Shadow of the Colossus

VaLiantine

So I picked it up yesterday at a packed Circuit City, Found a lot of good games for relatively cheap. SotC caught my eye along with DMC 5th Anniversary , I picked it up and popped it into my PS2 when I got home.

The loading scared me, I'm aware of my PS2 being a piece of shit but I didn't know the loading was going to take so long. Great game so far, my worries of it being short are slowly fading because of the difficulty of most of these beast. [spoiler:63a0172490]The first three were fun but the fourth one, the pseudo skeletal horse is kicking my ass right now and the guide technique I'm reading is making it feel impossible to even mount it.[/spoiler:63a0172490]

Other then that, the graphics are amazing. The hair texture on the colossi are just top notch, the animations of the horse running and character motion. I've never played Ico so I really didn't know what to expect in the graphics and gameplay department. At first it seems simply, riding up along the colossi, mount and stab but it's a lot more complicated fortunately. So let me get back to trying to kill this fucker.

Target Practice

Fourth Colossus spoilers:

[spoiler:03dd0c70b8] You want to get into one of those underground caverns and call Agro. The Colossus will hear you and position itself over it. There'll be some... I don't know, earrings or something that you can jump and grab onto.[/spoiler:03dd0c70b8]

Jinnigan

Target Practice wrote:

Fourth Colossus spoilers:

[spoiler:30575af0b6] You want to get into one of those underground caverns and call Agro. The Colossus will hear you and position itself over it. There'll be some... I don't know, earrings or something that you can jump and grab onto.[/spoiler:30575af0b6]

[spoiler:30575af0b6]Assbone.[/spoiler:30575af0b6]

also

GIANT FLYING HAWK

VaLiantine

Thanks for the tip, It worked a lot. So how tough do the colossi get later on in the game?

Hotlead Junkie

Can anyone point me in the direction of that video where the guy pulls off some crazy awesome stunts, eg, jumping and landing back on the bird as it barrel rolls? I'm tempted to go through the game again and try to kill the collosi in the craziest ways possible.

Raneados

SPOILER
http://youtube.com/watch?v=_tmctrjvQ-M
SPOILER

bombardier

Excellent choice. I just picked up a used copy of the non greatest hits since I lent mine out and probably won't see it for a long long time. I think I'll be trying some of those stunts now.

hoodie13

Nonono, THIS is the page you want: http://bgr44.cool.ne.jp/wanda/movie/movie.html

That has time attack stuff and just pure awesome videos. Watch the one at the top that says 3. Your jaw will drop and you'll think "WHAT HOW DID HE I CAN'T ???"

VaLiantine

[spoiler:2a95cfd176]Fighting the flying bird was just amazing.[/spoiler:2a95cfd176]

Athenor

The 4th collosi, I never knew you could do that. I simply just waited the dude out. ;-)

Captain K

Raneados wrote:

SPOILER
http://youtube.com/watch?v=_tmctrjvQ-M
SPOILER

Holy shit


from the edge of the sword to the top of the head in one jump.... insane


and on the last one, he was just running toward it out in the open without ever getting hit, how is that even possible?

Æthelred

Is SotC meant to have bad load times? :?

Elendil

Captain K wrote:

Raneados wrote:

SPOILER
http://youtube.com/watch?v=_tmctrjvQ-M
SPOILER

Holy shit


from the edge of the sword to the top of the head in one jump.... insane


and on the last one, he was just running toward it out in the open without ever getting hit, how is that even possible?

The uber jump is pretty much necessary on time attack (though not to that grand a scale; just over the cuff is all you need.) I have never understood how that is done on the last colossus. Never.

Magus`

Before I played SotC I always thought how cool it would be to have a game which is basically a collection of really bad-ass boss battles.

I no longer think this is a good idea thanks to SotC. Crap?

Target Practice

I really don't get people complaining about 30-second load times. Maybe it's because I remember having PC games that'd take so long between levels to load that I'd bring a book.

hoodie13

Magus` wrote:

Before I played SotC I always thought how cool it would be to have a game which is basically a collection of really bad-ass boss battles.

I no longer think this is a good idea thanks to SotC. Crap?

God hates you.

Magus`

hoodie13 wrote:

Magus` wrote:

Before I played SotC I always thought how cool it would be to have a game which is basically a collection of really bad-ass boss battles.

