Bloodspear's Game Review

Flower
Platform: PS3 (through PSN)
Developer: Thatgamecompany
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Designers: Jenova Chen & Nicholas Clark
Notable mentions: Music by Vincent Diamante

The philosophy behind the game is to have the player relax

Flower is a one of a kind game, no doubt about it. The gameplay is nothing short of unique and revolutionary, think flying simulator meets Rez or any other kind of rhythm game. Although the focus is not on racing or creating music, but in giving the player a sense of completion by soaring through the seemingly endless fields of grass and flowers touching other flowers and adding them to your ever growing trail of flower pedals. You as the player control the wind and one flower pedal at the start and through the levels you will encounter new types of flowers and challenges in order to unlock new parts of the fields. There isn't much of a real challenge going on here, but that was never the intention of the game. Jenova Chen have described that when he thought about the emotional spectrum of video games, relaxation was very hard to find. Fun was often connected to challenges and action and he wanted to fill the void and find a new was to have fun while relaxing with games. Deeper gameplay elements were even cut out during the development since they worked counter-intuitively with the games goal of creating a relaxing experience.

The colorful world can be further enjoyed while traveling in slow-motion

This game is indeed very touching, the music, the ambient world, completely free of sentient beings, signs of animal life or interaction makes for a sense of harmony while playing. It is hard to explain this game to anyone, I think even the game experience lends itself to be interpreted different by different players and thus making the experience quite unique to each player. Flower touched me and I could see what Thatgamecompany was going for. The music, well lets say I bought the soundtrack after having played the demo.






To sum up this short review, please watch the two trailers above, the music in the first one is not from the game, but you will get a sense of what the gameplay is like. The second video has music from the game and presents more of the general feeling of the game. This game is about as revolutionary and well design as they come; I could go on and on about this game, but the less said the better, it is not one of those games you play, you experience it on a fundamental level. I myself have had my hopes and dreams for our industry renewed by this game.

Bloodspear's Rating: 10