Nappi

Redo of the Colossus (Shadow of the Colossus thread)

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I'm really looking forward to finally playing Shadow of the Colossus game later this week. I have been fascinated by the game since its original release, but I didn't own PS2, and by the time the game was re-released on PS3, I didn't have regular access to that console either.

 

I think the new release looks absolutely stunning. I can see why the differences in the art style might bother people who grew up with the original, but to me, it still seems to fit the atmosphere they are going for. I haven't watched the critique videos, though, partly because I want to avoid spoilers and partly because this is the only way for me to experience the game anyway.

 

 

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I played the original and the HD one, I don't think they had a huge difference, but that may be just that I remember the original looking better than it did. I want to get this and tons of other games for PS4 Pro, if only the device played 4K blu-rays I would buy it.

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So there's some interesting little things I've learned that they've added (!) in this remake, which I wasn't previously aware of:

 

There are DLC weapons now. Boo! Boooo!

 

Spoiler

There's also a rather nice Last Guardian easter egg that confirms they take place in the same universe. What if Trico is secretly in the game but instead of hunting him you can only flee on your horse while he flies around trying to eat you, like the big hairy guy in SkiFree.

 

And there's a new collectible, the purpose of which is unknown?

 

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People who have played both, does the change in engine change how it feels to play to a great degree?

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It hasn't made it feel particularly different to me. If anything it has the quality of feeling like how I remember the game looking/playing, as distinct from how it actually looked and played. I think that's probably the desired outcome from most remakes/remasters.

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I have killed four colossi so far. The game looks nice and runs ok. I love the atmosphere. I might turn the trophy notifications off (if possible) because not celebrating the you defeating these giant feels like such an important part of the game (they go as far as basically killing you every time one of them dies).

 

The controls are going to take some getting used to. The combination of right stick camera control and forced cinematic perspective makes anything other than riding directly towards your next objective feel really awkward. I'm having a really hard time with climb jumping as well. Hopefully the later stage colossi do not require a great deal of speed and precision because I might throw the controller out of the window. 

 

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I have only played the HD PS3 version, and I think it is one of the Great Games. I was curious to see if I would feel the same with this remake. I have killed the first four colossi as well, and it's all coming back to me. I am playing on hard mode because it adds extra sigils that you need to stab on each colossus (because I know how to take them all down already). It also means I get to spend longer admiring the complex animation and I have already discovered a couple of things that I didn't know each of them could do.

 

However, it does feel different in a few ways. A lot has been said about the visual changes, such as the washed out lighting being replaced with something more in line with other modern games, and all the extra detail in the environment eliminates the impressionistic sense of the world and makes it much more literal. There are a few other things as well, such as Wander's face looking different, like it is a different shape or something. It's gorgeous though! I can't tell if they have done anything to the audio, like a remastering or another pass at mixing the music and the little bits of speech. It seems similar to me, though I remember it being much more compressed even in the PS3 HD version.

 

@graddy The basic feel of the game remains intact, but the controls have changed to something more in line with other modern action games. That's where it feels most different, but if you have kept up with games it feels much more intuitive.

 

All of this just makes me realise that for how influential people say SotC was there is still absolutely nothing like it.

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Anyone worried about the controls feeling too streamlined or the kid and the horse being too easy to handle (mainly referring to the video here), fear not, the gameplay is (still?) super bad and frustrating at times. After spending a lot of time fighting the camera that kept going underwater when I should have focused on a flying colossus in a beautiful flooded area, I realized that I would probably enjoy this game a lot more if someone else was playing it. I'm fine with the kid being clumsy and the movement being slow, but Jesus Christ the camera in this game is annoying as all hell.

 

I just killed my 8th colossus, and I am at the stage where I have to really push myself to complete the game. It's a shame because the colossi are beautifully animated and some of the fight mechanics are really interesting. 

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I'm trying to finally finish the PS3 HD version (Which we started 5 years ago on Idlethumbs community playthrough) so I can move on to playing the PS4 and I can't wait to see how they unfucked the controls and camera. Like seriously anyone who has suffered through some of the hard mode time attacks to get all the weapons should know that it's not really a test of skill but more of a test of patience with the game's physics and janky ass controls. Not to mention it seems like there's some kind of bug where some giants just constantly shake on hard mode unless you do convoluted things. (I'm looking at you bastard fuck #3, I beat that shit after hundreds of attempts over 6 hours)

While I fail to see why Team ICO ever made the design decision to have time attacks in a game that controls mostly like dogshit at least now I hear the time attacks are feasible for common players and they can get all if not most of the items without breaking a controller. Seems nice.

