Remembering Your Journey

[lunam-kardas]

I just got done finishing the game Journey, and I absolutely freaking loved every minute of it.

The point of this thread is for you to talk about the one part in your Journey that stuck out to you the most and how that one moment defined your experience.

My moment occurred in what I like to call the shadowy depths. Until that point it had been a lighthearted jaunt through the rose tinted sands with my anonymous but clearly cheerful partner. Throughout our journey together they would playfully use the chirp button to simulate laughing every time one of us messed up or hit a ruined building or anything rather silly, and after awhile I started to do the same. This changed inside the depths.

We slowed our pace a bit in the darkness, but I enjoyed the seaweed-ish scarves and how it felt more as if I was deep sea swimming than flying.

...but then we heard it. This strangely ominous clacking almost grinding noise echoing around us, and as we got closer to it the walls began to shake. We came to this hall of frightening looking statues and in the distance we spotted a chirping scarf. My partner took off towards it while I followed at a much slower walk, letting out soft uneasy chirps, becoming more frantic as my partner got further away. My companion had almost reached the scarf when this huge monstrous roaring THING ripped its way out of the ground and devoured it before flying off into the murky black above.

After that, the two of us pretty much hugged the walls and tried to stay the hell out of any well lit spots. Until that point we had both thought we were safe, that there was nothing to be fearful of. The bright open air we once soared in was now full of gnashing teeth. We were no longer as carefree as we had been and were far more quiet as we huddled together in the tiny cramped spaces of the much safer darkness.

From that moment on, our Journey had changed.

 

[JayElleBee]

I adore Journey. It's easily one of my favourite games and I play it at least a few times a week. I'll paste something I wrote about a previous journey here, instead of writing something new up.

I met my Redcloak companion in the broken bridge level. I was meditating in front of the glyph wall in that level, something I planned to do in front of every glyph wall during this playthrough. I saw the glow long before I saw my new companion, and I waited patiently to see if they would discover me. Soon enough, a third time redcloak came crashing through the sand falls, breaking me out of my meditation. I almost always enjoy redcloak companions so I got up and chirped along after them, following them back outside. I helped them up to the symbol on top of the sand fall and they chirped enthusiastically - something they ended up doing each time I helped them find a symbol. It was sweet.

In the Pink Desert, I helped them find all the symbols. Normally I?d leave out one or two with a redcloak, but as they were only one Journey away from a fully embroidered robe, they showed obvious skill at tandem flying, and they were just an all around sweet companion, I figured they were more than ready to earn their white. I also led them to the desert flower and meditated at each of the glyph walls. The first time they only watched me as I sat for a short while, before standing and chirping. The second time, they sat before I did, obviously willing to partake in my little ritual.

When we reached the Underground I indulged in my usual game of dancing through the sand falls (seriously, the best thing ever) with my companion, then pranced around on the seaweed and the jellies for a bit. Despite the creepiness of that level, the first part is always weirdly delightful. Once we dropped down into the war machines? lair, however, I took a deliberately hesitant approach to try and amp up the atmosphere in that area, chirping quietly at the beginning like I was whispering.

At one point, I attempted to save the fliers, but I got distracted worrying that my companion would follow and get caught by the war machine. Instead, I bumped into its side and got knocked back, well out of reach of those poor defenceless fliers. My companion came running over to me to see if I was alright (thankfully, no torn scarf) and then we went to meditate at the glyph wall. At the end of the level I showed them Larry and Gary, the little scarves, and face planted beside them.

In the Tower, I decided to be brave and took my companion up dry. It?s only the second time I?ve taken the lead doing this, and the first time was more a joint effort to figure the task out. I?d done the run solo quite a few times though, so I knew what todo, and eventually we made it to the spinning whale, and eventually the top, where I let my companion activate the last shrine so we could watch the others rising with the water from right at the top and so that I could show them the Flow creature. After we meditated at the ancestor statue, we sang at each of the shrines depicting our journey together, and then we headed out into the snow level.

This companion stuck closer to me than most others do during the snow level. We didn?t mess around too much here, just made our way through, meditating at both glyph walls and watching the war machine through the window in the cloth graveyard. We chirped all the way up the final snow field before falling.

And finally, in Paradise, we dicked around a whole lot, perching on top of the gates and synchronising our chirps, skating on the waterfalls and swimming in the lakes. Once we made it to the summit I drew a heart and then we ran around in the shape of an infinity symbol for a while. Before we walked into the light, we danced in the air for a while, using proximity to boost ourselves higher. Finally, before we completed our Journey I turned and chirped/bowed to my companion in a final farewell.

It was a good Journey.

Ignore the random question marks. Apparently the escapist doesn't care for my apostrophes.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

The first person I met played through all the game with me and we stuck together, until the final level, where there's pretty much all flying. We lost each other and I waited for a long time, but my partner didn't show. It was a lonely walk into the light after that.

After the credits rolled, I got a PS message from my partner talking about how awesome the game was and they were sorry we lost each other in the end. We traded friend requests and I got a new friend that day.
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During a later play-through after I'd gotten the white cloak, I ran into someone else that also had a white cloak and we did a speed run through the game pretty much always flying and never touching the ground. That was pretty cool.