Shadow of the Colossus

[DisturbedSwan]

Streamed a bit of this earlier before my net connection dropped out:

 

 

Haven’t had the best of times with it to be honest.

 

I mean the graphics are absolutely breathtaking, in 4K HDR this game looks nothing less than phenomenal. The lighting, the draw distance and level of detail of Wander, Aggro and the Colossi are incredible.

 

But everything else....not convinced. The camera is pretty bad, it takes a bit of getting used to just moving about on the ground with it, seems to have a mind of its own and when you’re gripping a colossi though, frequently goes absolutely bananas and you just have to hang on for dear life and hope for the best.

 

The colossi have been pretty easy to take down - once you’ve got used to the obtuse controls - you climb up them and stab them in their glowy bits until ooze comes out. There’s usually a knack to getting on to them and when it’s not frustrating as hell there’s such a heft and natural movement to them, they have a certain gracious beauty to them as well.

 

I have got stuck once though on the 3rd colossi and found the whole fight rather exasperating to be honest. The game did give me hints as to how to take it down but it was more the cryptic kind than the ‘do x to get on it’ kind so I was running around frustratedly trying to clamber up his arms to no avail for awhile. I actually had to look it up in the end, I just got fed up with it.

 

Another bone of contention has been the horse, Aggro. He’s just so slow and when you’re moving through an area with lots of obstacles he just constantly walks into things, and his speed doesn’t help, even his top speed feels far too slow to me.

 

But, I was pretty blown away by the 4h colossi, the first time he swooped down and I jumped up and grabbed on to his fur it was bloody fantastic, clambering over his back and wings in the wind trying to stab it was pretty spectacular as well.

 

I strangely thought all the colossi would be pottering about in the environment and you just find them at random, but it really is like a boss rush going back to the opening area every time you defeat a boss and then making your way to the next one via the light sword compass and horse.

 

It’s a very odd game, not sure what to think of it so far, definitely has the potential to live up to the hype and expectation created over many years but I’m not quite seeing it yet.

 

Lots of pics:

 

 

[DANGERMAN]

It is weird that they've done a load of work, rebuilt the game, but not fixed the camera. It seems like in other places they've changed a few things, like health regenerates now, I might be misremembering but I'm sure it never used to do that 

 

I played through Shadow of the Colossus when the PS3 port cameras out. It took a while for the game to click again but I ended up really enjoying it, hopefully this is the same, not because I'm not enjoying its, but because I'm racing through it. 

 

I still remember how to beat the Colossi, which is half of their game, I know where their weak points are, at least the 3 I faced and killed in less than an hour last night 

[Jimboxy]

I’m not sure if it is a game that holds up to hype to be honest. It was amazing back in 2005 (I think) because nothing else had done that before. I think at the time the things you mention where frustrating and as DANGERMAN said, I’m surprised they haven’t made any alterations to it (although I guess the argument is it is preserving part of the game play). 

IIRC the first few are quite simple and it gradually introduces different mechanisms to beat the bosses. I loved it at the time but in all honesty am in no rush to replay it. 

[regemond]

1 hour ago, Nag said:

Managed to kill 3 Collossi last night, got to admit I actually felt pretty sad in regards to the second, the first and third were carrying big fuck off clubs, it's hard to feel sorry for that but the third just seemed like more of a docile animal...

 

That alone really makes me want to play it. The 'personalities' of each one gives the game a wholly unique feel that I loved at the time. Until I got stuck.

[DisturbedSwan]

Found this funny glitch yesterday:

 

 

6 hours in. Had a much better time with this today, think I'm up to 9 colossi defeated now.

 

The fights have definitely ramped up in complexity, all the ones I did today I couldn't just clamber up and stick my sword in its head, each one had a very distinctive knack that I had to figure out, admittedly once I knew this knack it was still a relatively easy task to take them down, but yeah I definitely liked the inventive ways the game thinks up to enable you to clamber up a colossi.

 

I've started feeling for them even more as well, 7 and 8 in particular felt quite sad to have to put down. They feel such graceful intelligent creatures, the 8th one in particular just felt incredibly helpless once you'd found the knack and it almost felt too easy and pointless finishing him off in that manner, he was barely able to put up a fight, didn't feel fair at all.

 

The 7th was so majestic and had so many amazing cinematic moments when you're riding its back, when the music ramps up and everything it really is incredible. Likewise with the 9th, first time I've had to use the horse to fight a colossi, I was just in absolute awe at the size and scale of this thing.

 

I did have a brief explore at some uncharted places on the map and found a few shrines and lizard tails as well. 

[DisturbedSwan]

Wow, didn't even know what Reminisce mode did, now I know, ta @Nag 

 

Definitely interesting you can replay fights, I have seen one or two fallen colossi that have been swallowed by the world but didn't even think you would be able to re-interact with them.

 

I've only really had a peak at the trophy list, before release I was milling a Plat run but once I had that brief glimpse I balked at the hard mode in less than 5 hours 40 minutes and time trial challenges, guess the reminisce mode trophies will be a pain too, so yeah, pleased I didn't bother with it.

 

[DisturbedSwan]

Finished this today, took me about 12 hours.

It's a really odd game, there's nothing quite like it even today, the closest comparison would be Breath of the Wild I'd say and it's clear Nintendo took plenty of inspiration from this for the destroyed/past glories of the world to the shrines and the Divine Beasts. 

I did enjoy quite a few of the fights, my favourites were the 5th, 7th, 13th and 14th. But unfortunately my overriding emotion after finishing it is sheer frustration, the 15th and 16th colossi just brought back some of the frustration I had early on and compounded it, I was running around for about 90 minutes on the 15th just trying to jump up ledges and stuff and the 16th - whilst amazing in terms of scale - was so incredibly annoying, the first phase is fine I quite liked that but having to constantly climb the colossi's armour to the top and the whole jumping back with the hands etc. just made me incredibly annoyed, falling all the way to the bottom then having to work my way all the way back up to the top every time, it's just not fun.

That's the thing for me, when games are as frustrating as this they're just exasperating. All the patience I have in me is sapped away and instead of enjoying the fights I'm just hoping it get it over with so I can get that one step closer to finishing it and never having to go back to it again. The controls are just not up to it and there's sometimes not even subtle signposting about what you need to do, I ended up running around aimlessly until the first tip came up most of the time - and even then that wouldn't always mean I knew what the knack was.

It is kind of satisfying when you figure one of the knack's out and then easily defeat a colossi, sure, but all the enthusiasm was usually drained out of me by that point. The spectacle of some of the fights and how graceful the colossi are is fantastic but yeah with the frustration I just couldn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to.

The graphics are also astounding, literally mind-blowingly so but I feel like it's a case of style over substance. I can see why folks would've been blown away by this back in 2005 and if I hadn't of known the story beats I might've thought more of it but as it stands it's a mostly forgettable experience, even the ending just left me nonplussed about the whole thing, just a forgettable waste of time really.

But yeah, one of the most overrated games I've ever played and one twentieth the game The Last Guardian is in my view.

[Pikman]

Well, you guys put me off trying this again for sure

I will stick to Zelda.

[DANGERMAN]

I think you all need to be a bit more positive 

[HandsomeDead]

 

[DisturbedSwan]

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