Idle Forums Game Club 2 - Shadow of the Colossus edition

[Sno]

Fire Emblem Awakening has been eating up my free time, but i intend to catch back up on this before next week. I believe i need to do last week's and this week's.

Also, there's a rumor going around now that Last Guardian has been delayed to the PS4.

[youmeyou]

Heard that rumor too, which is pretty exciting. Though it's less 'delayed' and more like 'it may actually happen.' Its felt like a foregone conclusion for a while now that LG would be a PS4 game.

[Erkki]

With people falling behind, should we change our schedule to 2 weeks per colossus?

 

I also had to catch up a bit and felled 6th and 7th in the same sitting. Quite enjoyed both of them.

 

6th spoiler:

I liked 6th's beard. Took me a bit to figure out how to get on him, and then I hit the somewhat frustrating bit of not being able to climb as I was constantly holding on by one hand (I did put the sword away), but after a couple of tries I got up there and finished him (he killed me once or twice first, though).

 

I also found some save lizards and lots of fruit (ok maybe just 7-8). Even as a somewhat red-green colorblind guy, finding the fruit wasn't THAT difficult, but occasionally I kept circling around a tree to see if I missed any.

 

7th spoiler:

I think this and the flying beast are my favourites so far. This one managed to kill me a few times before I realized to let go. Hmm... not much to say about it, though.

 

Also I'm now thinking back to the first time I played Shadow of the Colossus and I can't recall how many I killed then. I thought it was only 4-5, but this one was definitely among them and at least one more that I haven't seen yet on this playthrough, so it must have been 8 or more. I don't remember completing it, though.

[syntheticgerbil]

Yeah I can't get back to it for the next two weeks. I will catch up though.

[Sno]

So we're on the seventh, right now? How about we make this one two weeks? It does seem like we've all fallen a bit behind.

[blackmamba]

Ah! One of my favorite games! I gotta catch up then.

 

I still remember the eel colossus being one of the unnerving moments in gaming for me. Seeing Wander float in the water with the huge shadow of the beast beneath him brought back all my worst fears of swimming in the ocean.

[miffy495]

I'm still waiting for my chance to get to 6, but with two weeks for 6 and 7, that's no issue for me. I hope, anyway. I thought I'd be doing stuff this past holiday weekend, but instead just wasted my time not even playing a damn game. Felt good to legitimately do NOTHING though.

[miffy495]

I need to be planning a science lesson tonight, but before sitting down to do that I decided to get another colossus killed. 6 is down. I'm now really close to where I was when I stopped playing the game the first time. I think it was number 8? The last one I remember killing

was a kinda small-ish lizardy guy that I had to shoot in the stomach while he crawled around outside walls.

Sound familiar?

 

Number 6 is the first time so far that I've really felt like I've taken a journey to get anywhere. Even though it only took 15 minutes (and that's stopping for 3 lizards and 4 pieces of fruit!) I felt like I covered a lot of ground just getting to him. Killing the thing itself wasn't anything particularly standout for me, but I really appreciated the trip to him this time. 5 remains my favourite colossus, but playing tonight really did trigger a nice wave of emotion as I emerged into the desert.

[tegan]

Seventh Colossus (Hydrus) thoughts:

Hydrus is one of the finnicky colossi where I'm never entirely certain if I'm doing it right. I'm still not certain what triggers him to attack you. I think you just have to be moving on the surface of the water. And it's not really clear how close you have to be to one of his protrusions to take damage from it. I took a lot more damage on this one than I have previously, partially because I ran out of stamina while latched onto him at the very bottom of the lake. I still pulled through fine in the end, though. Still haven't died yet in this run!

Worth noting: This would be the first colossus that seems to be capable of generating electricity, which is about to become a recurring thing. I wonder if there's any sort of deliberate commentary there about the people of the forbidden land and exactly what kind of power they had harnessed. I remember someone once pointed out to me that the forbidden magic referred to in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess bears a lot more resemblance to technology than magic, and I feel like maybe I'm having a similar revelation here.

Next time: The halfway point!

[Sno]

I think we're agreed to be taking a break next week since a bunch of us fell behind.

I'll definitely set aside some time to get caught back up.

