Ico / Shadow of the Colossus

I really really need to play through the first games but the PS2 emulator is still struggling w it.

Trailer does a great job of showing off the fiddly controls, annoying camera angles, repetitive sound palette, and infuriatingly obtuse NPC.

haha

Ico: shadow of duke nukem forever

I like the way he runs down stairs and that environment is amazing

Yeah complaints about graphics seem to be missing the point - it's beautiful for reasons other than polygon count, and the amazing stuff they're doing with light, Ico was doing on the PS2.

Also Penny Arcade back in 2009.

Basically I'm hype for this just as More ICO.

*flags post for penny arcade link*

It's still beautiful, it's just that given the wait and that it's jumping to the next console generation after so many years, it adds to the general disappointment. If they released it as an End of Life PS3 title it wouldn't bug me.

tbf, it could end with both the boy AND the gryphon dying.

finally played Shadow for the first time yesterday! everyone is right, this game is amazing. took down the first 2, about to go for 3. it has a weird backwards jump i haven't mastered... the presentation and animations in this game are really impressive. holding onto a colossus as it tries to shake you off is SO MUCH FUN.

yeah this is amazing. on the 4th boss now, the one with 4 spider-like legs, with no idea what to do. ran away and got a ghostly message to try hiding underground. now i'm in some dungeons trying to figure out what to do about the giant monster upstairs. this game is amazing. the presentation is wonderful. it is an open world game but it flawlessly gives you directions on what to do. a large part of the pleasure is in figuring out for yourself what to do. the cutscenes are beautiful and ambiguous. what are the black spirit entities? why does a similar black ectoplasm grab at us after we take out a colossus? then we go through the Stargate?

this game is thick with atmosphere. sadly the bloom and glow and authentically emulated Playstation 2 video effects is still a little too costly for me. diving under water slows the game to an unplayable sludge. i'm playing on PCSX2 1.5.0 w Direct3D11(Hardware) at 2x native resolution and it is SMOOTH, nearly 60fps with some drops to 75% at times.

the horse animations are AMAZING. still the best videogame horse? i think so. i love the cinematic asymmetrical low angled camera! the ambient soundtrack is perfect. SOTC is ridiculously good.

can you take out these bosses in any order, sequence break it like Dark Souls?

60fps? That must be nice. SotC felt like it frequently ran at 15 frames per second on PS2. Looked beutiful nonetheless.

There's a specific order IIRC.

Yeah, pretty sure there's a forced sequence.

I figured out that the Ico/SoTC collection is one of the like four PS3 games you can remote play on the Vita but it seems like a shame not to see it splashed across a big screen.

eh it's not 60fps all the time. for most of the boss battles it is well below but yeah i don't really care either way. i think i played through Mario Galaxy 2 for the first time at more or less half speed the whole game.

here are some screenshots. i know there is an HD version of this game but the PS2 original still looks really good imo.

http://i.imgur.com/ecd9WXI.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/7b7XqFy.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/vBqP33V.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/aspPjPT.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/uMwzXC2.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/D0dIJZa.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/nV0pUbS.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/uDWNcGW.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/JPF3SJe.jpg

yeah this game is amazing. i am playing through trying not to follow any hints online and it is working out. the level design is really well done, it is harder to get lost than in MGSV. speaking of, i feel like the horse in that game is inspired by this horse. same buttons to run and mount/dismount, even.

grabbing the one colossus's beard was SO COOl! damn i had no idea that was going to happen! i love this game so much! the water one was amazing as well. the pacing is just incredible, you spend 50% of your time just traveling, wandering around this beautiful open world. the level design is really nice. the level design on the bosses is incredible.

who would have thought the way to make good platforming in 3d was to have the platforms move and be unstable? genius. this game is brilliant.

i posted this in another thread but here's a page about unused assets in the SotC code:

https://tcrf.net/Shadow_of_the_Colossus

Some general spoilers if you're going through the game right now.

yeah don't look at that until after you beat the game for sure

love reading your reax btw Adam

Yeah, I kinda want to replay it now even though I'm already in the middle of playing 27 other games.

