This post is a response to Topher's review of Flower. It's also about Anthony and Brad's review as well, but to a lesser extent. This could have just gone into the comments, but it ballooned in size pretty fast. Instead of clogging the comments with a few hundred words (and probably having them lost in some spammy troll war), I thought I'd try and break down my arguments here.

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Sorry Topher, but I feel that your entire review is based on a false premise. The problem comes from your preconceived notions, not the game itself.

The kinds of MASSIVE SPOILERS you're talking about are there to do exactly the things you are having problems with. The game is about a city that has lost its life. Death has been moving outward from its twisted shell, spreading across the land. The wind/flower is tasked with setting things right, bringing life back to the world. Things are all fine and happy in the fine and happy natural world, then suddenly the wind/flower sees that things have gone horribly wrong. Yet it doesn't relish the fact that man-made steel and electricity are finally destroying themselves. Instead, it struggles to make that city a brighter place, working together with the humans, celebrating the great things they can accomplish.



Working together with nature is the real story behind Flower. It could easily have gone far off into another direction, where the wind/flower forever eradicates the city, leaving a huge field full of nothing but grass and flowers. It could have done a flappy-armed hippie dance on top of humanities grave. It doesn't, and that's what takes Flower to a much more profound level than many other simple “do one thing and do it well” games. It has a greater depth and sophistication than you are giving it credit for.

The "shifts" you talk about are the perfect way to convey this sense of shock. Remember, this is a game without dialog and without any real characters. The story is told through the changes happening outside the room while the wind/flower is working hard to make things right, telling the story from both sides at the same time. We see the broken city from the inside, as the wind/flower works from the outside. The shock of having a blackened world suddenly appear out of the darkness is when the real game begins. I think that all of the reviews have pointed that out, but for all the wrong reasons. Think about it: What if the game just continued on for another three or four levels of the exact same leisurely pace? Would you have been happy with that, or would you have been complaining about how it never really did anything interesting beyond the basic gameplay? I never hear people complaining that there was too much shooting in Doom or too much jumping in Mega Man, but I'll bet that if Flower was nothing but the first stage over and over for two hours that people would be giving it a universal thumbs down. There needs to be some sort of story, some sort of reason to keep playing.



I think you approached the game from a completely incorrect angle. You were looking for some sort of pretty, simple and "zen" (whatever that means) experience. Something that was easy and wasn't going to make you "play a game." Instead of eating hungrily from the ripe fruit it provided, you spit it out because it had too much taste.

To be fair, I think that Brad giving it a 10 is also off the mark. I don't really like talking about numbers and scores, but I think it's safe to say that Flower is not a game for everyone. If you're the type of “hardcore” gamer that only uses games to measure your virtual penis, then Flower is not for you. If you play games because you actually love to play games and experience the quiet joy they can provide, then Flower is a must have.