A trend among my favorite indie games is how they provide an experience that you can't adequately capture outside of the medium of videogames. Journey is kind of the progenitor of that affinity for me.

Nearly a decade later it might not stand out as much among the games it would go on to inspire, but none of those copycat games attempt the unique social aspect of Journey, which itself is a core part of the whole experience. Yes, the grand adventure full of wonderment and impressive vistas are all what make it superficially Journey, but the emotional core of the journey is the very real humans dropping in and out of your session so fleetingly and with no real tangible way of communicating anything to you - just a stranger in a strange land acting as a brief companion among the solitude before disappearing off on their own quest.

Journey is about the personal experience of the journey, not the act of journeying itself, and that's what puts it head and shoulders above the sea of imitators.