Journey
Systems: PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Windows, iOS, Linux
Release Date: March 13, 2012 - August 6, 2019
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment, Annapurna Interactive
Developer: thatgamecompany
Time Spent: 2 Hours 30 Minutes
I'll be upfront. I was a little disappointed in Journey. I don't know if it was because I played Sky: Children of Light a few years back and didn't vibe with the online connectivity and the minimalist approach to multiplayer games, but once you start running around with another character in Journey, I began to feel self-conscious and less interested. The feeling of exploring a new world was taken away and replaced with a sense of urgency to get to the end of the stage because that's what the other character felt like it was prompting me to do. The first half of the game was brilliant, beautiful, and magical. The second half. . . I don't know, it just wasn't.
And I think a lot of that feeling harkened back to how I felt playing Sky: Children of Light when I realized that it was an online multiplayer game at its core. This is because about halfway through (I'm not 100% sure actually), Journey turned into an online two-player game. Without any kind of warning whatsoever. Just like Sky: Children of Light, it felt weird and awkward to all of a sudden have another player there, unbidden, running around in the same world, working towards the same goal.
One of my self-conscious-related hangups is that I felt that Journey was about exploration, to a certain extent. In the first area, you are running around an expansive desert landscape with a mountain of light off in the distance. Before you, are glyphs/glowing runes that once collected, make your red scarf a little bit longer (is this a health or stamina bar?) The rest of these glowing runes in the first area are a bit out of the way, implying that you're supposed to explore off the somewhat beaten path before completing an area. There are also ruins scattered about that contain bas-reliefs that didn't do anything discernable apart from the game indicating that I located them, so that was something else to look out for.
Jump ahead to the halfway point (again, just guessing here) and now there is another character with me. This other character looks a lot like my character, albeit their scarf is longer and we both seem to be going in the same direction. I first thought that this was a computer-controlled character since there was the white-robed figure in the vision/dreams between levels and the flying carpet-type creatures that felt very animalistic, so it wasn't like there hadn't been any indication that I was the only character in existence. Then, like in Sky: Children of Light, this other character started moving in a way that felt like it was being controlled by another human, and not by a computer mind. That's when the self-consciousness began to set in.
I fully recognize that this is a me problem and not looking too closely at the game before starting. I had wanted the game to be as much of a surprise as could be when starting a 12-year-old game that has garnered so much praise. Before starting, all I knew was that Austin Wintory had written an amazing soundtrack, that the praise for visuals was well deserved, and that you played as a red-cloaked character running through the desert toward the beaconed peak of a distant mountain. I honestly don't know how I would have felt had I read the Reception section on the Wikipedia article and seen all of the comments about playing with strangers being a highlight.
I think my next playthrough, because I'd be surprised if I didn't play this game again, I will turn off the WiFi so I can experience the game as a single-player game. I know that this is not how thatgamecompany intended the game to be played, but that's how I had internalized this game before I started and while playing the first couple of opening areas. Playing through this experience as a solo experience I think will better allow me to focus on the visuals and environmental storytelling, rather than feeling compelled to move forward because that's what the other player is expecting me to do. Sure I could just ignore the other player, but then I feel that that wouldn't be fair to the other player. I feel that I have to disagree wholeheartedly (I don't know what that says about me) with Mr. Donlan of Eurogamer's sentiment that, "The truly brilliant move [...] was to leave a space at the very centre of the design that only a stranger can fill."
~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Instrumental
P.S. I guess I should do a quick search before I start in on thatgamecompany's next game that I haven't played yet.
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