I've played both. I will say it is probably the closest comparison we have that makes any sense, but again such comparisons really do this game an injustice. There is nothing else like it out there, period. "Exploration" has been redefined here, and the sense of crushing isolation mixed with astonishing beauty and one of the most elegantly refined narratives I've ever seen in a game (GAME DEVELOPERS: THIS IS HOW YOU TELL A GAME STORY. Note, it does not even require words: show, don't spell out every little fucking detail of your bloated, uninspired movie story wannbe self-parody. Whatever one thinks of how original this tale is, the details of it are dispersed in a way that is immediately engaging and mysterious, enlightening the mind and forcing one to wonder what lay next in the best sense. Interpretation is key. Even the simplest of stories can be wonderful if it is told in a way that makes the player feel like he is apart of the the unfolding narrative, that you are almost forming the image of said story as a shadow of your own imagination, a reflection on who you are. It's a feat. It's a fucking milestone.) make it stand alone among works on game consoles... and PCs, for that matter. Like some cliche P.O.D. song, it actually does stand alone.
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Journey |OT| Perfect Strangers
- Thread starter alr1ght
- Start date
I've played both. I will say it is probably the closest comparison we have that makes any sense, but again such comparisons really do this game an injustice. There is nothing else like it out there, period. "Exploration" has been redefined here, and the sense of crushing isolation mixed with astonishing beauty and one of the most elegantly refined narratives I've ever seen in a game (GAME DEVELOPERS: THIS IS HOW YOU TELL A GAME STORY. Note, it does not even require words: show, don't spell out every little fucking detail of your bloated, uninspired movie story wannbe self-parody. Whatever one thinks of how original this tale is, the details of it are dispersed in a way that is immediately engaging and mysterious, enlightening the mind and forcing one to wonder what lay next in the best sense. Interpretation is key. Even the simplest of stories can be wonderful if it is told in a way that makes the player feel like he is apart of the the unfolding narrative, that you are almost forming the image of said story as a shadow of your own imagination, a reflection on who you are. It's a feat. It's a fucking milestone.) make it stand alone among works on game consoles... and PCs, for that matter. Like some cliche P.O.D. song, it actually does stand alone.
most of the time when GAFers demand I try something despite my clear reservations with something and clear critiques and problems with said product, it always ends in miserable failure: See FFXIII-2, see Nier, etc etc. It's so rare that I'm wrong about my own opinions, because I am intimately familiar with what I like and don't like and what is valuable in gaming and what is not. I understand you're teasing me, but I just thought this should be clear 
I am glad to have been proven wrong here. This is just remarkable. I don't want to stop talking about this game because I feel if I stop I will lose touch somehow with the last remaining fading remnants of the experience I just had, and I may never get it back...
I am glad to have been proven wrong here. This is just remarkable. I don't want to stop talking about this game because I feel if I stop I will lose touch somehow with the last remaining fading remnants of the experience I just had, and I may never get it back...
SecretMoblin
Member
Play it again.
Then try and get all the glowing symbols (without help at first, of course).
i am pretty sure I got most of the glowing symbols (if you just mean the ones that extend your scarf)
i don't actually want to replay the experience, I don't think such an experience even should be played again. I wish it to stand like a sentinel in my memory, a dusky relic of a time when something important happened in this favorite hobby of mine. It is something like a passing glimpse of someone you once saw long ago, and that momentary glance stays there, unmovable, more important for the mere fact that it was fleeting.
I will probably watch my mom and sister play it though
Shit gameplay, comically awful story, no polish, hilariously inept sidequests. Classic sub section of neoGAF's lack of taste. This thread is being devalued merely by comparison.
i don't actually want to replay the experience, I don't think such an experience even should be played again. I wish it to stand like a sentinel in my memory, a dusky relic of a time when something important happened in this favorite hobby of mine. It is something like a passing glimpse of someone you once saw long ago, and that momentary glance stays there, unmovable, more important for the mere fact that it was fleeting.
