Idle Forums Game Club 2 - Shadow of the Colossus edition

[Yasawas]

Hmm. I had a lovely cup of tea while I watched the intro and really enjoyed it, I'm a sucker for this type of setting though.

The first colossus is not a challenge at all but I love the reveal once you've done a bit of clumsy platforming up the cliff before it. It is a nice, fairly lenient introduction to the game (I got to about five on the PS2 from what I recall) and still a visually impressive spectacle I think, watching this massive thing shamble about as you climb up his hairy arse. And the music! So good. A very enjoyable experience, and I didn't intend to and I've got plenty of other things to play but I might go and have a stab at number two later.

Enjoy the game, and probably set aside some time to explore for fruit and white-tailed lizards. Heh.

I shot something that I guess was fruit out of a tree and picked it up but I didn't notice it doing anything, does it serve a purpose?

Also, do all the colossi exist in the world at the same time or only the next one I'm going after?

[Thrik]

The first thing I did when I played was go exploring the world. I was pretty disappointed as it's more or less a ghost landscape, and felt pointless in the same way a lot of LA Noire's city did. So I doubt the other Colossussusses are around until their cue, as I'm sure I'd have spotted at least one and many of the areas seemed orientated towards offering a big battleground.

[osmosisch]

Colossi aren't around but there are lizards you can find that boost one of your meters if I'm not mistaken.

[melmer]

Fruit boosts your health a tiny bit and lizards boost your stamina...clinging ability.

[Sno]

Not just lizards, specifically the white-tailed lizards. Kill them with arrows and then eat them to increase your stamina, you can usually find one hanging around each of the save ruins. (If you're having trouble hitting them, don't forget that you can zoom in with the bow.)

There are other lizards, but i don't believe they do anything. There's a lot of wildlife in the game that is just there to be there.

Additionally, there's a certain kind of tree that you will notice throughout the game world that will frequently be bearing fruit, you can shoot those down with arrows and those will increase your health.

The stamina upgrades are actually much more important.

[elmuerte]

save ruins?

[Sno]

There are save points scattered all around the game world.

[Sno]

Alright, just did the first colossus, it took like... twenty minutes or so.

I'm playing on the hard difficulty, so i was checking out some videos on youtube to confirm the differences between the two difficulties, and noticed that the PS3 remake has a ton of tutorial prompts that do not exist in the PS2 game. That's kind of weird. The game has a strange and elaborate control scheme though, so it's probably for the best.

The first colossus and notes about the different difficulties:

There's not much to this fight, the main thing i want to talk about ties into why i think the game is rebalanced in a really interesting way for its hard difficulty.

On normal, this colossus has only one weakpoint and it's on his head. It's a straight climb up his back and to his head. On hard, he has twice as much health and an additional weak point half way down his right arm. The fight becomes more difficult because it's forcing you to climb to a more precarious location on the colossus that the normal difficulty never requires you to reach. (On the hard difficulty, the colossi are also generally much more aggressive about trying to shake you off, giving you much smaller windows for movement and attack.)

As another random note, when i had first played this game, i think i had just assumed that the language being spoken was japanese. Playing it now, it is clearly not the case. In the interim, i've probably just played enough japanese games with enough japanese voice work to be able to tell the difference. Heh.

The colossi also apparently all have individual proper names that were revealed by the development team only in a japanese art book, i don't know if we want to make note of those here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yv04c6bpMY

Also, just... that ost is phenomenal.

[darthbator]

Can't you also grab onto the hawk that sometimes shows up flying above you... Apparently not can't you shoot it down? I remember them having some kind of purpose (or being as convinced they did then as I am right now).

[Sno]

^ I don't know how i feel about the PS3 version turning this into a trophy. So many of the things about SotC's world felt so natural and organic, tacking rewards to them seems wrong.

Some other various hidden things in the game that are only mild spoilers, but tagged as a courtesy:

You can also climb the exterior of the massive tower at the center of the game world, but it requires nearly maxed out stamina to do. It's a fun, complicated path up there, but there's nothing at the top, just a small and mostly empty garden. (I've read that there's a single "poison" fruit that permanently reduces your health, but i never ran into that when i did the tower climb years ago.)

There's also the whole time trial thing that lets you unlock a bunch of very Zelda-esque extra items for the game, though I never did that, so i'm not even entirely clear on where or how you access the time trials. Still, I did always find it a really interesting choice to have stuff like that in the game, but have it all hidden away so the main experience would be so deliberately focused on such a small set of tools.

