Jose Zagal's Home Page - Games & Game Studies

Home	Talks and Slides	My GameLog	Research and Projects	Publications	Resume	Teaching
Back // GameBreadth Project // Game Ontology Project // GameLog

Abzû (PS4) Status: Finished playing I started playing this game on Wednesday 31 May, 2017 // I stopped playing this game on: Tuesday 6 June, 2017
Current opinion of this game
No comment, yet.
June 6, 2017 01:19:45 PM
I played this over two evenings. I had forgotten about this game, I don't think it reviewed very well (haven't checked) and it came out close to another underwater game that I think also reviewed poorly? (Song of the Deep?) For some reason it never really stood out...though upon thinking about it a bit more I would remember that Wintory did the music and that maybe someone else from That Game Company (or formerly at) worked on it? Either way, the the game really is beautiful, and peaceful...and pretty, and colorful. But. It never really worked for me the way Journey did. I was mostly just swimming around looking for stuff and then leaving for the next area. I've been trying to think WHY does it not work the way Journey did - and I don't mean to imply that it should be the same, or similar, or a sequel, or anything like that. Rather, that the experience did not feel interesting and fulfilling in the way that Journey did. They definitely got the visuals down. And the visuals are really nice and interesting... Then, maybe it's about the movement? My greatest frustrations with the game came from the swimming - mostly the camera and direction. I often had a hard time trying to get to a spot I wanted to get to without missing/overshooting, etc. It felt imprecise and awkward in that I was fighting the controls rather than, say, "the water" or "the current" (if there was one...) It just didn't feel right? I'm sure there's a story - but I just couldn't be bothered to carefully examine all the mosaics to try to understand it. But, here's the thing - I didn't do that for journey either. However, Journey really felt like a, sorry, journey. There was an emotional arc that was "readable" despite my lack of attention to the wall decorations. Just the idea that you're going towards this mountain (at least, you can imagine that) gives the game some sense of anticipation that you can "grok". I never felt that about this game, other than one point where you're going deeper...but you're not always doing that so it felt more like an interlude than a trip. Mostly I just felt I was going from one place to the next. So, no real sense of a journey in a game that's maybe about a journey? Anyways, the game didn't really hang together for me in that sense... so a second reason why I'm not too enthused about it. Stuff I did enjoy? (other than the visuals) There's lots of sea creatures - and I enjoyed being able to grab one and swim along with them. It felt nice and carefree in a playful way. And grabbing onto the giant whales was super cool.

Abzû (PS4)