I will probably watch my mom and sister play it though
Billychu said:And then get better taste and start liking Nier
Shit gameplay, comically awful story, no polish, hilariously inept sidequests. Classic sub section of neoGAF's lack of taste. This thread is being devalued merely by comparison.
SecretMoblin
Member
It definitely should be played again.
Trust us.
And the glowing symbols are counted between playthroughs, so you don't need to get them all in a single run. The reward for finding them all is very worth it.
Edit: If you want to take some time to process it, that's totally fine. But give it another shot. It's remarkable how rewarding it is each time.
Trust us.
And the glowing symbols are counted between playthroughs, so you don't need to get them all in a single run. The reward for finding them all is very worth it.
Edit: If you want to take some time to process it, that's totally fine. But give it another shot. It's remarkable how rewarding it is each time.
XBOX HIVES
Banned
Trophy hunting can actually be a useful exercise. I only go for 100% completion on games I really enjoyed. It helps me deconstruct the elements that I enjoyed as getting all of the achievements/trophies often requires a shit-ton of repetition. Mostly, I'll come out of the experience with at least a few cons which were overlooked during my initial playthrough. After doing this with Journey though, I still could not find anything that tarnished my opinion on how wonderful the game is. In fact, it's rare that I want to revisit a game after trophy hunting but I do in fact want to play it again and again.
my feeling on length now:
Amir0x said:
Seriously, everyone owes it to themselves to try this game. It does not mean you may like it and it does not mean it is something that is completely without faults somewhere, even if I find them difficult to pinpoint. It is just to say this game is worth trying and understanding and evaluating, that indeed much of the value may come in the form of the evaluation itself
It's really special dude.
XBOX HIVES said:
Maybe, but I hate trophies and achievements. I don't have a single platinum trophy and only like 2 1000/1000 games, and only incidentally... I wasn't aiming for those. And I own like five billion games.
well i'll just take your word for it, I'm not playing it again. Thanks for the suggestion though
Heh, not to beat a dead horse, or even seem to contradict my previous comments, but there is something to be said for going through again and sort of being that big-brother helper to your fellow traveler. Not just for the new guy who you float around and help power-up their scarf, or nudge them along if they seem stuck, but also other people who have finished the game and you both want to find all the hidden glyphs and glowy bits. There is such satisfaction in seeing a companion's appreciation for your help with their chirps, or to hear your friend beckon you "hey, over here, I found something."
Omg. I saw that you had posted and I was all "Oh... he said he didn't like the beta...
"BUT YAY. :')
LethaL ImpuLse
Member
Okay, I need this game inside me, right now.
XBOX HIVES
Banned
Yup, I actually had a great experience like this. Started on the first level and a new player popped in my game. At first he was very skittish and I think a bit leery of my presence (who isn't with online multiplayer these days?). But as I went with him through the level--guiding him across obstacles, chirping for him to follow me to a hidden symbol and waiting for him if he happened to fall behind--you could see his trust in me growing. By the end of the game, we were joined at the hip and you could sense his panic if i missed a jump and fell out of view from him. Really incredible.
little bits of polish that show thatgamecompany was almost obsessed with detail:
the fact that when your clothes start freezing, your clothes still flap a bit... but unlike usual, the flapping is now rigid and a perfect representation of the time after all warmth has left and you've been in sub zero temperatures for a few minutes with wet clothes, but before it has frozen solid. I mean they actually represented this in between state. There is a state after and before they similarly represent. It's crazy shit
XBOX HIVES
Banned
People ask why it took 3 years for a 2 hour game? Little details like this that make it the most polished and meticulously crafted 2 hours in all of gaming.
badcrumble
Member
One of my very favorite things is the way that you have total control over the degree/amplitude of your jumps and your barks. And each of them is used both as a gameplay mechanic *and* as a way to communicate with other players; and the 'degree' of both moves matters very, very much whether it's used as a signal OR whether it's used to interact with things in-game. And yet it clearly feels like a 'degree' of the same move, rather than a different move entirely. Brilliant, brilliant control scheme - and this is coming from someone who generally prefers control schemes that use the entire controller and cramming the biggest moveset possible into it, e.g. Okami and Bayonetta.
