Raindrops on Roses (Part ?): Journey

(trailer)

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. I wanted my next bit of media criticism to be for Kentucky Route Zero as part of the Nostalgia series. For the record, I haven’t forgotten about it, but that series was always interested in criticisms of American systems versus the promises those systems make and that was easier to make before many of those systems started more visibly struggling. But I do want to keep doing media criticism, just as a distraction from writing about the real world. I don’t have film and book companions to this one or anything, it’s just a nice game I wanted to talk about.

I’ve talked before about how wishing to experience something for the first time always seemed kind of off to me, but if there is one counterexample to that, it might be the first experience playing Journey. thatgamecompany doesn’t make the most technically demanding experiences from a controller standpoint -- Journey uses two joysticks and two buttons, while their previous games, Flow and Flower, used even less -- which means that with responsive enough controls (which these games have), it’s very easy to become associated with your little avatar. The experiences in Journey turn from the little Journeyman’s into the players.

Another reason this is important is that the story is also intentionally basic. The “journey” in Journey is the archetypal Monomyth straight out of Joseph Campbell, with each segment based on a certain step in that process. It’s abstracted, to be sure, but it also creates a sense of familiarity; the player already instinctively knows the story.

So a familiar story well told with easy immersion would already be worth talking about, but these aren’t the only qualities the game has. The game is also cooperative, two players at a time going through the story. Unlike most cooperative games, though, the interaction between the players is inherently limited (again, there are only two buttons). The point here was to strip away potential negative interactions, so only player bonding remains. The minimalism might seem like it removes interaction entirely, but without negativity, emergent positive interactions remain. The classic example is the potential to draw a heart at the ending, but there are examples to be found all throughout.

What inspired this post, though, was the soundtrack. It was nominated for a Grammy, but I only mention that to preface its pedigree; that’s not why I wanted to mention it. I got some of the songs stuck in my head out of the blue recently and immediately had something akin to a madeleine moment, immediately thrust back into the moment of running through the sand or riding on one of the fabric creatures. One might even call it synesthetic, where hearing “Apotheosis” or “Road of Trials” becomes unconsciously associated with the moods of the levels by themselves.

So would I want to play Journey again for the first time like I said I might? I’m not sure. My instinct is no, actually, because of how intense those associations are. All I would really need to do is listen to the soundtrack again and experience it again. And if I did want to replay it, it’s right there and I’m ready to relive it.

-F