[tegan]

You can also grab onto certain big fish as well.

Sno:

You access time trials by praying in front of each colossus' statue in the main temple after beating the game. Most of the items just change your stats though, so you can do things like stab twice as hard or take less damage.

[melmer]

Hawk and fish grabbing.... WAT. I never knew about any of that.

I played through the game twice, when it was original released and HD version quite recently. I've never touched the time trials or the hard mode.

I'm pretty sure when i played through it originally i only picked up some fruit but it makes such a minute change to your health bar i didn't realise it did anything then didn't really bother looking, same with the lizards i don't think i even got one... it's almost like that stuff is optional extras in the world also, they're so subtly implemented you can easily play through the whole game without ever picking any up

[Lu]

I started it. Thrik mentioned that he was disappointed the world was pretty much a ghost landscape, but that's kind of what I love about it. It is a pretty desolate place, but it feels completely appropriate. The various ruins you come across and the clues in the landscape that there was more there once. If you look close, you suddenly see little critters scurrying around and all these great little details and it's those things that make the world feel like a real, alive place; despite its lonely emptiness.

A little detail I had never noticed before: On my way to the first colossus I passed a tree that looked like it had a fruit in it. I jumped off and as I was trying to find it, Agro walked over to the small pond near the tree and starting drinking from it. Cool?! You decide.

[elmuerte]

Maybe I should boot up the game and look around a bit. So I can save at some save ruins, right? Is the starting place a save ruin?

[melmer]

I don't think you can save at the start temple... you save at these grave stone at the save ruins

Save ruin:

[melmer]

These are really pretty (spoilers if you haven't played the game)

http://venuspatrol.com/2012/10/venus-patrol-presents-james-gilleards-shadow-of-the-colossus-tribute-gallery/

[Lu]

There is a save ruin at start place, but it's outside. Head down the save ruins on your save ruin, or just save ruin, and in between the save ruins against the save ruin, there should be a save ruin where you can save.

http://venuspatrol.c...ribute-gallery/

Save. Ruin.

[tegan]

You can save at the foot of the entrance to the ruins you start at.

[melmer]

yeah at the save ruin.

i wasn't 100% sure if there was a save ruin at the starting ruin which as it turns out is totally a save ruin, so you can go right ahead and save at that save ruin

[elmuerte]

Ok, so I saved some fruit from a tree and a lizard from its white tail. These are hidden quite well, and the camera doesn't help. Afterwards I saved by saving at the save ruin to save.

btw, I don't think there are different lizards, just one lizard and you can "cut" its silver/white tail and eat it.

[melmer]

The white tail lizards hang out at the Save Ruins™. Lets call them Save Ruin™ lizards or Save Ruinzards™. But you'll occasionally find black tail lizards scurrying around out in the open. There is no benefit in murdering these lizards other than pure enjoyment.

The game should be called Shadow of the Save Ruin: Lizard Murderer

[tegan]

There are some white-tailed lizards out in the open, too.

Side note: there are trophies in the PS3 version for eating all of the fruit in the world, killing all of the white-tailed lizards, and saving at every save ruin. This sounds stupid, but it's a great way of knowing when you've seen everything there is to see.

My favourite thing about this game's world is that not only is it huge; but if you only follow the optimal paths you'll only see maybe 60% of it. I try to set out in a different direction every time I load the game up just to find more save ruins and such, and I've still never seen the whole thing.

Also, if you climb to the top of a save ruin and let the camera compose itself, it pretty much always shows you a spectacular view that somebody clearly put a lot of work into.

[Sno]

I wouldn't set out to hunt down all of the fruit and white-tailed lizards right up front though, you'd just throw off the difficulty curve in the game.

You're kind of meant to come across them as you traverse the world to get between the different colossus lairs, going to more and more distant areas of the map as the game progresses.

Also, if you climb to the top of a save ruin and let the camera compose itself, it pretty much always shows you a spectacular view that somebody clearly put a lot of work into.

It's quite like the towers in Assassin's Creed, hey?

[Raethen]

I think the camera does that in general when ever you stop for a bit. It tries to find the most scenic view and from what I recall, it does an excellent job.

[Sno]

SotC has a really superb camera just in general.