This was one of the first games (maybe THE first) I played on PS2, certainly one of the main selling points of the system for me. It was a staggering leap forward from the PS1 games that I hadn't played in five years because my system was in another state. A real bear in spots but such an amazing game. I do wonder how much of a challenge it would be now that I've been neck deep in the PS3 for a couple of years.

just took down #12. every time i play i am marveling at the seamless design at work here. no text boxes. no chapter or mission titles. no gui menu. if you turned off the subtitles there would be no text in the game at all? incredible. environment-based storytelling on the most subtle level.

i see why people can say this game is art. the game is very strong in what it wants to present, it is a kind of mastery of the technology to tell an emotional/abstract story. it is tempting to stuff a video game with so many unnecessary conventions of the form and to see someone take a step back and do the opposite, to go the minimalist route, is wonderful. there are 16 enemies in this entire game. that means every encounter has received maximum attention and is guaranteed to blow your socks off. and it does!

the game removes all unnecessary video game trappings like a gui or ammo (unlimited arrows!) or experience or equipment or standard enemies and throws them all out. so all of the non-boss gameplay that you do where it is just you riding your horse to the next colossus and it is majestic and cinematic and stuff, all of it is charged with this anticipation. you aren't thinking about how to level up, you are thinking about how amazing the next boss encounter is going to be!

the music it plays when you kill a colossus is so sad and beautiful!

you gonna play ico too?

one of the weird video gamey-things is the stopping before every boss to shoot down some peaches or whatever to increase your stamina

Yeah, see, I didn't even know that was a thing until many years after I played and beat it so it's apparently not even necessary.

this game is the best, wish there was a PS4 version so i could play it again.

Ha, I just remembered: not only was this the first game I bought for my PS2, the SotC/Ico collection was one of the three games that I bought at the same time as my PS3.

i had no idea about the trees and lizards until halfway through. the game is not very hard once you figure out what to do. i don't think a longer life or stamina bar would really be all that much help.

i'm down to the final 3! i hear the ending is amazing so i can't wait...

haven't tried Ico. i guess i need to play that next.

had a clear memory of wanting to buy this because of the rapturous reviews (i generally play stuff years late). the dude at gamestop tried really hard to warn me off -- "it's supposed to be a fighting game, but there's no fighting. you just ride your horse around, and there's nothing there. then there's a huge boss, but you can only do one thing."

And there aren't any sniper rifles or rpgs, and I didn't see a single prostitute the entire time I played. F minus.

very rarely do i get out of gamestop w/out wanting to smack the dork behind the counter

goole i checked it out late due to the hype and was not let down at all.

it is a boss rush game. Zelda where instead of going into a dungeon to fight the boss, the dungeon IS the boss.

lol gamestop dude. i have seen his ilk online. the game is "lacking content" and has an "empty world with nothing to do".

like giving a Picasso to a chimpanzee.

adam i have played the game and love it

i still have never played Ico

ico is more clever, a little more emo, less beautiful

oh yeah goole i read your previous comments about the game and i think we are totally on the same page! it's really quite an amazing game in many ways. the hands-off approach is a huge breath of fresh air.

if you removed all the enemies from Dark Souls and left the bosses, it would probably feel pretty similar to this. you'd need different music too, of course.

You just sold me harder on the Souls games than any of the previous rapturous praise has.

i am on the final boss. had to take a break. wow this is epic. i was just hanging for dear life from the rings on the right fingers of this giant demon and leaping from ring to ring while my grip meter beeps away letting me know I'm about to lose grip.

the sense of scale here is unparalleled.

holy shit that was a good ending! and it kept going, with this jaw-droppingly beautiful tone poem thing going on even while the credits were rolling. amazing. i don't want to spoil anything. the hype is real.

i really like where the story went. wow. it kind of makes me want to play the game again.

Ico sounds cool tho. its more platforming? i like the Tomb Raider-style levels in SOTC

What is the best way to play this game? Has PC emulation caught up or do I need to track down a PS2 and a legit disc?

If you have or would prefer to have a PS3 (which I would recommend), the remastered SotC and Ico have been released as a twofer disc and are also available for download individually in the Playstation store.

Apparently my boyf's brother has a PS3 that he doesn't use bcz there is now a PS4?? and SotC/Ico is $20 on amazon!

Yeah, I think that's roughly equivalent to what the digital versions cost collectively. Pull that trigger!