How many damn times are indie developers going to remake Journey before they realize that following an exact formula down to the core ingredients will never capture the magic of the original?

I don't mean to sound overly cynical here, but that's exactly what was going through my head ten minutes into SCARF and continuously throughout the next three hours until the end. Note that this doesn't mean that SCARF isn't trying to do something different, but I wouldn't call any of those differences effective in any meaningful way. There are some simplified puzzles that you can more or less solve just by placing objects into the nearest available slot or flipping each level once. There's a section of hide and seek with an NPC for some reason, but it doesn't have to exist, invalidated due to both story/worldbuilding purposes and also mechanically because the NPC would somehow keep spotting me behind logs and walls for some reason. And there's a "good" and a "bad" ending but you can see the twist leading to the bad ending and what you have to do for the good ending a mile away. It also doesn't help that even though it's possible to collect everything you need for the good ending 2/3rds of the way in and have the twist revealed to you, you nevertheless have to play along and continue the rest of the story (as well as seemingly doing harm to others despite the gravity of your actions/motives behind your story being very blatantly exposed at this point); I suppose the show must go on, but does it even matter at this point?

Other than everything mentioned above, SCARF is exactly what you would expect from a typical Journey-like. There's heavy focus on atmosphere and lush & stylized minimalist visuals, with plenty of ambient environmental noise and the occasional sweeping orchestral track when the game deems it necessary to lift you up or play up the mood. You traverse through three mostly linear levels to progress the plot as you set out to discover more about the world around you and yourself with your trusty animated SCARF, collecting various trinkets along the way that provide additional wordless lore. The platforming is fine but rudimentary (and in my opinion, a bit slow); double jump, glide, and a rope swing are all abilities unlocked as you go along, but none of these feel that revolutionary in expanding the fluidity of your movement options. And there's a story that's supposed to be emotional and philosophical, but I've seen this trite song & dance so many times prior and better told; there's some "deep" narration regarding free will and control, creation and destruction, the cycle of life and death, I get it, I've tasted this flavor before in more immersive tones.

Ultimately I think this comes down to a lack of respect for fine detail and originality; Journey understands how to mold a story and build immersion with the simplest of details and expand upon well-tuned fundamentals, knowing exactly how to capture a player's attention while embedding memorable moments time and time again in a way that only video games can. SCARF and all the other Journey-likes have sometimes come close, but never truly get there because they're missing that crucial element of both being themselves and the finer details of what made Journey so memorable; it really felt like I was just being funneled along a predestined future like a train on rails, making the planned stops along the way with little player agency involved. I'll definitely expand upon this in future reviews of Journey-likes (as well as my yearly replay of the original), since I want to better understand myself everything that's involved.

My main takeaway from SCARF is this: the best works of art are unafraid to wear their influences on their sleeve, but ultimately succeed because they are trying to be themselves, and not something else that already exists. Ironic that this lesson was imparted from yet another copycat (competent, but nevertheless still a copycat) of a classic indie style that tries a bit too hard to express themes of rebellion and individuality.