XBOX HIVES
Banned
I think the fact that your companions' PSN IDs are revealed during the credits is widely known.
Fun fact: the symbol that your companion chirps is on that aforementioned list. It will help you identify who's who if you pay attention. There are also 21 different chirping symbols which correspond to the powerups which make your scarf longer!
Eh, I wasn't sure. Better safe than someone yelling at me later, haha.
I didn't remember the symbol they chirped
I just messaged the last guy on the list and we'll see if he/she responds with "YEAH WE TOTALLY FINISHED TOGETHER" or "Who are you?"Auron_Kale
Member
FINALLY got my
! My partner the second time round helped me to find all the other missing stuff for my trophy run as well as finishing the game together.
So awesome.
white cloak
So awesome.
1.
Surfing into that ruined city, and the camera pans to the side and the color shifts and the setting sun lights up the path in a way that is visually so inspiring as to defy description
Climbing the mountain, the rumble (i.e. your heart beat) slowly and steadily declining, until eventually your heart stops... and you collapse, dead.
That part with the snake creature thing spotlight. My companion at the time ended up caught in it and just got swatted across the map, and I audibly said "oh shit" out loud because I literally didn't think there was anything that could even touch you. And the spotlight follows like a motherfucker and I was getting the feeling that if I made noise it would quickly hear and rush the spotlight toward me. It was so fucking awesome
I've always felt that your cynicism has been very genuine and that you're not some forum troll trying to rile people up. My comment was more about how affecting Journey seems to be that even someone that's usually so cynical about games can write such superlatives about it.
For this game we got the best of both Amir0xs; dismissive of all gameplay in Journey as being hollow and unchallenging to loving the whole as a wonderfully unique and top-tier videogame experience. Although whenever I think of Journey I can't help but think of it as the world's most beautiful barking simulator
Really, I could say the whole game.
But... (ending spoilers)
probably near the end. Just how trudging through snow with someone else really brings you close. You huddle behind the stones together against the wind and chirp quietly at each other. You bond against the monsters around (the round I just played, I thought I was under one of those hiding places, but I must have been peeking out, because one spotted me and beat the hell out of me and my partner ran over to me and just chirped and chirped and ran around me until I got up). And then as you're going up the end, as you're both dying, you try to stay as close as you possibly can.
The entire ending is my favourite, though. The ~resurrection~ bit is just awe inspiring. It makes me so so happy at the end, the music, how bright it is and how you can just fly forever. And when you had a partner, how you can basically dance in gold together to the final door.
The entire ending is my favourite, though. The ~resurrection~ bit is just awe inspiring. It makes me so so happy at the end, the music, how bright it is and how you can just fly forever. And when you had a partner, how you can basically dance in gold together to the final door.
I love this game. :')
Wow. I don't know what to say here. I'm glad I played with another person my first time through.
Huddling behind those stones against the wind with another player (fuck you Chrono Trigger) was amazing.
Everything else that has been said about it has already so the only other thing I'll say is I like that the metaphor I got from it works for a large variety of world views. From the religious impulse of looking toward the divine, to the naturalistic/atheistic from the earth (and stars) we are born and into it we will die.
Everything else that has been said about it has already so the only other thing I'll say is I like that the metaphor I got from it works for a large variety of world views. From the religious impulse of looking toward the divine, to the naturalistic/atheistic from the earth (and stars) we are born and into it we will die.
krimsoncharge
Member
whats the download size of the game?
589 MB
krimsoncharge
Member
thanks. downloading it right now
hukasmokincaterpillar
Member
I'm struggling to remember the last time I had that kind of genuine wtf reaction to a game. Mario 64 maybe. This thread has me ridiculously stoked.
most of the time when GAFers demand I try something despite my clear reservations with something and clear critiques and problems with said product, it always ends in miserable failure: See FFXIII-2, see Nier, etc etc. It's so rare that I'm wrong about my own opinions, because I am intimately familiar with what I like and don't like and what is valuable in gaming and what is not. I understand you're teasing me, but I just thought this should be clear
I am glad to have been proven wrong here. This is just remarkable. I don't want to stop talking about this game because I feel if I stop I will lose touch somehow with the last remaining fading remnants of the experience I just had, and I may never get it back...
