I enjoyed
Flower on PSN. In fact, I thought it was wonderful. The visuals were pretty, the score was gorgeous, the control was smooth and fluid. I was ready for something different when I downloaded the game; something I'd never played before, outside of Thatgamecompany's previous offering.
I almost got it. Ask me which of
yesterday's reviewers I'm more apt to side with, and I'll point you to Anthony.
Flower should have been a leap in the right direction, and in my own opinion, it was; but there was a bit of a clumsy stumble in its landing that prevented it from looking like a badass in front of the ladies after it took said leap.
It came so close to instilling in me a belief that there really could be games out there that defied convention, ones that rolled down the window and thrust a middle finger at expectation and tradition. So close. Hit the jump to see what went wrong.
Flower started as I expected it would. I rode the wind, towing behind me a vibrant train of botany as was seen in the trailers that caught my interest in the first place. It was beautiful, it was graceful in its motion, and best of all, it was relaxing. I brought life to arid lands, painted the fields with my breeze, and for the first several stages, hadn't a care in the world. Everything was bright, colorful, and my TV screen danced wildly with life.
The next level was a bit different, but that was okay. The landscape was punctuated by jagged rock formations, under a dark sky that threatened less cheerful weather, and most notably, it was very brown. I'm cool with that. The game is nothing if not colorful, and hey, brown is a color, too. Besides which, the visual tone reminded me of Shadow of the Colossus, and that's always a welcome vibe. To be perfectly honest, I was rather pleased to see a change after all the shiny botanical rainbows I'd been unleashing on this world. Not bad, Flower. This may yet be better than I expected.
Venturing into the next area, it's twilight. Hey, cool. Let's illuminate some stuff. Sounds good. I drifted like a swarm of fireflies through the darkness, triggering lights and bringing a soft, blue glow to the field around me. It started out being as fun as the previous worlds, but after having the controls ripped out of my hands for a short cutscene each and every time I lit one of several haystacks, things began to feel less like Zen and more like busywork. That was okay, though. It seemed the carefree experience I'd hoped for was going to be slightly tainted by a bit of old cliche, but I was willing to overlook that to a degree. I should have expected it, I suppose. Somebody surely would have bitched if there weren't at least a few blatant "go here, do this" objectives to distinguish game from tech demo. We're still okay here. We've still got that relaxing flow going. Let's finish the level.
Then it happens. Lighting the final patch of grass sends a jolt through to a nearby power line, resulting in a sharp crackling sound and a sudden downward shift in the music. The camera pans up, revealing a pitch black valley, dotted with tiny fires and ominous masses of steel, making it clear to the player that this wasteland will be your next destination.
Oh, what the fuck.
Alright, let's not get excited. Zen gaming, right? That's the sound of the horn they've been blowing, isn't it? They wouldn't ruin the experience by making me dodge a bunch of stupid obstacles and weave in and out of stuff. That would just make this another videogame. I like a litle darkness, why not. Lightning is always fun to watch, sure. Let's give it a spin. The sky here is pitch black, and the grass has taken on a lifeless silvery color. Alright, I don't mind that, and look -- there's a bluish-purple flower over there to grab, off we go.
Thunder booms overhead, and the clouds periodically blossom hints of lightning. Being a fan of storms, my worries begin to fade. Zen indeed, and they've managed to add a little something for those of us who find different meaning in the term. This is nice after all. I think I'll float over and grab that next flower, tucked just within that twisted pile of metal over there.
A violent crack of electricity. The controller instantaneously explodes with vibration, and the screen shakes and blurs into several directions, with a red wash over everything displayed on it. Black smoke begins to billow from somewhere within my petal collection, which is now significantly smaller than it was just a moment ago. Suddenly, the game that's supposed to be soothing is anything but.
Really? Seriously? After spending several levels with a game that's done everything in its power to lull me into a state of carefree relaxation, I'm now meant to wiggle between these hulking masses of twisted steel and cable to chase my flowers, and I can't touch the sides? Operation: now available on PSN, $9.99. The naked dude's nose doesn't light up, but it's otherwise just as you remember it.
No need to worry about unfamiliar experiences anymore, you know exactly what to do now. Shift. Experience mode off, game mode activated. Tediously weave around inside of these terminal towers in order to activate them, which you must do in order to send electricity along a conduit to the gate that blocks the next area. Shift. There are three of them. You may not pass until all three have been triggered and the gate is fully powered. Point A to point B. Collect. Trigger. Activate switch. Here is your objective. Complete the procedure. Follow the conduit to the location of the next terminal. Collect. Trigger. Activate swi ... why don't you just put a text tutorial and a fucking HUD on the screen? Maybe a life bar? A progress meter? Are there some crates lying around that I could break? Anything more you could maybe do to remind me that I'm playing a videogame?
