It is not about doing, but rather it is about simply being. The concept behind the game is simple yet truly inspired, providing players with the opportunity to experience the dreams of flowers.

It is easily one of the most beautiful games we have ever played, not only for its breathtaking aesthetics, but for its simplicity, courage and innovation.

It breaks so many of gaming’s standardized conventions, that calling it a game often feels like a stretch. The first “level” is more of an exercise in mental well-being than a game. Forget about challenges, competitiveness, skill, character interaction and pretty much every other game industry standardized mechanism.

It is definitely worth noting that Flower is certainly not for everyone. In fact, without trying to sound like a gaming snob, I would go as far as to say that most people will probably not see the point to Flower. This is because the point of Flower is so radically different to what we generally experience in games, that it is easy to miss it all together.

At just R75 on PSN, it is at least worth trying, and is in our opinion one of the PS3’s stand out ambassador titles. It will not keep you glued to the screen for hours at a time, nor will it provide you with the same sense of accomplishment one gets from clearing a room full of Helgan marines in Killzone II. It will however offer players something utterly unique and bewildering.

Playing Flower reminded me why I started playing games in the first place. Not in years have I felt so bewildered and entranced by a game, to the point of laughing softly to myself at just how cool the concept and implementation is.

So, like, what exactly do you do?

As stated earlier, Flower allows players to experience the dreams of various flowers. The game starts out in a cold, dark and decrepit city, with a single flower crouching in a black and white rendered room on a windowsill. By selecting the flower, the player is taken into a magical dream world where they play as what can best be described as the wind.

By using the motion sensing technology built into the PS3’s remote, the player will guide their petals across fields of uniquely rendered blades of grass. The player starts out as a breeze carrying a single petal, but as they blow through the dream world they pick up new petals from different flowers, until they are controlling a veritable swarm of multi colored petals.

Beyond that, it is difficult to describe the actual point of the game. There are various “puzzles” to be completed, but these are not what we would conventionally call puzzles. They are by no means challenging, so forget the frustration of traditional puzzle solvers. Players can not die or fail in any way. They are simply required to feel their way through the levels.

As far as conventional boundaries go, Flower’s levels do at least consist of a start and an end. When one completes a flowers dream, another flower automatically appears on the windowsill that essentially fulfills the role of a main menu. The player can then proceed to experience the new Flower’s dream, and so on. There are a total of six unique flowers/levels to experience, each offering a different theme and challenge.

Every time a dream is completed, the city menu becomes slightly brighter and more optimistic, until in the end what was once a dark, cloudy, dirty cityscape is transformed into something far more hopeful. 

What is wrong with it?

For R75, not a lot.

If we were to be harsh, then Flower could be criticized for being a bit short and not compelling enough. However, to make these criticisms would be missing the point of Flower.

Forget every other video game you have ever played. This is not a title that will appeal to the gamer in you.  If you give it a chance however it just may appeal to the person in you.

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