“You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?”

Happy Mask Salesman

Yesterday I was thinking of what sort of question I could be asked if Ubisoft ever wanted to hire me for their Tester position (come on Ubisoft, don't leave me hanging) and as usual my mind started to wander to questions they probably wouldn't ask but I still wanted to have answers for. One of the question I came up with was “what is your favorite quote?” which is a pretty easy one since its the Doctors little speech from the episode 'Blink' about how time works. That question lead me to another one which was “what is your favorite quote from a video game?”. I admit I was stumped for a few seconds but then this quote jumped into my head like it was the obvious answer. “You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?” said by the Happy Mask Salesman in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. After that I started to wonder why this line was my answer and I couldn't do that without deconstructing Majora's Mask.

Deku Link

Now the line is the first thing the Happy Mask Salesman says to you after you've been turned into deku. It entirely summarizes your situation as a whole. You didn't ask for this, and for once in a Zelda game you are not the destined hero of prophecy (you were before but this is a different place so I'm ignoring that. You did the whole destiny thing in the last game). You were just on a journey to find a missing friend and fell into this mess. But of course you're Link so you're going to solve this problem cause thats what Links do! Back to the Happy Mask Salesman he's kinda a psycho but as he describes his situation he's caught in a bad place as well, having his mask stolen from him by the Skull Kid (I should mention is helps understand what I'm talking about if you've already played the game).

Now withing the first few minutes of the game you most of the characters you've met have met with a terrible fate of some sort. Link turned into a deku, Talt being separated from their sibling, and the Happy Mask Salesman being robbed of his extremely rare and dangerous mask. After thinking about it , and it seems very obvious now, most characters that you interactive with have met with some sort of terrible fate or another. We've got the couple who can't get married because the groom has turned into a child, the ranch that is being attacked by aliens, the deku kings daughter being trapped inside the temple, the bomb store lady gets robbed, all the great faeries have been split apart, the goron child's dad died, and the list goes on and on. Just about every character that you help in the game has “terrible fate” not of their own choosing. 

The couple who can't get married

Skull Kid with the Majora's Mask

Now of course these could mostly be tied back to the Skull Kid using the powers of the Majora's mask but I chose to believe he's a victim as well. Where Ganondorf from Ocarina of Time caused most of the problems in the game world, he was an evil character who knew exactly what he was doing. The Skull Kid is just a kid, whose friends left him all alone and fell prey to the powers and influences of the Majora's mask. You can consider that he also met with a terrible fate being left alone, then controlled.

Everywhere you look in this game there are characters that have been put into terrible situations that require your help. Even the antagonist.”You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?” completely describes the one of the major themes in the game, as well as the games tone. Its not anyones fault of what happened but it happened anyway. This is something we can completely understand in our lives where there are many things completely out of our control, and I'm sure we've all felt that we've befallen a terrible fate before. Just like in the game we have to pick ourselves off and do the best we can, and maybe take a page from Link and help someone else too. 

Journey Review

I can't help but think that while creating Journey the designers had the quote “Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.” by George Anderson in their head as it was in my head too. Journey is all about what you see, what you feel, and who you meet on the way. 

Journey is beautiful. It's hard to find another word for it since everything just clicks. Visually it just jumps off the screen creating a whole world making the players eager to explore. Even as the tone changes between levels it still comes together as a whole world, from the large expanses of the dessert, to the underground ruins, and finally the snowy mountain top. The accompanying music sets the mood and changes ever so slightly when the player goes to new places or does something different adding an air of mysticism and wonder that underlines the whole experience. Nothing pushes the hardware to its limits but it doesn't need to, and it doesn't want to. 

This is a game where I think it would have been just as good with or without the story. Not that I'm saying that the story is unnecessary or bad, but that right at the beginning of the game players are set with a single goal and while the story gives players context I think the visual direction gives players more than enough urgency to play. Even though I think that I did like the story and how it was told. It does add an aura fantasy to the world but also makes the world lose some of its mysterious qualities explaining the history of the mysterious ruins and graves that litter the landscape.

The heart of Journey is it's gameplay which is surprisingly simple. Move, look, jump and whistle are the only things players must learn to do and it's as simple as possible. Players are tasked to reach the summit of a large mountain in the distance right at the beginning of the adventure and everything they do is to reach complete it. The jumping mechanic is limited to a bar of sorts located on the players scarf and as they continue in the game they can find upgrades to increase the length of the scarf thus giving them larger jumps. These upgrades are completely unnecessary so its alright to miss them and it's all up to the player to look around and find them. Whistling is used to activate items in the environment and can be charged up to activate more items around the player.

Where Journey really shines is in it's multiplayer. As players play the game they will run across of there players. There is no game lobby or name tags over other players head. It is completely random and a fantastic experience. Players can spend time or ignore each other. The only way to communicate is with the whistling mechanic which tests players ability to connect. It works amazingly well showing that we can co-operate without the need to yell over headsets or to send texts. During my first play through I met someone on the second level and we played the whole game the rest of the way together. We bonded over racing down the desert slopes, and avoiding the large guardians in the ruins and at the games climax and conclusion I was as invested with their journeyer as my own.

Just go and play it. No review will be able to express how good this game is. While the price might seem steep for a such a short game it is definitely worth it. If there was any game that could be qualified as an experience this is it.