Idle Forums Game Club 2 - Shadow of the Colossus edition

[Sno]

Just did the second one, not a whole lot to say about it, it's one of the less involved and impressive fights in the game.

The first time i played the game years ago, i remember taking an embarrassingly long time figuring out that you needed to shoot arrows at the bottom of its hooves.

If the next one is the one i think it is, i'm looking forward to next week.

[tegan]

I'm all caught up now!

First colossus (Valus) thoughts:

I've always wondered; I know that the colossi only came about after people were exiled from the forbidden lands, so why do they look like they were harnessed by humans in some way? Are the clearly architectural details just there for aesthetic reasons, or did they deliberately armour themselves with pieces of human buildings, or what? It's especially noticeable with the first colossus for me, which straight-up has a balcony on its ass. Playing this through for the fourth or so time now I realize that the colossi are supposed to be modelled after the idols and not the other way around, but the idols all resemble animals or real-world ancient carved statues without that level of embellishment.

True story: the first time I ever played this game, I spent twenty goddamned minutes on this thing's calf before getting killed. It wasn't until I did the sensible thing and reversed all of the controls months later that I actually took Valus down.

Second colossus (Quadratus) thoughts:

I decided to take this one down the hard way, but just in case someone's new to the game: You can totally shoot the bottoms of Quadratus' hooves while it's walking if you aim just right, so you can skip the section where it rears up altogether. I have no idea if that's an intentional design choice or just a happy accident.

I'm not a huge fan of the quadruped colossi, but Quadratus is alright. I think it might have been the first one designed, since it strongly resembles (and clearly has the same animations as) the colossus in the Nico trailer from way back when SOTC was just a glimmer in Ueda's eye.

I hope that, if they do end up producing the movie, that they keep Dormin's voice as being both a male and female voice together. It really adds a lot to the character for me.

Next week: BEST COLOSSUS

EDIT: Had to.

[elmuerte]

I'm also up to speed. The camera is really annoying, it's always shifting away when I try to focus.

Number 2 wasn't much of a different experience than number 1.

[Erkki]

Next week: BEST COLOSSUS

EDIT: Had to.

That should say "Shadow AND The Colossus"!

[miffy495]

Wow, I honestly didn't know that Quadratus

reared up

. I'd always just beaten him the way that you described as "cheating". Weird.

Anyway, stoked to move on to the third colossus, but school has completely kicked into high gear this week, so I ironically may not get to. Going to do my best to find a chance.

[Sno]

I'm all caught up now!

First colossus (Valus) thoughts:

I've always wondered; I know that the colossi only came about after people were exiled from the forbidden lands, so why do they look like they were harnessed by humans in some way? Are the clearly architectural details just there for aesthetic reasons, or did they deliberately armour themselves with pieces of human buildings, or what? It's especially noticeable with the first colossus for me, which straight-up has a balcony on its ass. Playing this through for the fourth or so time now I realize that the colossi are supposed to be modelled after the idols and not the other way around, but the idols all resemble animals or real-world ancient carved statues without that level of embellishment.

True story: the first time I ever played this game, I spent twenty goddamned minutes on this thing's calf before getting killed. It wasn't until I did the sensible thing and reversed all of the controls months later that I actually took Valus down.

We might be getting way ahead of ourselves with this line of conversation, but...

Are you sure about the colossi coming about after people had left the forbidden lands? The game itself strongly implies that many locations were built specifically for the colossi, and some of the outside details i've heard support that.

Anyways, I've always found it interesting that the more primal and animalistic colossi tend towards having more bone-like protrusions of stone, while the bipedal ones feature much more defined structures as adornments. I mean, to just get it out there, I think they're golems. I don't know if that's made explicit anywhere, but with the distinct aesthetic of mud and stone, and destroying them by destroying magic sigils, it always seemed like an obvious conclusion to me. I feel that it's likely that the colossi were built to appear as they do. Perhaps that ass balcony was some manner of relic from its construction, its apparent uselessness being evidence of an advanced stage of decay. (Though that admittedly doesn't jive with the more animalistic colossi appearing much more intact and without any particular evidence of human construction. There's also the detail of them also generally displaying a much more benign attitude towards Wander, which runs contrary to their implied purpose.) Regardless, it's clearly evident that many of the colossi are no longer up to the task of defending themselves, with the upcoming third colossus and several others afterwards visibly crumbling to pieces as they strain to fight with Wander.

