Ico / Shadow of the Colossus

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!

Just be forewarned that there isn't any swearing and you can't run over any old ladies in a car. These are definite deal-breakers according to most GameStop employees.

Ico sounds cool tho. its more platforming? i like the Tomb Raider-style levels in SOTC
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Saturday, February 27, 2016 2:08 AM

its more puzzle platformer with some crap action fighting here and there but similar atmosphere as sotc. i think dragon's dogma is also out for pc now. its not made by team ico but its game mechanics are really good, like a mashup of elder scrolls, dark souls and some sotc-like climbing huge enemies to hit weak points

My 30 minutes of hands-on time with The Last Guardian was not bad, exactly. The game looks beautiful, its environments are stunning, and its puzzles are clever and satisfying, often with multiple layers to figure out. There's a core gameplay loop around solving a puzzle to get to a new room, then figuring out how to get your bird-dog friend to follow. That loop is strong, and it helps reinforce the relationship between the protagonist and the pet.

For as much as The Last Guardian nails the broad feeling it's going for in this demo, it whiffs on the details. Specifically: It feels awkward as hell when it comes to actually controlling the main character. The protagonist doesn't walk so much as he lurches in whichever direction you've pushed the analog stick. Much of the demo focuses on platforming, but his jumps have a stickiness to them, a sense of inaccuracy that could be played up as realistic weightiness in the right game but just feels frustrating here.

sounds... exactly like ICO/SotC then...

we have a thread for last guardian right? i was just thinking about how i bought my ps3 explicitly for that game back in 2010! It's the gamer Chinese Democracy at this point; there's no way it'll reach expectations.

sad but sounds accurate, uly

Chinese Democracy exceeded my expectations by ever appearing - I would question the sanity of anyone who expected it to be good.

As cozen says, this sounds like more of the same good good stuff.

Fiddly controls are what we grew up on dammit AND WE LOVED IT

this looks pretty damned good in 4k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GV-OmR1Vo8

Yesssss!!!

ugh I still have yet to play this game :-/

*this games

yeah this is one of the greatest 3D games ever. everything about the game is incredible. every boss fight (and every journey to the boss fights) feels epic and grand. the gameplay is seamless, smooth, non-intrusive. no need for maps, markers, quests, NPCs, etc. you have a sword that you can hold up and the light it reflects shows you where to go. just follow the light. it is that easy. brilliant.

jeez the remake is astonishingly good-looking huh

have you got it? I'm going to give Rime, which seems to be in a similar vein, a play-through before taking the plunge. I never played SotC on the PS2 so am looking forward to it.

yeah, started playing it this morning and took down the first three colossi as my wife looked on in horror at my savagery

it’s pretty remarkable tbh - it’s a total remake rather than a remaster but it plays just like the original, only at a silky 60fps* rather than the notoriously juddering ps2 version

(* on PS4 pro)

and it’s less than £25!

By 'plays like the original' do you mean 'has a camera like a lazy eye which seems much more interested in a random patch of grass than the giant you're supposed to be focusing on'?

well, yeah

The most Terrence Malick of video games