I no longer think this is a good idea thanks to SotC. Crap?

God hates you.

Guesso. SotC felt like Zelda minus the fun parts.

Syphilisaurus

I was just thinking about this game the other day. What a remarkable experience, I honestly think I enjoyed it a lot more more than Twilight Princess (and TP is another great game). I don't see how anyone could not like this game.

Edit: Ha! What a timely post!

Target Practice

Magus` wrote:

Before I played SotC I always thought how cool it would be to have a game which is basically a collection of really bad-ass boss battles.

I no longer think this is a good idea thanks to SotC. Crap?

The fights themselves are awesome.

It's the part in between that sucks.

Somebody said once before that SotC probably should have waited for the PS3, and though I'd hate that because it'll be forever til I get one, I think they're right. The game pushed the PS2 hardware to the limit, and I think the barrenness of the overworld has something to do with that.

Magus`

I don't think SotC is a bad game but after boss fight 5 or 6 I just lost interest in the storyline.

It would've helped had there been -

A) Less space between the colossi.
Actual new items to use.

That would've at least not made it feel like it was dragging on and being so.. one tracked.

Æthelred

The barrenness of the landscape was surely a stylistic choice; it was supposed to be an abandoned lonely land. I enjoyed the quiet horse riding parts inbetween the boss fights - the caveat would be, of course, that they were awful the second or third time of asking.

Syphilisaurus

Those points make good sense, actually. I guess I loved the actual fights enough to ignore any problems with the game. I did get lost a lot of times though, due to the light from my sword pointing in direct lines with mountains blocking the way. Or if a Colossus was ever inside a mountain I'd have trouble getting there.

Target Practice

Æthelred wrote:

The barrenness of the landscape was surely a stylistic choice; it was supposed to be an abandoned lonely land. I enjoyed the quiet horse riding parts inbetween the boss fights - the caveat would be, of course, that they were awful the second or third time of asking.

If it was a stylistic choice, it was a bad choice. It was boring. The only reason I haven't finished the game long ago is that I'll be all pumped up from beating a Colossus, and then it's like, "Oh, hooray. I get to ride around an empty plain for twenty minutes trying to find the next one."

...for some reason I have difficulty finding them, too, despite the swordlight thing.

VaLiantine

I actually enjoyed the horse back riding, just like the sailing in Wind Waker. I found some of those fruits that increase your health and it's also a view to see the art direction for the environment and the little touches of wildlife present,

Athenor

SotC was fun.. but the world is DYING to be populated.

I'm not kidding. Take the exact map that is in SotC, throw in some cities, some NPC's, and some wandering enemies.. oh, and some non-boss related puzzles (IE, the sword not pointing you to the next collosus). Then, you'd have the basis of a game that is epic in scope, and not just epic in size.

PenguinSeph

Athenor wrote:

SotC was fun.. but the world is DYING to be populated.

I'm not kidding. Take the exact map that is in SotC, throw in some cities, some NPC's, and some wandering enemies.. oh, and some non-boss related puzzles (IE, the sword not pointing you to the next collosus). Then, you'd have the basis of a game that is epic in scope, and not just epic in size.

That sounds awesome.

It also sounds like the most expensive game to make ever.

Syphilisaurus

Athenor wrote:

SotC was fun.. but the world is DYING to be populated.

I'm not kidding. Take the exact map that is in SotC, throw in some cities, some NPC's, and some wandering enemies.. oh, and some non-boss related puzzles (IE, the sword not pointing you to the next collosus). Then, you'd have the basis of a game that is epic in scope, and not just epic in size.

See, this is where I disagree. A game like that would surely rock, but that's not the game SotC set out to be. You need to feel isolated, you need to feel like it's just you, the girl you love, and some big scary monsters in this lost world. I thought that was part of the game's pull.

Hotlead Junkie

I liked the unpopulated world of SOTC. That among other things made it a really different, stand out game. I think having baddies to fight along the way or having to do fed-ex missions for people in towns would have cheapened the experience. I'll stick to shanking big things in the head, thank you very much.

Did it take THAT long to ride from one collosus to another? Thinking back on it now I enjoyed the task of finding out where the boss battle would be, what I would be fighting, wondering what the shit I am currentley running away from and figuring out a way to stab it.