WHOA, WHOA, WAIT...WHAT? Ami ended up liking this game? I remember you really ripping on the game earlier. If it even changed you're decision, I can't wait to play it. I'd love to play it high as fuck right now but my roommate is sleeping. damn
yeah I genuinely, really ended up enjoying the experience immensely. I just think I have settled on it being the exception to the rule, I don't think such abstract 'gameplayless' titles would work in virtually any other concept I can imagine, but here... it just does. It comes together. It works, and variously you will experience moments that just unequivocally show why this product deserves to exist as distinct from other games entirely. I played the demo and I understand now why it didn't click. In this game, when you're replaying two screens over and over again, and they're the screens with the most obnoxious 'walls'... it's where you least understand its intended direction. It will just be a boring, aimless experience. You cannot segment a piece of the experience and get it to 'work.' This is a package where absolutely every little block slots into place like the world's most delicate jigsaw, a diminishing work of art that can wither and float away on the wind at the whim of any little problem. And somehow, perhaps desperately even, thatgamecompany avoided those problems. They polished and re-polished, and knew precisely with an almost Nintendo-like prescience what would matter or not to the player in this focused experience.
It's the most beautiful game that has ever existed. Art is subjective, but it is safe to say that someone who believes this is anything but a game of extreme visual prowess is someone who must be immediately made suspect in the discussion of art direction. The soundtrack is just knock-you-on-the-floor gorgeous. One of the best original soundtracks all generation. Not a note underutilized for purpose, not a melody that seemed out of place or inappropriate. Even now I hear it, hauntingly foreboding the trip to come. Not one second is wasted and it overstays its welcome for not even the most infinitesimal of time scales. It is worth every cent of $15 and probably every cent of $60, and it is worth GOTY and it is not worth GOTY: it just exists, it is impossible to describe it without sounding pretentious, and it makes even Amir0x's weapon grade-cynicism borderline irrelevant.
And, most startlingly, it made me rethink my entire perspective on what type of games might occasionally be fun, despite myself. I really am glad I was wrong here. This is why I love games, because sometimes, no matter what I think, the stars will align with the planets, and Amir0x will be rendered speechless during a project that is so gracefully done, it finally answers definitively the question of "games as art."
It's time to stop saying 'art games' are some inherently hipster label and get used to the idea. Feels good man.
It's the most beautiful game that has ever existed. Art is subjective, but it is safe to say that someone who believes this is anything but a game of extreme visual prowess is someone who must be immediately made suspect in the discussion of art direction. The soundtrack is just knock-you-on-the-floor gorgeous. One of the best original soundtracks all generation. Not a note underutilized for purpose, not a melody that seemed out of place or inappropriate. Even now I hear it, hauntingly foreboding the trip to come. Not one second is wasted and it overstays its welcome for not even the most infinitesimal of time scales. It is worth every cent of $15 and probably every cent of $60, and it is worth GOTY and it is not worth GOTY: it just exists, it is impossible to describe it without sounding pretentious, and it makes even Amir0x's weapon grade-cynicism borderline irrelevant.
And, most startlingly, it made me rethink my entire perspective on what type of games might occasionally be fun, despite myself. I really am glad I was wrong here. This is why I love games, because sometimes, no matter what I think, the stars will align with the planets, and Amir0x will be rendered speechless during a project that is so gracefully done, it finally answers definitively the question of "games as art."
It's time to stop saying 'art games' are some inherently hipster label and get used to the idea. Feels good man.
Did someone hack Amir0x's account? :O
Won't be near any PS3 till Wednesday, but I shall get this game as soon as I'm back home. Already convinced two of my friends to do the same.
All I hope is that I don't get matched up with people who already played the game multiple times.