Yeah, you know what? Those of you who have not already finished the game either in the past or now should absolutely not read that above spoiler. I'm serious, don't. I didn't want to ignore the topic, but i don't want to influence how other people interpret the story while playing the game for the first time. (I'm breaking my own rules, what an asshole i am.)

Second colossus (Quadratus) thoughts:

I think it might have been the first one designed, since it strongly resembles (and clearly has the same animations as) the colossus in the Nico trailer from way back when SOTC was just a glimmer in Ueda's eye.

That's a good observation, i hadn't made that connection. Reading about the game recently, it also looks like quite a few colossi had been cut from the game as well.

EDIT: Had to.

I am amused by this, would it be okay if i stuck this in the original post as a logo for this whole thing?

[tegan]

We might be getting way ahead of ourselves with this line of conversation, but...

Are you sure about the colossi coming about after people had left the forbidden lands? The game itself strongly implies that many locations were built specifically for the colossi, and some of the outside details i've heard support that.

General game spoilers:

If I remember correctly, the colossi are stated to be pieces of Dormin's soul and Dormin's punishment marked the time when people left the forbidden lands. On the other hand, I suppose there's nothing to indicate if his soul was scattered placed into existing entities or not, but I always figured they just pulled themselves together from the earth. They do turn to stone when Dormin's soul leaves them, after all. It could even be that some of them assembled themselves from pieces of the earth that happened to have cities standing on it. They could even be physical manifestations of the gods that the people of the Forbidden Land worshipped, given that they're first encountered in the form of idols (that you can even pray to, eventually).

Massive game ending spoiler:

Also, when Wander is possessed by Dormin, he turns into something that clearly has the form of a colossus. I think that's just the shape that Dormin takes now.

I am amused by this, would it be okay if i stuck this in the original post as a logo for this whole thing?

Do it.

I wanted to do an alternate version that replaced Mono lying on the altar with Jeff Goldblum being found after the T-Rex attack in Jurassic Park, but I couldn't get a good enough Goldblum screencap.

[Sno]

Alright, so we're totally just discussing the end of the game here. Move along folks, nothing to see. Maybe check back in few months, interesting things are being said. (I'm so sorry.)

General game spoilers:

If I remember correctly, the colossi are stated to be pieces of Dormin's soul and Dormin's punishment marked the time when people left the forbidden lands. On the other hand, I suppose there's nothing to indicate if his soul was scattered placed into existing entities or not, but I always figured they just pulled themselves together from the earth. They do turn to stone when Dormin's soul leaves them, after all. It could even be that some of them assembled themselves from pieces of the earth that happened to have cities standing on it. They could even be physical manifestations of the gods that the people of the Forbidden Land worshipped, given that they're first encountered in the form of idols (that you can even pray to, eventually).

Massive game ending spoiler:

Also, when Wander is possessed by Dormin, he turns into something that clearly has the form of a colossus. I think that's just the shape that Dormin takes now.

Holy shit, spoilers!:

I had always generally believed that Dormin had been purposefully sealed in the forbidden land by its former inhabitants, pieces of his soul imprisoned in colossi that had been created explicitly for that purpose, and that your actions over the course of the game were Dormin manipulating you into breaking the seals that kept him imprisoned. I mean, i would argue that the colossi turn back into stone simply because you have destroyed the sigils that give them life, not because whichever piece of dormin's soul they had has left them. (I think the pieces of dormin's soul escaping into you as a new vessel are simply the inevitable and intended consequence.)

I never really bought into the interpretation that the form Wander takes on towards the end of the game is that of a proto-colossus. Though large, it's a very shadowy figure that i think has more in common with the various shadowy figures from across the two games.

Though I do like the idea that the colossi are manifested forms of gods represented by the idols. It would also fit nicely with wander being haunted by more and more shadowy figures as the game goes on, seemingly one for each destroyed colossi. (unless you want to simply interpret that those shadows as the pieces of Dormin's soul, prior to them coalescing at the end of the game.)

[syntheticgerbil]

So I just finished the second colossus as well as having gotten all of the fruits and lizards available in the overworld (the guide says there more lizards are at the last save point that I don't get to until much later).

The northern part of the world is certainly a lot more interesting looking than the southern part. Exploring this area for random crap was much more enjoyable, as the landscape was overall much more interesting and beautiful to look at. I found some turtles!

I really hope I didn't miss a lizard, but I guess I'll have to wait a few months to find out. I'm not sure if it would impact me at all to miss one since to get the platinum trophy for this game requires 4 normal playthroughs leading to maximum stamina. I think maybe getting the lizards every time could max out your stamina by the third playthrough or early on in the fourth? Not sure. I've already maxed out my health bar which is a bit strange, as I would think the stamina bar wouldn't have that much disparity between the max out of the two. I think that means I don't have to find fruit trees on future playthroughs until I decide to get the forbidden fruits?

