Sony Yesterday was the 15-year anniversary of Shadow of the Colossus

[SaysWho?]

 

 

 

 

One of the most unique games I remember on the PS2, Shadow of the Colossus blew me away by its sense of scale. While there wasn't much to do in the world, there was a hypnotic element to it that made many of us want to explore it. As Cory Barlog said when talking about exploration of God of War, he loved going around SOTC, getting some place, and thinking, "I'm the first person who found this place," even though any player can get to the same area. 

 

I remember on IGN, the common criticism of the slowdown was that it was a PS3 game on the PS2. And so we eventually got a smoother game on the PS3 from Bluepoint:

 

 

But Bluepoint really shined in the 2018 remake. What a wonderful adventure that was with some delightful Easter eggs involving the other GenDesign games (ICO, The Last Guardian):

 

 

 

 

 

[Bloodporne]

This is such a weird one for me. I've owned it on PS2, PS3 and now the remake with PS+ and I've started it at least four to five times. It looks amazing, it sounds amazing and it's incredibly atmospheric, yet I give up after the second colossus every single time. I've played way more minimal games I've enjoyed gameplay-wise and yet this one always gives me a weird 'that's it?' feeling and nothing ends up hooking me. 

 

I did love ICO and played through it several times. 

[best3444]

One of my most cherished games mainly because I played it with my identical twin brother at it's initial release. It was such a special game coming after the beautiful ICO with an ending that made my eyes watery. The music and atmosphere are truly mesmerizing. Great, great memories for that game.

[Keyser_Soze]

Time to watch Reign Over Me in celebration!

[SaysWho?]

15 minutes ago, Bloodporne said:

This is such a weird one for me. I've owned it on PS2, PS3 and now the remake with PS+ and I've started it at least four to five times. It looks amazing, it sounds amazing and it's incredibly atmospheric, yet I give up after the second colossus every single time. I've played way more minimal games I've enjoyed gameplay-wise and yet this one always gives me a weird 'that's it?' feeling and nothing ends up hooking me. 

 

I did love ICO and played through it several times. 

 

You never finished?

 

[Bloodporne]

10 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

 

You never finished?

 

No, it's one of those games I want to like and I somehow always stop playing it after the second colossus, or even first in the remake's case.

[Slug]

I'm in the same place as BP.  Never finished it.  After a few of the colossi I just start finding the process of the game more tedious than fun and end up getting distracted by another game.  I've gone back to it several times but have never been able to push myself to complete it.  I get why it's so liked by so many people...I just can't get into it.

[thedarkstark]

13 minutes ago, Bloodporne said:

No, it's one of those games I want to like and I somehow always stop playing it after the second colossus, or even first in the remake's case.

Thats a pretty weak excuse, it only takes like 20 minutes to beat the first 2 colossi.

 

 

[Bloodporne]

12 minutes ago, thedarkstark said:

Thats a pretty weak excuse, it only takes like 20 minutes to beat the first 2 colossi.

How'd you even arrive at me needing an excuse to stop playing a game? I'm confused.

[Keyser_Soze]

Germans are not weak, so it must be another reason.

[crispy4000]

Never played the original, but the PS4 remake is sitting high on my backlog currently.

[Bloodporne]

19 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Germans are not weak, so it must be another reason.

Granted, our emotional range is approximately this:

 

[ShreddieMercury]

My experience mirrors @Bloodporne somewhat.  I worked at Gamestop about a year after this came out.  I remember that we only had one used copy and it still went for about $50.  I took it home and played until about the 6th or 7th colossus and then put it down.  I thought it was pretty great but it just didn't really make an impact.  I tried to play it again a couple of years later and the same thing happened.  Fast forward to the remake, and I quit after the 4th colossus, don't know why.  Finally for some reason I picked it up again last year, played through the whole thing and became sort of obsessed with it - I beat it twice in a row and cleared many of the speed trials as well.  I read just about everything I could about its development and theories about certain aspects of the world and the story.  I now consider it near the top of my all-time favorite games. 

 

I think the reason for the false starts is that it requires a very particular mood to get into.  It's basically an anti-modern game, which strips away every possible detail, and then refuses to empower the player at every turn.  The point of the game is the pervasive sense of melancholy and solitude, mixed with moments of awe and wonder.  I don't fault people for putting it down, but I will say that I was rewarded more for pushing through that initial barrier than I have been for any other game, even though it took 10+ years. 

[thedarkstark]

59 minutes ago, Bloodporne said:

How'd you even arrive at me needing an excuse to stop playing a game? I'm confused.

You don't need an excuse but it's silly to "try" a game and then give up after what is essentially the tutorial not once but thrice.

 

It's like booting up Halo: CE and quitting after they tell you to look up, down, left, right and deciding "this isnt for me"

[TheLeon]

9 minutes ago, thedarkstark said:

You don't need an excuse but it's silly to "try" a game and then give up after what is essentially the tutorial not once but thrice.

 

It's like booting up Halo: CE and quitting after they tell you to look up, down, left, right and deciding "this isnt for me"

It's a closer to shooting your way through a couple of rooms and hallways at the beginning of Halo. You are basically doing that for the rest of the game, although even Halo is more varied than SotC (and has an actual narrative). This game has a very basic loop of find Colossus, climb Colossus, stab glowing part on Colossus. If you don't respond to that early on, I'm not sure if the next few encounters will do it for you. 

