Idle Forums Game Club 2 - Shadow of the Colossus edition

[syntheticgerbil]

For guys like you who are compelled to collect it's pretty much a death sentence for your enjoyment of the game. If you stick to the colossi all that crap isn't quite so blatant and the game's strengths somewhat balance out. Not that I finished it, I got bored.

In fact, collectible shit is often one of the laziest and shittiest parts of any game. You should break that habit unless you really, really like a game.

Well I was just arguing with someone at work who loves this game and he sticks with the idea that the collectables coming off as subdued and unimportant is a feature as so not to break immersion. But unless we are talking about gleeful platformers, I think you can do collectables in great ways that feel good. The good thing about the Shadow collectables is looking at the guide I have about 60% of it for about 3 hours of work, that isn't really terrible, it was just boring.

I think of all MGS games, almost any Zelda game, Brutal Legend, and Beyond Good and Evil as fun games with collectables. They also aren't incredibly hard to find. Brutal Legend is the only open world one and open world games tend to have the most unfun collectables, which SotC has. Zelda, Beyond Good and Evil and Metal Gear Solid games tend to beckon you with you areas you can see but can't reach, maybe peering through a vent or seeing a locked door where you are curious about what's inside. But I guess both of those games were not open world so exploration was more defined and therefore more streamlined. But I feel like the design behind the object placement is there and feels good and rewarding every time.

I think with SotC if I were to fix the issue of collectables, I would have done 4-5 lizards each around the areas you open to fight the colossi and some on the save point temples (as these are easy to see on the horizon) and that would be the end of it. The fruit tress could have been the side hanging trees only with the same amount of fruit each and this all would have been fine, collision detection issues aside.

It's funny because when I first tried the game half a year ago I didn't even know there were collectibles in this game. I got five collosi in and never bothered to shoot a fruit let alone slice a lizard. It's only because of comments here that I've even attempted to engage with that side of the game.

I mean that's the thing, I feel like if the collectables are confined to an easter egg for all intents and purposes for more than 60% of players (my guess), why would the designers even bother putting them in?

[Sno]

Man, what are you doing? Don't do that, nooo! Resist the completionist urges!

Like i said earlier, i think you're meant to stumble across the fruits and white-tailed lizards as you travel between the tower and the colossus lairs. It creates a relatively natural progression that scales pretty well with the gradually increasing difficulty.

I have a tendency to get really wrapped up in completionist bullshit sometimes, but SotC never did that to me on the PS2, and i think a big part of it was the game never really acknowledging that they were even there. Nothing to tell you how many you had and how many were left, and no completion reward for your trouble. I played through SotC several times, and i always ended up just getting however many i felt i needed to be able to finish the game without much trouble.

I feel like this might be another thing where the trophies on the PS3 version are creating a different experience. Even if you aren't specifically going for that collection trophy, there's still that little thing there saying "Hey, you should do this."

As for the Colossus fight, a couple things:

1- You can use the sword's light reflection ability to identify weak points on the Colossus.

2- Climbing vertical surfaces is made significantly easier when you realize you can jump from a hold, you can even charge your jumps to fly higher.

[youmeyou]

The problem with 2 is there is no indication either explicit or through context leading up to the first fight that this is possible. Let alone how the sword charging meter works. I don't know how one learns naturally that its a sort of bowling mini game, as I was told by friends who were watching me play.

[Sno]

The problem with 2 is there is no indication either explicit or through context leading up to the first fight that this is possible. Let alone how the sword charging meter works. I don't know how one learns naturally that its a sort of bowling mini game, as I was told by friends who were watching me play.

You need to jump from hand holds to climb up the ledges on the path leading to the first Colossus, isn't that enough?

...

Wait, what is this about the charge meter? I mean, when you charge to jump from a hand hold or raise your sword for a charged attack, the bigger the circle in the stamina gauge is, the more powerful the jump/attack is.

That's all it is.

[youmeyou]

Even that little there was I had to have explained to me. Who knows when I would have figured it out on my own? The tutorilizing that teaches jumping up ledges is great, and I applaud it, but you're still missing some valuable info (which you've just described) when you face the first colossus.

[syntheticgerbil]

Wait are you saying you can charge your jump? If so how?

Or are you saying you can charge your jump up from a hold, so like when I'm gripping R1 do I press and hold triangle to jump up higher?

Also I think you guys are talking about how you are on the colossus and you raise your sword for a bit by holding square and then (I think) pressing square again. Does this do any different than tapping square a bunch? I couldn't perceive any difference but maybe it's just because of the first colossus.

But on the lizards, no point turning back now. Yeah I am going for the max stamina trophy, but all it means is just one less playthrough if I get the lizards first time through without the indicator. I'm going to to get the rest of the collection junk when we do the second colossus, so the rest will be smooth sailing now that those are out of the way. My health bar is already 3 times or so of what I started with. Stamina didn't seem to change much.