I also took the time to mess around with Argo for the trophy as none of these horse controls are detailed in the manual. Kind of neat I can do 180 turns and charges, as well as NOW I KNOW I CAN RUN AND JUMP ON THE HORSE. I wish the manual had told me how to do that. Getting the game to recognize whether or not I wanted to get on the horse while pressing the triangle button was a crapshoot. I would usually spend a few attempts awkwardly jumping into the horse before mounting. Now that I know to press R1, I get on everytime! Not sure what I will do with the side saddle and standing moves though. Do these have use?

Again on the 2nd colossus as with the first, I didn't feel like I was tightly moving among a thing to kill it. I guess my imagination on how this game would play out isn't matching up.

I felt like I was just bouncing around bad collision detection again until winning. Also after reading everyone's posts, it seems I did it wrong. So I wasn't supposed to shoot under the hooves to start with? First time the giant leaned forward and I went up it's front left leg and found no way to get to the head from there. Then I fell back down from the shoulder platform and shot at the hooves again, this time going up the back leg, and made my way to the weak spot on the base of his tail and hit there. It seems like the colossus reared back a little after this but I couldn't tell from the perspective the camera was at. So my next step after this was just to clumsily jump across the spine bones to the head. Did I do this right? It felt like I was just using the bad trick I learned from traversing the land where I just spam triangle if I'm not making my way over a ledge as some of the back bones felt as if they should have been too high for me to jump over. I just sort of jittered over them.

[tegan]

Just as a side note, since I had spoilered this earlier:

You can totally remap nearly every input in this game guys. I mean, triangle for jump? That way lies madness.

Also, syntheticgerbil... holy shit.

[syntheticgerbil]

Haha, what part is the holiest shittiest?

But yeah I probably won't remap the buttons, I tend to not do that unless I'm really having issues. I usually mess with the way the camera views turn in both first and third person though, because that will often drive me nuts if I can't fix it the way I'm used to. And even then if I deal with inverse or normal camera controls for a certain game because I'm forced to, I will just drag that preference on to the next game I play.

[elmuerte]

R1+Triangle.. thanks, I've also been doing weird dances next to the horse to get on it.

I finished the second collosus by shooting at his back hoves when he moved and then walked up his rear leg. From there I jumped over his spine to take care of the head, and then continue to his ass. Why that order you ask? I thought I would run out of bubblegum.

[toblix]

Are there hidden horse codes now? Where did you find these weird controls you're all taking about?

[Sno]

Just take a running jump at your horse from the side and use the grab command to mount it.

That's all it is, it's an easier way to get on your horse when you're in the middle of a colossus battle, since the normal way of doing it, by just pressing jump, requires that your horse be still and you be in just the right position next to it.

I always thought it was kind of intuitive, you're using the grab on your horse like you would on anything else.

[toblix]

I've already completed the game once, and never knew this. This is an outrage!

[syntheticgerbil]

Go down to the Agro Circus trophy in this link: http://www.ps3trophies.org/forum/2166633-post6.html

Why they are hidden, I don't know. Maybe these were in the original manual for the game and not the HD one? They appear to love truncating a game's manual from 20 pages down to three paragraphs in all of the rereleases I've encountered so far.

[Sno]

Colossus #3! Go!

[Erkki]

I did #3 a couple of days ago. Getting to it was a pain. I was stuck in the part where you have to jump onto a rock from an upwards spiraling ramp and then from there to the platform. Whenever you are on top of the ramp and not fucking with the camera, the camera annoyingly turns into a direction facing the wrong side of the rock, which means your jump will miss if you run straight. Then you swim for 2 minutes to get back to the beginning of the walkway and try again. It took me around 7 attempts and was not fun, until I found the right angle I had to run at to compensate for the camera's will. I do not see the point of putting the player through such an exercise, but maybe this didn't seem like a big issue during testing.

This really wouldn't do in a modern game and I wonder if The Last Guardian will also be clumsy like this.

The colossus itself is more interesting than the previous two, but to get it to try to hit you in the way that you can climb it means running around on the smallish platform and sometimes it takes a fucking long time to get it right, or at least took me.

Overall I'm starting to feel the game is not really that great, although some aspects like the horse and the basic idea of fighting colossal things are awesome.

[Sno]

I think i know what part you're talking about, and i think you might have done it wrong.