____

It definitely clicked with me, at two different points of my life, but I completely understand if it doesn't make a good first impression on some people. When it first came out, I was into it mostly for the sick boss battles. When I revisited the PS4 remaster, I really got drawn into the stark beauty of the world and had a much more emotional experience. 

[Bloodporne]

20 minutes ago, thedarkstark said:

You don't need an excuse but it's silly to "try" a game and then give up after what is essentially the tutorial not once but thrice.

 

It's like booting up Halo: CE and quitting after they tell you to look up, down, left, right and deciding "this isnt for me"

That analogy is way sillier than me quitting a video game with a very basic gameplay loop that didn't hook me 

[thedarkstark]

 

30 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

It's a closer to shooting your way through a couple of rooms and hallways at the beginning of Halo. You are basically doing that for the rest of the game, although even Halo is more varied than SotC (and has an actual narrative). This game has a very basic loop of find Colossus, climb Colossus, stab glowing part on Colossus. If you don't respond to that early on, I'm not sure if the next few encounters will do it for you. 

____

It definitely clicked with me, at two different points of my life, but I completely understand if it doesn't make a good first impression on some people. When it first came out, I was into it mostly for the sick boss battles. When I revisited the PS4 remaster, I really got drawn into the stark beauty of the world and had a much more emotional experience. 

I was being a bit hyperbolic but the 1st 2 colossi aren't at all indicative of the experience they're literally a tutorial.

 

What makes the game shine is the sense of scale and the puzzle solving, which the fist 2 don't capture. 

 

If you're never going to finish it you may as well look up videos on some of the later battles to get an idea of what you are missing @Bloodporne

 

 

 

 

[SaysWho?]

It took me I think two hours to figure out the 12th colossus. O_O

 

  

1 hour ago, ShreddieMercuryRising said:

My experience mirrors @Bloodporne somewhat.  I worked at Gamestop about a year after this came out.  I remember that we only had one used copy and it still went for about $50.  I took it home and played until about the 6th or 7th colossus and then put it down.  I thought it was pretty great but it just didn't really make an impact.  I tried to play it again a couple of years later and the same thing happened.  Fast forward to the remake, and I quit after the 4th colossus, don't know why.  Finally for some reason I picked it up again last year, played through the whole thing and became sort of obsessed with it - I beat it twice in a row and cleared many of the speed trials as well.  I read just about everything I could about its development and theories about certain aspects of the world and the story.  I now consider it near the top of my all-time favorite games. 

 

I think the reason for the false starts is that it requires a very particular mood to get into.  It's basically an anti-modern game, which strips away every possible detail, and then refuses to empower the player at every turn.  The point of the game is the pervasive sense of melancholy and solitude, mixed with moments of awe and wonder.  I don't fault people for putting it down, but I will say that I was rewarded more for pushing through that initial barrier than I have been for any other game, even though it took 10+ years. 

 

It gripped me from the start, but this is a really cool story. Holy shit, 14 years in the making.

[Bloodporne]

4 minutes ago, thedarkstark said:

 

I was being a bit hyperbolic but the 1st 2 colossi aren't at all indicative of the experience they're literally a tutorial.

 

What makes the game shine is the sense of scale and the puzzle solving, which the fist 2 don't capture. 

 

If you're never going to finish it you may as well look up videos on some of the later battles to get an idea of what you are missing @Bloodporne

 

 

 

 

Oh I mean, it's in my eternal 'get to it again later one day' backlog of games. I didn't dislike anything about it particularly, it just somehow never hooked me and I always ended up playing something else in its stead is all. There will be a fourth attempt at some point, maybe with the upcoming PS6 UHD 16k/280fps re-remake.

[Keyser_Soze]

3 days from now @Bloodporne is going to come back to this thread and say, "well I decided to give it another shot. I don't know what was going on previously but I just love the game now"

[ShreddieMercury]

27 minutes ago, Bloodporne said:

Oh I mean, it's in my eternal 'get to it again later one day' backlog of games. I didn't dislike anything about it particularly, it just somehow never hooked me and I always ended up playing something else in its stead is all. There will be a fourth attempt at some point, maybe with the upcoming PS6 UHD 16k/280fps re-remake.

 

Funny you say that, because this last time I played it was on a PS4 Pro on "performance boost" mode.  It is literally the only time I've ever been like, "oh holy shit, 60 fps".  I can't think of any other time that a frame rate impressed me.  I think it has to do with the sense of weight and scale maybe.

[Bloodporne]

23 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

3 days from now @Bloodporne is going to come back to this thread and say, "well I decided to give it another shot. I don't know what was going on previously but I just love the game now"

Come on, it doesn't have to be every time I talk about a game now. 

[Bloodporne]

28 minutes ago, ShreddieMercuryRising said:

 

Funny you say that, because this last time I played it was on a PS4 Pro on "performance boost" mode.  It is literally the only time I've ever been like, "oh holy shit, 60 fps".  I can't think of any other time that a frame rate impressed me.  I think it has to do with the sense of weight and scale maybe.

It's an incredible looking game through and through, I mean based on my limited time with it, but still. In 60FPS it looks pretty stunning

[johnny]

The first two colossi are basically tutorial. I think once you get to the fourth colossi they really get good and fun. I like the flying ones the most. 

[Mercury33]

Same, I wanted to love it. But I just got kinda bored after 4 or 5 colossi 🤷🏻‍♂️

[Keyser_Soze]

20 hours ago, Bloodporne said:

Come on, it doesn't have to be every time I talk about a game now. 

 

Well if it happens with every game it happens every time.