#11 - Flower


Platform I played on: PlayStation 3
Available platforms: PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita
Developer: Thatgamecompany
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Length: 4 hours

Story:
Flower's story is pretty minimalist, leaving a lot up to your imagination. You control a gust of wind/single flower petal at the start of each "level" as you move around the area collecting yet more flower petals. A bigger plot comes in to play later on as you try and restore the natural beauty of the world with your flower petals and gust of wind, but even there a lot of it is left up to you to interpret.

Gamplay:
As stated, you start each level with one flower petal and you control the wind via controller tilting. You can also speed up your wind by pressing pretty much any button and your goal is to collect flower petals throughout the level before advancing to the next. The difficulty slowly ramps up as you go from areas where nothing can harm you to areas where stuff very much can, but even so you'll never "die" or see a game over screen.



Environment:
Flower has beautiful levels that naturally evolve as you progress through the game. There's also a good deal of variance between the levels, going from wide open daytime fields to nighttime to a more residential area. You'll also find some different flowers in each level. Flower does a good job at not letting things feel dull and repetitive despite the fact that your goal is almost the same in most levels.

Ambiance:
Flower is great at this. There's a sense of progression and wonder throughout the game, and later levels instill reluctance and fear, as well as achievement and purpose. Everything from the sounds to the visuals work together to tell a narrative without use of dialogues or text. The fact that Flower can convey everything it tries to and possibly even more without using a single word is very impressive.



Choices:
There are no in-game choices other than how you explore the level and which flower petals to collect. The most choice comes from the little was in which you'll personally interpret the story.

Puzzles:
Again, not much to speak of here. The closest is trying to get all of the petals and the special petals if you so choose.



Cons:
-Minimalist which could turn some people off
-Controls can sometimes be finicky
-Not a ton of replay value if you don't want to just play a game to relax to
-Flowers are really the reproductive organs of some plants so if you think about it, these flowers are MOLESTING your innocent gust of wind

Pros:
-Relaxing
-Beautiful
-Emotional without a single word uttered
-Use your ~imagination~
-Fox News called it liberal environmentalist propaganda that is brainwashing our children. That has to count for something

Overall:
Jokes aside, Flower is a beautiful game, not just visually but through the story it tells. To me it really conveyed a message of overcoming fear and difficulties and coming out even better at the end of it, which really resonated with me. It's very relaxing if you just want to decompress with some plant reproductive units. Also if you don't care about environmentalist brainwashing, it's great for children!

Verdict:
Pink roses are best Flowers