Guess notno that game just blows straight up
Won't be near any PS3 till Wednesday, but I shall get this game as soon as I'm back home. Already convinced two of my friends to do the same.
All I hope is that I don't get matched up with people who already played the game multiple times.
DangerousDave
Member
Amazed how Journey has been able to make Amir0x rethink his foundaments about gaming.
For me, when I see again any Journey trailer, i get intense feelings remembering the experience. Feels good.
About the parts that I enjoyed more, is very similar to Amir0x ones:
And also, a couple of times I lost my partner and I started looking for him, or climbing to high places to look where he was. When I saw him, in the distance, calling for me, was a great relief.
For me, when I see again any Journey trailer, i get intense feelings remembering the experience. Feels good.
About the parts that I enjoyed more, is very similar to Amir0x ones:
Surfing level was intense and beautiful.
First time that I get caught by an enemy I was shocked, I didn't even though that you could get hit.
The whole last level. Going with a partner was amazing. We were going together, in the rought parts, feeling that we need to be together to get some warm of our bodies. And the last steps were very intense.
First time that I get caught by an enemy I was shocked, I didn't even though that you could get hit.
The whole last level. Going with a partner was amazing. We were going together, in the rought parts, feeling that we need to be together to get some warm of our bodies. And the last steps were very intense.
And also, a couple of times I lost my partner and I started looking for him, or climbing to high places to look where he was. When I saw him, in the distance, calling for me, was a great relief.
You can tell if someone has played the game before, if their cloak has lots of gold pattern work, they've already finished it. Just walk away from those people.
SecretMoblin
Member
I understand this concern, but can't you remedy this problem by playing solo? I understand the desire to be matched up with people who are also experiencing the game for the very first time. But the only way to guarantee a complete and total freedom from any hints or guidance is to play without companions at all.
Also, not all of us who have gone through multiple times are leading the way or frustrating efforts to explore. I'm quite content to follow my fellow traveler around, especially if I can tell it's their first time through an area.
BlazingDarkness
Member
I thought the bits underground with the
was genuinely intense, didn't expect it at all!
The bit where you drop down into there was amazing too, the shift in colour to that rich blue, it reminded me of the Aladdin animation
flying snake creatures
The bit where you drop down into there was amazing too, the shift in colour to that rich blue, it reminded me of the Aladdin animation
FantasticMrFoxdie
Mumber
Just finished my first playthrough.
Wow. What a masterpiece. I'm at a loss of words.
Wow. What a masterpiece. I'm at a loss of words.
I'll be away from computers for the next few days, and I didn't want to splurge too much directly after playing it, wanted to give it a few days to see how I felt. But I'm fairly convinced Journey is the best game I've ever played. Thanks to the TGC guys and gals, it's really quite remarkable. And enjoy it first time GAFfers to come.
So Ico's finally dethroned?
Can't wait to experience it for myself. Perhaps I should play it solo the first time.
FantasticMrFoxdie
Mumber
Its certainly one of the best experiences i've had this gen, and I can declare that with certainty. The surrealism of it is just breathtaking. Throughout the game, my thought and mind were just racing all over the place.
On another note, I skimmed through the thread and I saw that some people suggested to play the game solo at first. For the most part I would have agreed, but thinking back now, my mind has changed. I had such an awe-inspiring moment in the latter half:
*Location and Ending Spoilers!*
In the snow portion, me and a fellow cloth were somewhat banded to each other in the early part of the way up. As we climbed higher and the wrath of the weather/danger began to hit, we were clinging together. It was enchanting to see/feel the struggle between the red warmth and blue cold. When we finally got to the latter half, we were glued together even when we knew our cloth were becoming lifeless. ;_;
I can't say that I regret playing it in co-op and I wanted to play my first playthrough solo. In a way, i'm starting to think this was the sole intention of including the online portion of the game. Just MASTERFUL. Thanks TCG.
P.S. I need this game on my Vita OLED. Neeeed. Anyone know if remote play is supported?
And it only took eleven years...