The Big Journey: A Charming Experience for All Ages

Following in the footsteps of genre classics like Cameltry, LocoRoco, and Rolando, The Big Journey sees you moving through its stages not by moving your character, but rather by tilting the environments themselves. It’s a concept that has been done often enough to be familiar, but rarely enough to still be novel. Even better still, it’s a style of gameplay that matches mobile hardware to a tee. You don’t need a lot of buttons, and there’s no need for a lot of precise directional inputs. No matter which of the three control methods you use, it’s an incredibly intuitive game that almost anyone can immediately understand.

It’s impossible to talk about The Big Journey without talking about its charming characters and world. The main character, a chubby kitty named Mr. Whiskers, has a delightfully expressive face and reacts to various things as you make your way through each stage. He chomps dumplings with glee, flinches in pain when he hits an enemy, and purrs as he rolls along. The world he inhabits is equally colorful, with bright colors accenting the earlier stages and darker, richer palettes coming into play in later stages. The animal friends Mr. Whiskers meets along the way are designed with a similar style, bringing an adorable touch to even the most treacherous of areas.

While the game is simple enough for any player to enjoy, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any challenges to rise up to. Simply reaching the goal of each stage isn’t all that difficult, but there are many alternate paths that lead to a variety of collectible rewards. If a player wants to unlock the final Wonderland stage, they’ll need to explore each stage thoroughly and learn how to get through it quickly in order to earn all of the necessary stars. The trip through the game’s 25 gorgeous, meticulously-designed main stages is a wonderful journey, but there’s so much to find by heading off of the beaten path that you’ll keep coming back for hours on end.