[Sno]

When you're hanging from a vertical surface, whether it's a hand hold or colossus fur, you can hold triangle to charge a jump to propel yourself upwards. The longer you hold down the button, the stronger the jump will be.

The same applies to the sword, charge those attacks. A charged stab will do significantly more damage that just rapidly spamming the stab.

[toblix]

I've completed the first colossus, so ...

I remember that the first time I played through the game, I knew nothing about it other than what the game told me, so I came across the save ruins and lizards all by myself. I probably didn't collect that many, and I certainly never went on a completionist run for all of them, and still managed to finish just fine. If this game was released today, it would have an achievement for finding all the lizards and I would find them all and hate the game.

[miffy495]

I'm now two colossi in. Going to try and make a run at this, though school starts tomorrow so who knows. I remember the first few being kinda underwhelming before the shit starts getting weird around colossus 4 or 5. Whichever one you had to

catch in mid air while it was flying

was when I really got hooked the first time. Then I only beat a few more before life took over. Hopefully I can go for the whole 16 here, as I'd really like to not have this game on my guilt pile forever.

[Sno]

Do we even have any consensus about how far into the game we should be right now?

Are we fully on phase two, now? People moving ahead with that second Colossus this week?

[toblix]

I'm probably just going to wait until people start talking about taking the second one like it's the normal, expected thing to do.

[elmuerte]

_{I thought we were going to kill the second guy after the 14th.}

[Sno]

That's what i'm pushing for and that's what i'm going to stick to.

We've clearly had a lot of people just starting with this thing this week, so i don't think it's right to move on ahead already.

From the 14th out though, one a week, then?

[youmeyou]

I'm cool with that. Should be a better compromise between those just getting around to starting and those already chomping at the bit.

[miffy495]

I just wanted to make sure that if school ramped up on my fast (my courses are only 5 weeks this term, followed by an 8 week practicum, so things will probably be hectic) that I was at least up to being able to start the third thing. Once I start getting to colossi that I haven't faced before, or anything jumps out at me that I want to talk about, I'll gladly keep it as a note until the actual topic comes up. That is, of course, assuming I keep playing and don't just drown in homework and forget what games are until April. Either is a possibility.

[toblix]

You need to stick to the schedule, Miffy, or stay the fuck out this thread. Nobody said you could just go ahead and play without adhering to the established plan of progression. Jesus.

[miffy495]

I'm sorry. I'll go back to LittleBigPlanet Vita. I'll come back in a couple of weeks and see how everyone's doing, deal?

[toblix]

No, it's too late and you've ruined everything.

[melmer]

Save ruined everything!

[twmac]

Well I'll balance it out by having not started the HD remake. It is sealed, sitting on my coffee table at home.

I am going to be in Spain for a week so I promise to stab my way through at least three of the colossuses when I get back.

After I play some more Borderlands 1.

[elmuerte]

Tomorrow it's the 14th... So colossus #2 will go down.

[Sno]

Alright, yeah, consider us on Colossus #2.

The next finish date will be the 21st.

[toblix]

COLOSSUS 2: DESTROYED. I had forgotten how great traversing these things are, with the stumbling and jumping and grabbing on to shit.

I stopped by two save ruins on my way there, and one of them had a white-tail. I spent more time trying to hit that with a weapon than I did killing the colossus, as it kept running around on the ruin, escaping my bow-aim and sword-reach. Fucking lizards.

[youmeyou]

Were those save ruins on your way to the second colossus? I didn't see anything en route. Except for that damn bird kept swooping down and showing off.

It's true: running around atop a colossus feels so great. It boggles my mind that no one has effectively replicated this except for Dragon's Dogma. It's magical stuff.

[Erkki]

I finally was able to start playing this, and killed the first and second colossi. I played this on the PS2 years ago, maybe getting 5 or 6 of them, so it's still somewhat familiar, but I didn't remember many details.

Liked the climbing tutorial before the first one, but

I didn't see any fog when I climbed up. Somebody mentioned him being shrouded in fog.

PS do we need spoilers for stuff like this or not?

The second one I remembered from the first playthrough and it was really a piece of cake, but with both colossi I had some trouble with the grip. Any time the colossus was moving, I seemed to hit some kind of fell rhythm where I was about to move, then get interrupted, and thus several times in a row so I was holding down left or right for example, but all the kid did was let go with his other arm, grab again, let go, grab, let go, grab, let go.

I have to agree with syntheticgerbil, that the gameplay could use a lot more polishing. And while the camera can be good at times, it can also be infuriating, like when making turns to tight-ish places while riding Argo, and then this bit on the way to the 3rd colossus, which I guess I won't talk about until 3 days from now. But it has me stuck because of the camera, basically!