[miffy495]

I have now totally caught back up, after deciding to take a brain break tonight and take down a colossus. Three more lizards down, too! Last time I played this game, I had no idea that the lizards existed, so this is making a big change in how I'm playing the game. This one was awesome. I've had such a good time with the colossi that aren't land-based, and I hope there's a bunch more of those to come in the back half of the game. Like tegan, I still have yet to die, which is pretty sweet. If the "Thy next foe..." hint is the one I think that it is, next week's colossus is the last one that I beat in my first run at the game 7 years ago. I never saw anything past that point, so this is starting to get exciting for me. After colossus 8, we'll be in totally new territory for me, and I'm stoked to see what the game has in store.

[Erkki]

I actually raced ahead a bit and have defeated 9 colossi -- I was at my parents' where my PS3 still is with nothing else to do and wanted to find a colossus I hadn't met yet in my previous playthrough. Well, I remember the 9th and can think of at least one more that I haven't seen this time, so I'm beginning to wonder if I maybe actually finished the game the first time after all, but my memory of that has somewhy been wiped.

[Cerik]

Wow this is awesome, I love seeing people's reactions to my all time favorite game. Best of luck to you guys. (I'd join along if I could, but unfortunately I've scratched my copy too many times to be playable...)

 

 

 
Nice tips! Did you know you could also make your horse turn a full 180 by inputting the horse dash twice? Also I tend to see lots of people tap the X button to make Agro go when holding it is enough. (Agro's a girl btw! You can imagine my surprise when I found out after three years of debating she was a male...)

 

Never experienced the sword climbing trick either, I wonder if they changed it in the PS3 version?

[Sno]

So it's tuesday, anybody have input on whether or not we put this on pause for a week so the few of us that have fallen behind can catch up?

Otherwise, it's onto the eighth.

To me, it doesn't make any real difference, i have a bunch of the game to catch up on regardless, and i'm actually thinking it might be bad to stall the club for people who are keeping up.

[twmac]

I have a confession to make: I have not unwrapped the PS3 copy yet.

 

I am planning to play this on the weekend and try and get as far as possible to catch up.

 

I feel very guilty.

[syntheticgerbil]

Hah, I came into this thread to ask if we were supposed to have killed the 8th Colossus next, as I just finished with 5, 6, and 7, but it appears I am now on schedule again.

I don't know what to say about 5, 6, and 7, except that they felt much easier than the first four. Maybe I'm just getting more used to this game's quirks? I think I forgot how to spot the weak spots before climbing the colossi. I shine the sword on them, correct? It seemed to not be working correctly so I just went ahead and jumped on the guys, shuffling around blank areas until a weak spot lit up. Does the weak spot reveal only work with some colossi maybe?

I keep meaning to ask this every time I post: The sound the game makes when you pick up a lizard tail or fruit, is that the official Playstation noise from the commercials or am I just imagining things? Is Shadow the origin of the sound?

Also I keep forgetting, but is this game in any way connected to the story of Ico? I see the shadow people are similar but not the same, but that's about it in terms of connection I get outside of any known intention besides the architecture.

[Sno]

SotC is supposed to be a distant prequel to Ico.

[Cerik]

The Colossi sigils appear if you have your sword drawn. You can also pinpoint them by shining the ancient sword but you have to be in a sunlit area.

 

I never noticed how similar the PS2 and SotC white tail sound effects were, but I believe they're slightly different. PS2 has played that sound effect since it was released in the early 2000s (I think).

[syntheticgerbil]

Ah okay, maybe it was because the sunlight wasn't strong enough for 5? 6 and 7 make sense since the former is inside and the latter is underwater.

[Cerik]

Yeah #5's area is very dim and foggy. Sometimes you can get a weak signal out of the sword though, it's all relative to how strong or weak the light level is.

[tegan]

Also I keep forgetting, but is this game in any way connected to the story of Ico? I see the shadow people are similar but not the same, but that's about it in terms of connection I get outside of any known intention besides the architecture.

 

End of the game spoiler:

Wander is the predecessor to the line of horned boys from Ico.

[elmuerte]

oh yeah... still no progress on my side

[elmuerte]

Killed 5 and 6 today. Or at least, the flying thing, and the beardy guy. Am I on track again?

 

Is it just me, or is killing these titans tedious as hell.

[Sno]

We're on the 7th.

[miffy495]

Yeah, you're one behind El Muerte. The next one is totally fantastic. So far, 6 has been the only one I've found a little tedious, so I'm with you on that. That said, if you thought that 5 was boring, I have no idea what could save this game for you. 5 and 7 are both goddamned amazing in my eyes.