Cue another success in the Out of Nowhere department. I saw Flower during the media briefing and was mildly intrigued, but had easily forgotten it two days later when we arrived for our meeting with Sony. Resistance 2 was already happening, Little Big Planet was also full of players, Killzone 2 had a running line of media…hell, everything seemed to have a queue (protip: don’t schedule appointments two hours before show-close), but stuck on the side next to PixelJunk Eden was a lonely looking title called Flower. Our wonderfully helpful guide Jill lead us over to the demo station, where we found feverishly excited gentleman (who’s name escapes me, I’m so sorry) who encouraged us to sit down play Flower. I thought I was being roped into the black sheep of Sony’s PSN lineup, something people were intentionally avoiding.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
All you had to do was tell me it was from the same group of people who produced the criminally under rated flOw and I would have been hooked. Flower synchronizes compelling gameplay, elegant visual presentation, and delicate melody in ways few other games dare to even try. And you’d never think it was anything more than a tech demo unless you actually sat down to play it. Your apartment is unpleasant and course; the place is a dump, save a pretty yellow flower in the corner. Focusing on the flower takes you into its world, which, unfortunately is also largely devoid of anything beautiful. Every flower, you see, has a dream, and it is your job as the player to satisfy the flower’s desire to dream. A lot of developers make the mistake of labeling their games as art due to flashy visuals or moderately competent art design – but Flower goes all out in its entry to the sacred Team Ico art house institute.
In our demo this was done, essentially, by controlling the wind. After entering the game, which in our case was a huge and slightly lifeless field, one assumes the role of a flower petal. Tilting the sixaxis caused the wind to push this petal up, down, left, and right through the surrounding landscape and pressing a button (any button, including the dpad) increased the velocity of our wind. After spending a few minutes taking pleasure in the essence of flight, we came across a patch of other unbloomed flowers. These blossomed when we guided our petal over them, and blooming an entire crop of surrounding flowers restored the natural beauty of that portion of the level. Additionally, more flower petals appeared in our wind flow, creating a beautiful string of color as w guided our original petal along. Once we had restored all of the flowers patches, the level ended and we, essentially, fulfilled the dream of the flower.
The developer stressed his vision toward the nature of restoring serenity to a barren landscape. He told us Flower would contain an abstract story of symbolism, stressing the feel would be about nature and urban existence. The word “poetry” was used to describe the game multiple times throughout the presentation and, though I was skeptical of such hyperbole at first, I was in complete agreement by the end of the experience. Most of this feeling stems from the audio arrangement that compliments the peaceful countryside. The sound of wind is central to the sonic experience, but the existing score and audio cues flow with ambience and enhance relaxation Beautiful isn’t a word often used to describe videogame music, but the acoustics here are perfectly in sync with the tranquil nature of the game (here’s video from our friends at gametrailers to demonstrate this process).
I don’t like the sixaxis in anything. I was among the crowd whom thought it was a pointless Wii-mocking add on and would only dilute the quality of Sony’s lineup. I felt justified when this negatively affected portions of Ratchet and Clank and outright ruined Lair, but I still couldn’t even bring myself to use it in limited fashion on MGS4. Yet, despite my intense hatred, I can’t imagine playing Flower by any other means. The feeling of guiding the wind by tilting the control is perfectly in sync with the aesthetics of the game. By transition the control from a button into an action, flower actually succeeds where Lair and countless others have fallen flat on their face. The control felt perfectly intuitive as a direct result of its lack of complexity. You’re not flying a dragon and breathing fire to kill hundreds of bad guys or guiding a tornado gun whilst trying to hop over space pirate; you’re floating with the wind, and that’s it.
It’s important to note, however, that despite its minimalistic input, this is still very much a game. A clear objective and recognizable need to progress disallow Flower from slipping into flow or Wii Music non-game territory, and, judging from the windmills I saw in the media briefing cinematic, one can probably assume Flower is going to reveal quite a bit more depth than one might casually expect. I welcome another step into the unknown with open arms; if Flower can wow me and distinguish itself in subsequent levels as well as it did in the first, then we’re in for something very special indeed. All said and done, Flower was definitely my favorite surprise of the show.