For something that has tried so hard (and until now, succeeded), in shedding convention and offering a different kind of experience, it's very disappointing to have the shit shocked out of you without warning, before being thrust into a game of dodge-the-danger, connect-the-dots. You almost had me, Flower; you were so close. Why? Why would you tear down everything you've built in the past hour on the next-to-last level? This isn't relaxing; it's jarring and unpleasant. It's tedious. It's repetitive. It's ... not fun. That sucks, because I was enjoying myself.
Don't get me wrong here; I don't mind dodging shit and flipping switches -- I play those games all the time. But that's the problem. Somebody promised me that wasn't what I was downloading. Somebody promised a relaxing, "Zen gaming" experience. They almost delivered. If you're thinking of filling my comments with a shitstorm, I would like to refer you to the first two sentences of this article. I liked Flower, I really did. But it's kind of like getting an ice cream cone with a hummus-flavored cone. Ooh, yummy chocolate, oh man, this is so good, and the sprinkles are so tasty, and ... what the ... is that hummus?
I like hummus, Sony. Just not in my ice cream.
Contest:
5:34 AM on 02.15.2009
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Relaxing
Calming
Soothing
Relaxing
Calming
Annoying and fucking cliche
Relaxing
I don't get it. I really did like the game though, despite that one level which was just like any other videogame.
Flower seems philosophical like that.
It is also a game that needs to be played by everyone just so they can experience it. I know it's easy to look at what might not work but what it does right far exceeds what it does wrong in my opinion.
Also this might be picky here but you are giving out MAJOR spoiler here to people who haven't played the game. A spoiler tag would be welcomed.
In the end it all comes down to tastes. I really loved everything about the flower, but I can see, that not everybody will.
i really can't wait to see what thatgamecompany can cook up with next!
I watched the dev diary for the game and I would equate that emotion with the culture shock that Jenova Chen (Creative Director and brainchild) experienced when moving from Shanghai to San Francisco(?). In fact, they specifically mention that his move inspired the concept for the game (gray cities vs. lively, colorful cities). The emotion of the final stage wouldn't have been as powerful if we didn't have to go through the previous stage as it was designed.
I do agree that it may have been closer to a Zen gaming experience had they kept the momentum gained through Levels 1-4. The environments kept getting better and better. Chen decided to exercise his creative freedom and change it up towards the end to make the last stage emotionally powerful. Taking this into consideration, I think they pulled it off just fine.
However, as I said in the troll-fest of yesterday, this one is a coin-flip. It seems that people either like it or don't -- and it almost always is decided by how they feel about the next-to-last stage.
More! More! More! More!
hugs tree
Can you at least put up a spoiler sign in the title please?
You should be able to control Tingle with the wind, and fly around sprinkling gay innuendo on things.
What makes Flower a "Zen gaming" experience?
It's not that we set out to make a "Zen" gaming experience with Flower. The concept of being in this imaginary flower field, and experiencing nature in this unique way led to the choices we made about interaction, visuals, and audio. I think it would be hard to start with the inspiration of playing in a gigantic flower field and end up with a game that isn't somewhat peaceful. But there's more to Flower than meets the eye. Flower is about balance between the peaceful and the violent, the serene and the chaotic. But that's something we want players to experience for themselves.
God damnit, now all I can think about is trying hummus on ice cream... :(
Nicely written piece. I don't have (or plan to have) a PS3, so I won't be able to check this out unless they do a PC port. You do gotta wonder if they did that sort of level though because they needed some filler to pad out the game's length/content, which is what I think brings many games down a notch or two.
It's whatever Sony wants it to be.
Wait, let me pull up my XMB, to see what it says for "Flower"
Oh, look...
Unless it's just Sony being misleading.
Not the worst thing in the world that it didn't pull off a full on Zen experience. But its good to point out that it goes for a conflict narrative rather than a whole hog different experience.
Also, excellent article Topher.
I don't think this game is the next coming of Christ but a portion of one level being sub-par hardly prevents the game from being good or great.
You want Zen? Play any of the other levels for hours on end accomplishing nothing. A portion of a level does not ruin the whole.
I want to buy a boat.
of a zen experience, I think a portion certainly can ruin the whole. If a "zen archer" starts talking about cheeseburgers after he shoots his arrow, that ceases to be zen.
But seriously, I was drawn in by your brilliant/hilarious header image and had a bit of the game spoiled for me.
Not the biggest deal but a warning would have been good.
And it was a fun couple hours, worth 10 dollars I guess. Didn't strike me as a great game or a step in a new direction or something like that.
I don't believe flower ever promised to be a zen experience. People labeled that themselves, and when it didn't turn out to be exactly how they imagined it would be, they get disappointed.