It honestly seems like adding in weapons as DLC is fine even though some consider it sacrilege. I never understood the reason for having weapons only appear after doing time attacks on New Game+. I feel like the game would have been more fun if you could have earned some of the less game breaking ones (no one hit sword of course) like fire arrows, whistling arrows, extra defense cloak, and extra damage mask in the first playthrough. Plus for anyone interested in scavenger hunts or making the game easier in terms of extra stamina and health, it never made sense to me that you don't earn the ability to know the lizard and fruit locations at some point in the first playthrough. I don't know what the point is for designing 16 extra abilities and items if only a small percentage of gamers will ever see them.

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2 hours ago, syntheticgerbil said:

I'm trying to finally finish the PS3 HD version (Which we started 5 years ago on Idlethumbs community playthrough) so I can move on to playing the PS4 and I can't wait to see how they unfucked the controls and camera. Like seriously anyone who has suffered through some of the hard mode time attacks to get all the weapons should know that it's not really a test of skill but more of a test of patience with the game's physics and janky ass controls.

 

I'm really looking forward to hearing your comparison of the different versions. I have only played the PS4 remake, and I loved pretty much everything about the game apart from actually playing it. The final fight was 100% against the camera and janky-ass camera-relative moving controls and not the actual boss itself.

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It's funny to read takes about the controls. I played on PS2 five or so years ago and I honestly don't remember even thinking about them. I remember thinking that 'gripping' with the shoulder button was pretty cool.

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I played the PS3 version 3 years ago and loved it. I think my main criticism was just how confined and strict the solutions/paths to defeating the colossi were. Then again, a more organic and dynamic system would have been probably infeasible here.

 

The discussion about how the original and the new(est) version differ aesthetically is really interesting - at the same time I think a lot was lost in the remake but also that the new game is indeed quite gorgeous.

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On 3/2/2018 at 5:47 PM, Nappi said:

 

I'm really looking forward to hearing your comparison of the different versions. I have only played the PS4 remake, and I loved pretty much everything about the game apart from actually playing it. The final fight was 100% against the camera and janky-ass camera-relative moving controls and not the actual boss itself.

I think I'll end up loving the PS4 one more, because as is, the PS3 one is something I wish I loved more. I don't enjoy it as much as ICO, even though I think I should since I really love giant boss fights? Haven't played The Last Guardian yet.

 

I don't know why but I was one of the only few to make it out to the end of the Idlethumbs forum playthrough of the game long ago, and even then I found it somewhat painful. It was possible I was just having a bad time in my life or that I just often didn't know what to do on each colossus, but I had a better time replaying it on hard this time around on PS3 two weeks ago.

 

Just checking out some screenshot and video comparisons with the new versions, I do know I already miss the blown out lighting and the muddy shadows but I'm wondering if I will forget that upon starting the PS4 one. The differences with Wander's face between the models is a little jarring, but since there are very rarely any parts where his facial expressions are on display, so I'm not sure I have much loyalty to the original.

 

On 3/2/2018 at 7:22 PM, dartmonkey said:

It's funny to read takes about the controls. I played on PS2 five or so years ago and I honestly don't remember even thinking about them. I remember thinking that 'gripping' with the shoulder button was pretty cool.

Maybe controls isn't exactly the right way to sum it up. It's a combination of wonky physics and more "unresponsive" controls. The jumping is kind of yuck feeling sometimes when you are just trying to scale something that is about 4 feet and bouncing off the edge, but then it can feel amazing when jumping from a ledge up high down to a colossus. Getting some of the lizards on the "scaleable" rocks sort of makes me feel queasy because you just kind of mash X around the top edge rounded low poly objects that doesn't seem level enough to properly scale. Also I don't know what it is, but getting on the horse even when standing still can usually mean you have to jump straight up 3-4 times until you are in the exact position.

 

I think maybe I could do with more than one swing of the sword with the attack button, but instead it's a lunge and Wander stops dead. Really these are little issues that fall outside of the colossi. Horse controls fine, I like being able to hold triangle and it will sometimes pathfind for me so I don't have to meticulously steer a horse, so kudos. I think the general idea of how they should work is great and really not that complicated.

 

What really breaks it down is you start hyperfocusing on the lack of refinement when doing time attacks. Like the amount of times where I have been on a level surface with colossus weakpoint, no shaking, and holding R1 means Wander suddenly starts hanging sideways 90 degrees is infuriating. It's readily apparent every time you down the gecko looking colossus. There's so many jumps from either shaky surfaces or colossi where you have to jump from the very edge but at the last minute either the controls fail (more on that) or the platform below you briefly comes out from under your feet for a few milliseconds and then you just fall.

 

Also there are cutscenes in the middle of boss fights sometimes that aren't actually true cutscenes and you can move Wander while they happen.Sometimes you can die or take damage in the middle of the cutscene despite not pressing anything should a rock or something fall on you or your character is under a colossus foot when it's done loading.

