Flower," "Journey" is a simple, relaxing, non-punishing experience.  As the title suggests, you simply play a funky, nameless, faceless character trekking across several different levels to reach the summit of a mountain.  You basically run through the environments, discover some secret glowing runes, and gain power from some floating cloth things that allow you to jump and glide wire-fu style.  As you go along and activate various runes, glyphs, cloth things, and whatnot, you open up paths to the next goal, eventually working up that mountain.  The game allows other online players to drop in and out of your game, so you have the option to work with others toward the same goal.  That's really all there is to the game:  it's nothing difficult or complex, but that's the beauty of it.  It's very easy to just pop the game in, sit back and relax, and invest yourself in the quest.

The story is pretty much mentioned above, if not insinuated from the game's title.  It starts off pretty straightforward, as you just run through the desert.  If anything, it starts off looking dry, as you run across seemingly-endless sand dunes.  Fortunately, the game manages to mix things up, presenting some formidable danger throughout the later levels in the form of stalking mechanical dragon things and a rough ascent near the mountain's snow-covered summit.  The more treacherous it gets, the more invoking the journey suddenly becomes.  The game reaches a strong emotional crescendo in the end, as the character comes close to the end and seems to fail, before attaining some kind of spiritual ascendency and becoming all-powerful.  It's as powerful of an ending as it is primal and fundamental.  In the end, the journey really is worth it.

Despite the funky graphic designs, the game is well-rendered, with plenty of remarkable sand, snow, wind, and clothing effects.  The scenery is often gorgeous.  Gameplay is smooth and intuitive, and quite easy to play.  Sound effects are great, and the music score is really nice (the end credits music is especially freaking beautiful).

4.5/5 (Entertainment:  Very Good | Story:  Very Good | Game:  Very Good)

Flow

The older of the three main games here, "Flow" was likely the first that capitalized on this laid-back form of gaming.  Basically, the game resembles a world of microscopic bacteria, and you play a microscopic creature of sorts that eats other creatures.  You goal...eat everything you can.  You eat your way through the levels, unlocking more creatures and making them grow bigger and prettier.  It's simple, relaxing, and surprisingly addictive.

There is no real "story" to this, although you do progress through the levels until you unlock every creature (and eventually, you get to devour the end credits).

Still, the game is pretty smooth.  It can take some adjustment to use the Sixaxis motion controller to manipulate the creature, rather than the buttons; the thing will often go where you don't mean for it to.  Regardless, once you get the hang of it, it's pretty intuitive and easy.  It supports local co-op gameplay, so it makes for a fine and dandy party game.  Graphics are awesome, the art design is really slick, and the sound/music is lovely.

4/5 (Entertainment:  Good | Story:  None | Game:  Very Good)

Flower

Out of these three, "Flower" remains my favorite of the lot.  It's like the ultimate chill-out game.  It's amazingly addictive to move these flower petals around, making other flowers bloom and ultimately transforming the entire world with explosions of color and life.  It is a wonderful and rewarding experience, full of graphic splendor, emotional resonance, and a type of beauty that no other game has emulated before.  At the same time, it's not an intense game, and certainly not a punishing game.  It's pretty relaxing and laid-back, and it's the perfect solution for a long stressful day at work.

The story is very slight, but it's there at a basic, fundamental level.  Basically, you play a flower petal that flies around on the wind, and makes other flowers bloom as it passes by.  The more flowers you bloom, the more petals that follow you, and you can grow a very long chain of flying petals very quickly.  Your goal is to simply bloom all the flowers and move on to the next level.  As you go on, however, you eventually come face-to-face with the ravages of industrialization that seems to poison the land.  By the final level, it's up to you to drive away the monstrous industrial junk and restore color and life to the city.  With a strong nature-vs-industry theme, and one strong punch of an ending, the game exhibits a very basic and effective plot filled with a very simple and powerful theme.

The game is well-rendered, with quality graphics.  It is especially noteworthy for its grass effects; each level presents entire fields of individual blades of grass, all swaying gently in the wind.  Sound effects are also noteworthy, for it literally creates music as you go along and bloom other flowers.  The game is controlled with the Sixaxis motion controller, so it does take some getting used to to control your flower petals by simply moving the controller.  However, it does get quite intuitive, and the game responds to your movements quite accurately.  Art designs are splendid, and the music is really nice.

5/5 (Entertainment:  Perfect | Story:  Very Good | Game:  Very Good)

Grave Diggers

What's this? The game comes with three other minigames, including this weird thing called "Grave Diggers." It resembles something from the Atari age, featuring huge blocky 8-bit graphics.  You play a...large pixel of some kind, running around a multileveled pixel landscape with all kinds of other pixels chasing you.  There are so many enemies that you die pretty much all the time.  It's really easy to get stuck on the overlapping land masses.  I'm not even sure what the point of this game is.  It's pretty clear that this is something in a very early development stage, for it doesn't have any refinement that makes it playable.  It's good for a laugh or too, but I'll certianly never give this the time of day again.

0.5/5 (Entertainment:  Awful | Story:  Awful | Game:  Awful)

Duke War

This second minigame is actually quite charming.  It resembles "Skifree" (you know, the old skiing game that used to come with every copy of Windows 98) crossed with "Warcraft." Basically, you play a duke of some kind, who can rally peasants on a map and turn them into either workers or soldiers.  You go around, conquering peasants, crushing your enemies, and seeing them driven before you (unfortunately, there are no lamentations of their women).  Be the first to get 500 gold, and you win! It's pretty cheap and silly, and a little hard to grasp how it works.  But, it is simple, and pretty fun once you learn how to play it.  Above all, the sound and dialogue is pretty hilarious.  I love hearing the voices of the duke and all the peasants; they have some pretty funny lines.

3/5 (Entertainment:  Pretty Good | Story:  Poor | Game:  Marginal)

Nostril Shot

I have no freaking idea why this game is called "Nostril Shot." It just sounds gnarly.  I also have no idea what kind of story this is supposed to be.  Only one level played for me, so I assume that this is another game that was chopped short in its development.  It definitely shows, as a huge hoard of enemies come out to pummel you, and you seem to die and resurrect with a random number of extra lives (might be infinite, I'm not sure).  Regardless, this single level of a game is pretty charming.  It's pretty heavily pixilated, but I dug the designs for the main character (looking like an average sci-fi anime heroine), the weird shark-headed bad guys, and the giant robot thing that comes out later.  It's pretty cool how you can zap through all the bad guys with your various weapons.  It's ridiculous how the giant robot thing launches something like a hundred missiles at you, but it's awesome how you can just run underneath the thing and make all the rockets hit the robot thing instead.  Yeah, this game has issues, but at least it looks the part.

3/5 (Entertainment:  Pretty Good | Story:  None | Game:  Average)

This package is well worth the time and money for "Journey," "Flow," and "Flower" alone.  The minigames are a bit of a throwaway extra, but they're good for a quick laugh or too.  All the extras make the package an exceptional deal.  Even if you're not a regular gamer, I recommend the three main games here for everybody; they are simple games that may prove inspiring, relaxing, and all-around pleasurable.