Just played Journey on PC today! Got it to work in VR too! I used a program called ReShade to split the screen along with virtual desktop of which you can buy from the oculus and vive stores. It really added to the experience. Love this game!
For controls, you can choose between mouse, keyboard and an Xbox controller.
Did you buy Journey from the Epic Store @legaiaflame? I think itās an Epic exclusive on PC (for better or worse depending on which side of the debate youāre on), although Flower is on Steam/GOG too.
@Solo_Wing Yeah, I did buy it from the Epic Storeā¦Didnāt realize until later that the store is supposedly a really bad experience!? I havenāt had any problems so far thoughā¦And I think Journey is an Epic exclusive as of now.
Iām not sure if anyone else realised, but Journey has been released on iOS now. Hereās a screenshot of Journey running on iPhone:
Itās impressive playing it on a small device, although Iād definitely recommend the console or PC versions as Journey is best played with a controller (but maybe this version works with a PS4/360 controller?). I bought the mobile version anyway because it was cheap and Iām a fan.
So Iāve finally gotten around to playing this, and my opinion is mostly positive. Mild spoilers below.
Of course the game is staggeringly beautiful, I really love how some developers can get true beauty from an art style that isnāt flush with detail and true-to-life environments. Because Journey uses a more cartoon style I think that really adds to the ambience and charm of the title, and this was definitely the thing I found most enjoyable about the title.
I did manage to play almost the entire game with a companion, three in fact. The āunderwaterā section I did alone, and this felt like the saddest, most desperate part of my journey, which really made me appreciate finding a partner again. Itās good that you donāt need to play the game with someone to progress, but it magnifies the experience tenfold by adding that extra layer of emotion to what otherwise I think wouldāve been a fairly standard endeavour. For example, one of my companions didnāt particularly deal with the wind very well, which lead to me watching and waiting for them to complete certain sections after failing a few times! Alone I wouldāve just passed straight through those parts and no memory wouldāve been created there.
But there are two places I feel the game lets itself down, and one of them is the inability to play with a friend, someone you know. I know, I know, I get that the whole premise of Journey is to play it with a stranger and not be able to communicate, and it should absolutely be experienced this way the first time at least. However, if you want to stay with a companion you inevitably have to stay together, move through the levels at the same pace and have the same goal in mind. This is fine for playing the game, and if youāre lucky enough to play with another player who just wants to explore you can do that, but I think that being able to unlock the ability to play with a friend after your first or second playthrough would really lend itself to you being able to explore the world with a companion.
The other downside was that I didnāt feel like the discovery of what happened to the civilisation mattered. Itās presented very linearly (and perhaps this ties into the point above, are there more story details to discover if I explored more?) and itās pretty straightforward to see what has happened before and mostly straightforward to understand what happens to you character, but ultimately what did I achieve by getting to the mountain? It was simply just a journey, and that is probably the point but in which case why include a backstory at all? I think ideally they shouldāve had the story be something you discover along the way by exploring the environment, that way you wouldāve felt more like you were achieving something as you play. Or, have the journey to the top of the mountain have a purpose at the end.
Overall I feel that Journey is definitely a very special, unique game, and I think it deserves all the plaudits and accolades it has received. This kind of freshness is what I love about smaller developers, and bigger ones should take note of it (although they wouldāve done so by now if they were going to!).
Iām pretty sure the entire game was a metaphor for life and death. The beginning of the game showed you being born, then you make the journey of life, going through hardships, meeting friends along the way, then ultimately you reach the mountain, which signified your death, or the end of your journey. Or at least, the part in the snow signified your death and the revival at the mountain was you being re-incarnated. And then like you saw in the credits, the cycle of life starts all over again.
Journey is free on PS4 at the moment:
Also, itās coming to Steam:
Great to see the game becoming more widely available.
The Steam version would be a great opportunity to really ramp up the visualsā¦
Yeah, they already enhanced a few things when it was released on the Epic Store (the Steam version will likely be identical). According to Digital Foundry thereās some subjectivity as to whether the sand actually looks better on PC. The game looks great on all the platforms in my opinion.
I think having the specular aliasing on low with the āsparkling sandā looks aesthetically better, than having finer grains with no sparkle.
Yeah after watching the video it seems like most console to PC ports; lazily done and with debatable levels of enhancement. I agree it looks gorgeous on the video but it seems the performance isnāt so stable. This is one of the reason I prefer console gaming these days, because performance levels are more stable (even if the quality is less, itās not normally overly noticeable to me).