 

I think though what pisses me off most is whoever made the decision to have Wander stay down for so long when seriously hurt. There are bosses where you can't get up and then they keep attacking you while down and you die. You can lose like 10 minutes of your life just because of a mistake like that (here's looking at you #15). The fireballs on the last colossus hilariously try to give you some mercy by waiting for you to get up unlike other bosses, but sometimes it seems a big bugged and he just shoots fireballs at you until you die. So sometimes the game basically can turn into a one hit kill situation that you have to wait on.

But on top of all of this, Fumito Ueda specifically said in one interview (which I can't find at the moment thanks to the PS4 version taking over all newsfeeds) that control failure was programmed into Shadow of the Colossus, in order to give a sense of your own frailty. So button presses just sometimes won't do something you want it to do because that's how it's supposed to be.
 

I mean I get it, I'm pretty sure ICO was also made to be like that, feeling very weak. And I can forgive all this roughness if there just weren't time attacks to go along with the end of the game to see everything. So even though I do see some PS4 reviews complain about the controls, I can't imagine they are in anyway as bad as the original. Like if they built it from the ground up how can it be worse? The only thing I have to go by is the difficulty rating for the platinum at playstationstrophies.org and it is significantly lower, so I'm going to guess all is well and good now.

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The Remaster's devs are working on yet another remaster at the moment.

 

I thought it could be of interest to people here. Are there any games you would be looking forward to a remaster of?

 

Personally, hearing this just makes me think of how much I hate the lack of backwards compatibility of consoles, leading to the same games being sold to consumers over and over again.

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I mean Austin represent and all, but maybe it really is time they venture out on their own after this? They are probably right that there's not many designers worth their salt in Austin. But I wonder if the next remaster is ICO then. I think if I'm going to go on a remake not only for graphics but controls as well, much like Shadow, I would choose maybe the Prince of Persia trilogy? Ubisoft had the HD PS3 release but none looked as good as Forgotten Sands. If this sort of thing happened, I would hope they would rewrite, rerecord, and remodel all of the characters in Warrior Within. Gameplay on that was great but ech. I actually really like Two Thrones and feel like it was given a bad rep for unfortunately following Warrior Within.

 

But hey guys I started the PS4 one today after finishing off all the trophies on the PS3 one. God is it amazing looking. The art direction is much more moody than PS3 but that's okay, I think it's just gorgeous. I really love looking at the grass. I think maybe these are some of the best realistic graphics I've seen in a while outside of Uncharted 4. Still really not so into the change in Wander's face, but Mono looks the same and is perfect. I like the new flares to Argo's animations, plus little things like floating dust clouds and fireflies. Just lovely.


And yes sure enough controls are much better now. I like that I can finally fucking dodge roll by just pressing a button instead of holding R1, analog stick, and pressing square at the same time. The lizards now have a little bit of bio luminescent glow to them to make them a little easier to see assuming you don't have the lizard stone. Also the lizards (which I felt always just looked like geckos) are more blump and cute now. I love it. Thank fucking god seeing the fruit in the fruit trees is much more manageable this time around. Sometimes a tree with really dull colored fruit would make me want to tear my hair out looking for it. I'm not so into the white on yellow fill up for the stamina circle but I suppose I'll get used to it.

 

Bluepoint really did just go all out on this. This is gonna be a treat, even if I have to play through it five times to get everything. I hope I have time to just sit in front of the TV all day for it soon.


Oh I had purchased the limited edition with the DLC weapons. No one is really missing anything. I'm not into spotted Argo, he looks like a cow. I'll be fine with the brown and white options later. The bow allows you to make the hit points highlight from far away by aiming but I think that sucks the fun out of it a bit. And I also have a cloak and sword that constnatly heal you a little bit faster, but I didn't really notice any significant difference. But those are in no way game breaking since health isn't such a big deal in this game outside of time attacks. It's always stamina that is most important.

 

Just wow though. I hope whatever Bluepoint is remaking next is something I really like.

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9 hours ago, Saltimbanco said:

I thought it could be of interest to people here. Are there any games you would be looking forward to a remaster of?

 

For some reason my first thought when I read this was 'oh of course they're doing Metal Gear Solid 4 next!' Which would not be totally outside the realms of possibility, given that they did such a great job on the MGS HD collection.

 

MGS4 would certainly present some unique challenges - not least the frequent, loving and totally gratuitous references to the power of the PS3 - so I'm not sure it'll ever happen. It is perhaps a bit too niche, too expensive, too weird.

 

More likely answer is Demon's Souls. Which is weird in its own way but people do love those Souls games - and there's a lot you could fix if you went back to that one. Ico could happen but I find it hard to imagine them putting that out as a full-price remake again.

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