My Review of "Journey"

Journey has become a free downloadable game to all PS4 owners during the pandemic quarantine of 2020 as part of its Play at Home program. They had also included the Nathan Drake Uncharted Collection but every PlayStation 4 owner probably owns that game already.

I've heard of Journey before and it's shown up on a lot of people's top 10 lists. It never seemed to be an interesting option for me even though it has been on sale for as low as $3 in the PlayStation Store. Since it's free now, I thought I'd give it a try. It's not like I don't have the time to give it a try and it would probably be easy trophies for my PlayStation collection. Also, a lot of people have told me that it's a great game so why not check it out.

One of the best features about this game is that it's a fairly short game. I like it when games are short because I can get pretty bored of games when they take too long to finish. Even better, it's not a terribly difficult game. I'm here to have a nice and relaxing experience and this game delivers that in spades. Don't expect any fights or puzzling puzzles to solve.

The thing is. this game doesn't feel exactly like a video game. It almost feels like an interactive air piece. All you do is go forward and fly every so often. Occasionally they tell you parts of the story with in-game cut-scenes. I didn't totally understand the story. All I got out of it was that there was this ancient civilization that was destroyed and then you're going through the ruins to see what had happened to the civilization.

I have to admit, this game is very beautiful. The world is huge and desolate at the same time. it's a desert world and you're navigating from one temple to another. i think the game is very similar to Abzu or the other way around. Abzu is the same as this game except it's all played underwater. All you do in Journey is explore the world. Although you explore the world, it is limited. They will have walls where you can't explore but overall you'll feel as if this is an open world.

Surprisingly they do have a lot to see. I thought it would get really old fast because the whole thing is based in a desert. They have interesting concepts with the ribbons that you power up by talking to them. That's another thing, there's no actual text or spoken language. You just talk in beeps and the whole story is explained through images and music. Art lovers really need to check this movie out and have discussions as to whether video games can be considered art.

Another odd thing is that there is another Journey character. It's very puzzling because you can tell that this other character has a mind of it's own but I wasn't sure if it's controlled by the computer or someone playing online with you. I've seemed to be able to beep talk with this other character and they beep back. I don't know if there's another person behind those beeps or not. It's really odd.

Overall, this was a very short game but it was somewhat enjoyable. I didn't think it was as great as everyone says it was but it is a relaxing play through. I have to give this game a 6.5 out of 10. It's nothing that you can play over and over again unless you want to collect trophies and achievements.