I feel that a person's opinion of flower probably depends pretty heavily on their reason for playing games in the first place. If you're a person who plays games for a challenge, if you want to get the high score, beat the bad guys and save the princess, then flower probably isn't for you. It's short, easy, and doesn't really have any replay value unless you've got a thing for earning trophies. If, however, you're interested in games as a fresh narrative medium or a means of escapism, it's definitely something you'll want to check out.
And it is beautiful. Whether you're looking at the world from high above or breezing about at ground level, parting individual blades of grass with your passing, the game is stunning in its bright and colorful simplicity. During the buildup to the game's release, a member of the design team referred to it as the videogame version of a poem, and while that may sound pretentious, this does seem exactly like the kind of game a poet—one who had become frustrated with the limitations of mere words in conveying vivid pastoral imagery—might make. The visual splendor is complemented nicely by the audio, which consists of gentle, soothing music punctuated with the clear, ringing tones of flowers as they bloom.
What's especially interesting about flower, though, and what makes it more than just a simple piece of escapism, is the fact that it also seems to be about escapism. In between levels, you're given a view of an apartment; a small, drab, unwelcoming place whose only bright spot is a shelf adorned with flowerpots. Once you've selected a level, you're treated to a selection of scenes from the city. These are mostly still images with appropriate sound effects playing in the background, and they have about the same flavor to them as your apartment. Everything you encounter outside the levels themselves is fairly unpleasant. These glimpses of the real world set the rest of the game in a context that's actually kind of depressing, although things slowly begin to improve as you approach the end.
A much more severe change in tone, however, occurs in the levels themselves about halfway through the game, and it makes flower an interesting example of interactive storytelling. Without this tonal shift, I probably wouldn't have thought of flower as having a story at all, but with it the game becomes a complete narrative, with a buildup of conflict, climax and resolution. This is made especially notable by the fact that the game has no dialogue or easily identifiable characters.
As a game, flower is short and simple; as an experience it's striking and original. Whether you think it's worth the price of admission will be contingent upon your attitude toward games, but for my part it's one of the most memorable things I've played in a long time.
