A Journey
As you'd expect from thatgamecompany and Jenova Chen's works, Journey is an art.
You take control of a being, presumably on a pilgrimage, to reach a summit, which is shown to you throughout the game. The gameplay is simple, left analog stick to move, right analog stick to control the camera (you can also tilt to rotate the camera), X to jump, and circle to 'sing'.
Journey is a short game, you could finish it in less than 2 hours. And it's all about moving forward, you'll find yourself pushing the left analog stick up throughout the game. The jump mechanic is interesting, you can only jump if you've collected magical glitter for your scarf. It seems that your scarf grows when you've found glowing marker throughout the journey, but it's not like longer scarf means anything at all.
It's an online co-op game, anonymous online co-op actually. You don't get to choose your partner and you don't even get to see their name throughout the game. This is where the circle button comes into foreground. Besides using circle to activate things here and there, you'll also use it to communicate with your online partner. As the matter of fact, the online co-op might be the best thing happened to gaming. Throughout the game, I felt helplessness while struggling to move against the terrain. I took solace by walking side by side with my partner, and 'chatting' by 'singing' to him / her, and amazingly enough, my partner reciprocated the same way. The humanity and relationship created between two strangers thru the online mechanic, without even knowing each other's name, is magical.
Unlike what you'd think, Journey is not all about desert, you will travel thru different landscapes, all of them which are breathtaking. At times it seems like the nature is going against you, preventing you from moving forward. But it seems like it's intentionally designed so that you'd stick with your partner. Not that the game is not playable on your own, but the feeling is different when it's played with someone else.
Journey, although is short, it's magical. If you like Flower, then you should get Journey.