I agree with topher, i didn't like that level at all for the same reasons he gave in his post, but only if you look at that level as a single thing and not a part of a whole.
After finishing this game i can say that i completely disagree with topher, because, even though i hated that level and i wanted the gtfo of there as fast as i could, i realized the reason why that level is what it is after playing the next one, because if you look at both of them, then you get what the creators are trying to say with this game, how nature can really change a place so dark, so... creepy, so violent into a beautiful, full of color world.
And not just that, because for me, thanks to that dark level, the last one felt sooooooo much rewarding as i went through it painting the buildings, painting the grass, destroying those like electrical towers, in other words, doing everything to make the world something completely different to that obscure, sad and dangerous level.
And thats the weird thing for me, i didn't like the break of the pace of that fifth level at all, but as a consecuence, it made the game as a whole a lot more satisfactory.
I give the game 1 zillion stars, coins, petals and all that crap for being so awesome.
I believe that, had some of the more "game-y" elements not been included, we'd see just as much criticism of Flower as an aimless tech demo, such as Tori-Emaki.
What does this mean for us? It's probably obvious to everyone who cares, but games are expanding far beyond our ability to define them as such, with developers and players alike trying of adapting to that pace.
The fact that Flower, flOw, and Tori-Emaki even exist as something other than free-to-download screensavers is a sign of something positive, and I for one welcome that.
Now, how's about we get on our Japan PSN accounts and download that game about constructing a zen garden I've heard of?
Let's replace "zen" with "relaxing." Are they still wrong?
I don't like the whole "if you didn't like X, play Y over and over again." I wouldn't have bought the entire package to play only one specific section over and over again. I bought it to experience everything it has to offer. I don't have to like everything, but let's look at what happens during the game. You steer around flower petals with wind, easy enough. Then near the end, you have to actually dodge dangerous things and it becomes less of a lackadaisical experience and more of an actual game. Suddenly your chances of failure skyrocket because of what's introduced.
I think that's what the big problem is with the game. When you looked at the screens, did you except anything else except lazily blowing around flower petals and collecting things? I didn't. Sure, that part is relaxing, but didn't most people buy the game for this specific reason? It's like having an FPS level in Super Mario. Or kart racing in God of War. Or a match-3 puzzle in Halo. Whatever. An exaggerated example, but we play games for specific reasons. I'd play Flower to help me relax and ease my tension, but...
...those power lines and lightning make me tense and stressed.
does zen mean just one emotion or feeling multiple emotions and putting them into a perspective? zen is about spiritual growth and you can't grow without learning a meaning of something. flower is a zen experience in full. i think some of you think zen is a one way feeling without enlightenment when its actually gaining that enlightenment from learning and doing many things.
zen is NOT a feeling but an accomplishment.
If you look at zen that way, I can definitely see Flower as a game about zen.
As a zen experience, I'd think it falls short from providing the player with the experience of that accomplishment on a personal, interactive level.
I was thinking, sweet, the level trophies are easy to get, this one shouldn't be too hard, then the evil death section starts up and I get hit like 15 times. Once, I get it, I can stick with the zen and not worry about my OCD. Now, the game is looming frustration.
Its as if gamers have gone to a restaurant and ordered the prime rib. At first they said that the food was good but it seemed just a little under done, and sent it back. When their meal came the second time, they still thought it was good, just slightly over done this time, and have now politely asked the chef to try again. We should all be happy that thatgamecompany isn't actually our chef, because we would be getting some special sauce mixed in with our horse radish.
Maybe You'd like someone to put a dead rat in your mashed potatoes to help you appreciate your mashed potatoes?
2. On "Keep replaying the first few levels"
HAHAHAHA. Get out.
3. On "They never said it was relaxing"
Lolwut? Sony did. It's all they've ever said about it. Regardless of what the devs intended, this is what Sony has been touting since day one.
4. On "If you didn't like it, then..."
Read the fucking article.
5. On "ZOMG SPOILARZ"
If you haven't finished the game yet and are concerned about having it spoiled for you, why the hell would you go onto the INTERNET and click the jump on an article that clearly states in the beginning that its writer is about to discuss the game on the whole? "Oh, I need to avoid caffeine, I think I'll go to Starbucks so I can relax." Really?
and yeah spoilers suck
This game has obviously become a very touchy subject on dtoid as of late, and it's stiring up a lot of emotions. Some people like it a lot, and some don't lie it much at all. From what I can tell the point of the game is to get an emotional response out of it's audience, and from what I can tell it's doing exactly that.
As for the spoilers remark, you should know very well that's you should never assume that people who are about to read your article know that you are going to reveal spoilers. Writers should NEVER make assumptions about their areaders, you should know that. I don't think it was rude of those of us who asked, for you to put up a spoiler warning someplace in the front of your article.