I'm usually the sort of person who despises 'time wasting' in games but the issue never came up with SOTC. For anyone who wants to cut out all that wandering about, copy a freind's completed save file for their time attack mode so you can jump to any collosus you want.

solsovly

I really liked the unpopulated feel of SotC. It felt lonely, it felt really large, you felt insignificant and it emphasized the fact that this was a closed off forbidden land.

I think I would have really liked it even more if there were more things to do in the land though. Maybe even minibosses, treasures, artifacts or more history for exploring. But maybe I just wanted another zelda.

Mighty J

I would have liked to have seen villages, just no people. And a little more to do between colossi. Like some old school prince of persia style puzzles on the way to one.

Bok Choi

Athenor wrote:

SotC was fun.. but the world is DYING to be populated.

I'm not kidding. Take the exact map that is in SotC, throw in some cities, some NPC's, and some wandering enemies.. oh, and some non-boss related puzzles (IE, the sword not pointing you to the next collosus). Then, you'd have the basis of a game that is epic in scope, and not just epic in size.

That would kill the entire feeling of the game. The desolation makes it that much more unsettling and bizarre of a concept.

You are going around more or less pointlessly killing fucking statues.

It's pretty spooky if you think about it.

God I love this game.

Blitz Rawket

I always meant to get this game. It was fun for the few times I played a friend's copy--but that was only ever on the actual Colossus fights. Just watching them gallop around that wasteland bored me.

But--and maybe this is just some inner fanboy in me--I always hated the fact that this game literally gets praised for its emptiness, whereas Wind Waker got tons of shit for it (and that actually had enough to do in it to keep me entertained).

Æthelred

SotC's emptiness is atmospheric. WW's is blue. There's a difference too between a rich landscape and a sea.

A duck!

Also, in SotC part of the effort was finding the next Colossus, whereas in Wind Waker it was waiting for your damn ship to arrive.

Zsetrek

Elendil wrote:

Captain K wrote:

Raneados wrote:

SPOILER
http://youtube.com/watch?v=_tmctrjvQ-M
SPOILER

Holy shit


from the edge of the sword to the top of the head in one jump.... insane


and on the last one, he was just running toward it out in the open without ever getting hit, how is that even possible?

The uber jump is pretty much necessary on time attack (though not to that grand a scale; just over the cuff is all you need.) I have never understood how that is done on the last colossus. Never.

I've done it. It was the only way I could beat time attack on the last colossus. It's all about the timing.

There's also a neat trick you can do to get onto his arms from his back.

http://bgr44.cool.ne.jp/wanda/movie/movie.html

Elendil

I didn't find the last one too bad on time attack. Even doing it the normal way, I think I came in at under half the allowed time.

Colossus 10 can go fuck itself though.

captaink

The whole empty-world thing is part of what made the atmosphere so creepy and forlorn. If you'd added some idiot villagers it would have sucked all that away. I really liked a lot of the running around. There was one bit with some mountain pathways that was boring, but otherwise it was all pretty neat. It was cool to find little hidden nooks and crannies, and to find lizards in out-of-the-way places.

The other thing I liked was how much better I felt at the game by the end. After all the Colossi, you get so much better feeling for how your jumps are going to go, where you can land, when they will flail, when to sit and regain grip, all that stuff. You can really just run around their body and stab.

Dabt al-Haqq

The empty landscape always had me wondering, "Why isn't there anything out here?" It added to the dark, desolate vibe of the game.

captaink wrote:

It was cool to find little hidden nooks and crannies, and to find lizards in out-of-the-way places.

I spent half or more of my playtime on this game doing that. One time I found a beach on the edge of the map with some really interesting-looking rock formations...

It's really too bad, there's so much cool stuff in that game that almost no one will ever see.

chubs

I agree that the world is best not populated. However, if i could change one thing in SotC, I would add alot of random little structures and buildings you could climb around on throughout the world. I would always ride around, looking for things like this, only to be dissapointed again and again. It would be so fun finding some kind of huge structure in an obscure corner of the map, scaling it, then looking at the view from the top.

That having been said, SotC is one of my favorite games ever.

Smarmy Lech

Colossus seven can go to hell.

I love this game, though. Favorite game of the PS2 generation.

Rohaq

I can't find the third Colossus, what the hell am I doing wrong?