Journey Review : Why We Love to Play PS4’s Free Game

Journey Review – The coronavirus pandemic forces us to do our activities at home to reduce the spread. Many parties are trying to support the #StayAtHome campaign in several ways. One of them is Sony. Yes, Sony is offering this adventure game as one of the Play At Home campaign’s free games for PS4, and many are looking for Journey.

But being free, people wonder if the game developed by Thatgamecompany is really free and good enough to play. The good news is, Journey is totally a free, ps4 game with best story and unique video game that everyone should try, particularly if all we have to do is hit the ‘Download” button. So, how good is the free game? We will find out here.

Journey Review The Game Story

Journey is an indie adventure game genre. The player’s job is to wade the desert and climb any mountains which is a long way up there. This game is designed as a multiplayer game so of course, the player can share the adventure with friends, family, or other players.

The game begins with a figure in a brown cape, awakening from his seat in the middle of the desert. Just call him Robbed Stranger, or just Stranger. It was unclear the origin of this stranger, and he also couldn’t speak at all. As a stranger, all the player can do is walk, jump, and send some kind of signal to interact with several objects in the game.

And in the distance stretches towering mountains ascending to the sky. Bright lights shone in the gaps. Because it is an adventure game, the player’s job here is to reach the ultimate goal in a fairly linear world. Even though it is linear, the path that the player travels on has many secrets to collect.

Visual Journey Review

The greatness of Journey does not only come because of the unique gameplay it has. This game is also very special because it is supported by fantastic audio and outstanding visuals. The game carries a graphic style that looks like a transition between 3D and cel-shading.

It doesn’t have many objects to be described and the environment is pretty simple. You will not see 3D models in bad detail because the existing objects do not have complex details. Besides the graphics technically are looking good, the game’s visual direction is excellent as well. Everything that is displayed in this game looks beautiful.

Every review article of this game’s pictures are sufficient to represent how beautiful this game is. Last, about the music. The game’s music was composed by a well-known composer Austin Wintory. This game has one of the best in-game music collections we’ve ever heard.

Journey Review – The Features

The players might meet other Strangers on their way. The player will adventure together, helping each other for the same goal. To make it easier for the player to understand this game, here are some of the key features in it.

1. No words, No Instructions

Journey may be the antithesis of the world of a console game. When the market races to offer fancy graphics, complexity games, and fierce competition to be the best, this indie game from Thatgamecompany and Tricky Pixels bases on simplicity. With no fractal settings and options on the landing display, the story flows without a word, both text, and voice.

There is no explanation also about who the protagonist is and what the mission is. The only instruction the player gets throughout the game is the tilt feature, aka tilting the joystick to change the camera angle that highlights the anonymous brown caped figure.

2. Jumping is The Key

Jumping is the key in this game. As a Stranger, all the player can do is walk, jump, and send some signals to interact with several objects in the game. But remember, the player’s ability to jump is very limited. The ejection power and horizontal flying ability of the player are determined by the energy written on the scarfs.

Armed with these abilities, Stranger can pass through a kind of ruins of an ancient civilization in the desert, underground, and expanses of snow. Apart from movement via analog stick, we can only use two buttons. The X button is to jump, and the O button is to radiate energy and interact with tools.

3. Limited Communication

Yes, Journey is a multiplayer game. All the Strangers that the player meet, are other players who are playing at the same time as you. They will likely try to communicate with you using only very limited body language. Due to the limitations of the communication method, interactions between fellow Strangers are unique and feel very natural.

Like interaction between babies or animals. The limited communication methods between you and other players make the multiplayer game experience something extraordinary. All that remains is limited body movement of relative significance. Rather than compete or kill as in other games, the game encourages cooperation.

The player can indeed turn away and choose to walk alone. But, being with a friend brings a lot of benefits. The energy will fill up constantly when the player is walking close to other strangers. Another benefit is being notified by other players when he finds his way.

4. Fill energy

The stranger has limited energy to jump. All the player needs to pay attention to is the energy written in the scarf. The scarf will extend after touching the symbols scattered on the hidden corner. The scarf empties after each jump and fills up again every time it passes through the energy source and clumps or walks close to other strangers.

This game doesn’t demand much from players to have that experience, either. The game takes only about two hours long. it works in the game’s favor when the game is free now. All PS4 owners need to play a game like no other is an internet connection and two hours, and Journey is well worth that relatively small investment.

5. Real-time Playing

Once the player plays the game, it will take in real-time. It means, there is no chance to pause – a feature that has been available since Atari started the video game era in the 1970s. When the player presses the option, because the player needs to pee, for example, the figure on the game just sits down.

The player can take a break but the game continues. If another player can’t wait, then he leaves. When apart like that, and that would have been our last time with him, there is a strange feeling of loss.

Unique Game

 Journey offering its players some surprises. The player cannot communicate by chat or voice like the other online games. We could say that the game comes without words. All communication tools used in this game are by visuals and music. Music within the game can switch the situation and condition in the game. All storylines that are available to the players appear in cut-scene flashes. This gives players the freedom to interpret what is going on.

However, the player will still find the same red line regardless of the many theories that may come from it. Without an explicit narrative, neither in words, the story in this game is still attractive via existing settings and cut-scenes. Another surprising thing is its emotional impact. This is the main attraction of the game. It’s definitely not a deep lore or complex mechanic’s game.

But what makes this game so special is how it rouses emotions in a special way. Players will feel connected to the world by experiencing the simple journey but it makes a disproportionately complex consequence. Making some player’s tears down without really knowing why. This game is very worth experiencing because there is simply no other game or movie, or otherwise like it.

Received Awards

The game attracts a lot of attention. The game even won many awards which all of it praised its unusual gameplay approach, unique multiplayer sensation, and its stunning visualization, and high-quality design. Years later, Playstation 4 offered a version with better visuals and framerates.

Although it’s not a new game, it is still a favorite of many gamers around the world. It is no surprise that the journey has also won several awards. The game won many prestigious awards, from Spike TV Video Game Award for The Best PS3 Video Game to several categories in the BAFTA Video Game Awards.

 Its beautiful musical score was also nominated for Grammy Awards which happens to be the first video game original soundtrack ever nominated for the Grammy Music Award. With all of Journey’s stunning visuals and its uniqueness, this game is very worthy to accompany us at home.

System Requirements

Journey is a short game, and we can not play it just once. Don’t worry you won’t be able to play the game smoothly because of a bad internet connection. Even with a very mediocre connection, we can still play with other players out there. We can download this game on PS4 for free now and play it forever.

At the beginning of its release, March 2012, this game can only be played on PS3. But since July 2015, the game can be played on the PS4 console. Not only played on PlayStation, from 2019 we can play this game on Microsoft Windows and iOS. But we still have to pay to play it on these platforms.

GAME DETAILS: