Current Events > I just finished playing Abzu *unmarked spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

I got it on sale recently when it was super cheap. As a teenager, I really enjoyed Endless Ocean 2, so I have an affection for games that are set in the ocean.

It took me a while to warm up to Abzu. It looked gorgeous, sure, but I've also been playing Mario Sunshine and Persona 5 - games that are all about progression, about getting those numbers up. I don't mind shorter games where the focus is more on the presentation than the gameplay, but I wasn't in the headspace for a walking simulator.

And Abzu, at its core imo, is a walking simulator. Which isn't a knock against it - I like walking simulators. Not all the time, but I believe in the ability for short, interactive experiences to be as emotionally resonant as any other piece of art. For every Chrono Trigger, The Last of Us or Persona 5, there's an experience like Abzu that offers its own appeal.

And it had mild collectathon elements - you could collect these shells throughout the course of the game, you can meditate at shark statues and you can release new kinds of fish through these weird little pools. But to me, that was all set dressing. The meat of the game, the appeal, is the beautifully crafted environments, and the beautifully modelled fish you encounter.

I finally got into Abzu about halfway through, at 3 in the morning. I was too tired to play Tetris, I had hit my Mario limit and I didn't feel like playing Persona. So I decided to boot up Abzu and get it out of the way. The scene that got me hooked was the one with the whales, as you're diving deeper and deeper into the ocean. And then that massive motherfucker comes up and you think you're gonna get eaten, before you swim alongside it and its pack down to the ocean floor.

It was refreshing to have a full 360 degree of movement around me. That's one of the main appeals of games set in the ocean or in the sky - unrestricted freedom of movement. And I adored being able to ride other fish. Whatever my diver ended up being, nothing could take away the enjoyment of being able to hitch a ride with a big enough fish.

The story is a bit basic, nature good machines bad, but it was presented in such a gorgeous way that I didn't care one way or the other. And the scene where your diver gets restored along with the great white shark? Unexpected on all fronts, and that moment ended up being the emotional peak of the game for me.

It made me reflect on the diver's journey throughout the game. Your character is essentially a product of a machine that creates dangerous debris and poses a threat to life in the ocean. You were born in that system, and over the course of the game you use products of that system to forge a path through the natural world.

But in contrast with the little shuttlecrafts and the sea mines, which use the ocean's life energy to destroy, you spend the game giving your energy back to the ocean and creating life. Your diver is going directly against the grain of the system it was born from.

And you see the effects of the system in the world around it - whale skeletons, pollution and explicit destruction of life. You see how the system destroys nature, its counterpart, when it kills the great white shark.

Again, fairly simple story. But it resonated with me in the way that I applied it to real life. To not fitting the mold set by a nebulous order that you're raised in, to wondering what your purpose in that order is or what you're even good for. How it feels to acknowledge the toxicity and harm of the world that shaped you.

Ultimately, I associated the game the strongest with transness. Because the diver went against the grain, it gave all of its energy to the counterpart of its origin to correct the harm it had done - and the diver's efforts were repaid with rebirth. It regained its form, and it found the strength to go against the source of its birth to bring life back to what had been damaged.

It found belonging, understanding and love in a paradigm outside of the system it was born into. And I associated that journey with gender transition, in being reborn and coming back stronger as your true self.

I understand that there's a greater story in the temple murals, but I was lost in the aesthetic of the ocean and in applying the diver's journey and origins to real life. And I enjoy when you can apply your own values to an emotionally provocative product, whether there's an intended point or not.

Abzu is a gorgeous game. The art is incredible, the music is rich and moving, and the game as a whole is an emotionally resonant experience. You might not enjoy it at first, but when you're in the mood for an experience that sucks you in with its atmosphere and aesthetic, Abzu is a great way to kill some time and hopefully feel moved by something. You'll probably love it if you're enamored with the ocean, too. I'm very glad I picked this up when I did.

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16-BITTER posted...

Slightly less boring underwater Journey

Tbh I like this review more than tc's

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Colorahdo posted...

Tbh I like this review more than tc's

Ehh, fair enough. There's room in the world for products like Journey and Abzu, but everyone has different tastes.

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Bump

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Is this the "India" game?

It was nice , I like the background storytelling

but there needed to be more gameplay

it felt like "we wanted to make a movie but lack the talent so we made a game instead"

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Questionmarktarius posted...

Is this the "India" game?

No, it's the swimming game.

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