This was the first Pokémon game I ever played. At the ripe old age of six, I had no idea what I was doing, but I had watched the anime enough to know that Pikachu ain't got shit on Brock's Onix, at least not without straight up cheating.

With not an ounce of understanding of the game mechanics in my empty little head, I'd catch me some cute Pokeymans in Viridian Forest (completely oblivious to the Mankeys you could find to the west), and then I'd take my electric rat and my cute birds and bugs and unsuccessfully throw them against Brock until I ran out of money. No more Potions for mid-fight heals, no more Pokéballs to catch stronger Caterpies. I effectively softlocked myself from progressing out of Pewter City. Then I would restart my save file and try it all again: same strategy, no changes. I was having fun just walking around with my Pikachu, and that's all I needed.

It's impossible to convey just how many times I restarted this damn game in an endless loop of defeat at the hands of the first gym leader. But I can tell you that each time I did, I paid a little less attention to the intro sequence, and I put a little less care into the name of the player character and his rival. By this time, I had all but given up on the idea of victory over that Pewter City bastard and was content just vibin' around in the forest like my idol, Ash Ketchum. Who cares what my name is if I'm just gonna reset the save again in another hour? All I cared about was raising another Butterfree, maybe a stronger one this time!

Then it happened. By some cosmic miracle, my little Nidoran♀ managed to take down an Onix. Blood, sweat, and tears fell from my teal Game Boy Color that day, and an entire route of new content opened up before my little eyes. I was awestruck. Even then, I recognized the incredible amount of luck that the universe just bestowed upon me, and I was not gonna tempt fate by restarting that save file now. I was committed.

And that, my friends, is how the legend of ASHpkmn♂♀ was born.

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.

Do you remember Geocities? How about Angelfire? Ever post cringe on Myspace?

If you answered YES to any of the above questions, you may be entitled to compensation need to play Hypnospace Outlaw.

(also the text-to-speech doesn't work on Linux so play it on something else lmao)