The way the camera orients itself is trying to tell you to hang off the edge and push off with a charged jump. (While holding the analog stick away from the wall so Wander leans out for a horizontal leap.)

It should work on the first try without fail.

[Erkki]

I think i know what part you're talking about, and i think you might have done it wrong.

The way the camera orients itself is trying to tell you to hang off the edge and push off with a charged jump. (While holding the analog stick away from the wall so Wander leans out for a horizontal leap.)

It should work on the first try without fail.

I'm pretty sure it required a running jump, but I could be wrong. I'm talking about jumping onto the rectangular rock between the ramp and the large round platform. It has handholds on the side facing you the most, but not on the side the camera faces, if I remember correctly.

[Sno]

Okay, so it has you do a running jump to grab the hand holds on the rectangular block, and then you shuffle along those handholds to the other side. Once you reach the side facing the large circular stone platform, you're expected to charge jump from the handholds over to a ledge just off of the large circular platform and the camera swings around automatically to try and give you a clear view of that. (While you're charging the jump, you can hold the left analog stick to affect the direction that jump will execute in.)

That's the sequence we're talking about here, and i just did it in one go and didn't notice the camera doing anything problematic, so... I don't know.

So how about that third colossus. (The one with the duck face.)

So the solution, in case anybody is having trouble or did it completely by accident without realizing what they did, is that you have to get it to smash its sword down on the solid stone disc at the center of the large circular platform. That is what cracks its armor off.

I love how this colossus just seems to be crumbling to pieces as it strains to fight with Wander, appearing like it's in an advanced stage of decay. It was probably incredibly fearsome at one time, but isn't really up to the task of defending itself any longer.

This is probably one of the most visually impressive colossi in the game, but probably also the first one where you see some of the game's shortcomings. Since it's a very slender colossus covered in a ton of debris, you are left with very little room for navigation. It's easy to get caught up somewhere and have to dangerously release your grip to kind of unhinge yourself.

Anyways, how many sigils does this colossus have on the normal difficulty? On hard it has the one on the top of its head, one on the back of its left arm, and one on its stomach that requires a fairly risky and awesome jump from the damaged right arm.

[Erkki]

On normal, the third colossus has

2 sigils: stomach and head.

[youmeyou]

Could you spoiler that please?

[miffy495]

I just played this, as I finished the assignment that is due tomorrow a bit early and needed to give my brain a break before working on the one for Friday. Man, I was angry at it this time. I remembered loving the third colossus. Majestic, beautiful, melancholy. It's still all of those things, but in my memory, this game wasn't so damned hostile to its players.

That fucking jump up to the platform where the fight takes place took me at least 10 tries, and the amount of times I'd get to the apex of a stab only to be shaken away and have to start over was infuriating. Trying to definitively pierce that fucker's navel (this is the type of language that I was using by the end of this fight due to my frustration) took me about 15 minutes.

The amount of times that I would be lined up perfectly, get shaken around, and then miss stabbing a sigil due to a minor shift mid-animation was ridiculous. At one point, I was yelling at Wander "WHY ARE YOU HOLDING THERE? THAT'S NOT A PLACE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO HOLD! HOW DID YOU GET THERE? YOU WEREN'T ANYWHERE NEAR THERE BEFORE THE THING'S LAST ANIMATION STARTED!" In fact, with the amount of yelling at my TV to no effect that I was doing, I almost felt like I was playing a Kinect game. I feel like this game hates me and wants me to be angry at it. I don't remember this from when I was 17. I'll be going back for Colossus 4, but mostly because of this thread. If I didn't have you guys to push me here, I'd be tempted to say "fuck this shit" and move on. This makes me very sad, because I know it's a classic, and I remembered it so fondly from 2005. Talk about your shattered illusions.

Also, I have yet to find any fruit/lizards. What do other people have at this point? Am I just looking for the wrong things? (Gerbil, you don't need to answer due to the fact that I'm aware you're crazy and have them all.)

[syntheticgerbil]

The lizards are stupid hard to find, because I can't really see them unless I know where to look. I'm sure this is a case where having the HD version helps immensely. Best place to get a surefire white tailed lizard is at every save temple as there will always be one crawling around on it or the ground nearby. Some save temples have three lizards where you leave and come back to get the next.

Fruits are really hard to see unless they are orange, since often they are a beige color or an off green, making them really difficult to see.. They seem to only exist in large standing trees (look sort of like pines), trees that are bent, and the small trees around these. Don't bother looking around in the forested areas with tons of trees, since the designers were nice enough to have some mercy and not place them randomly around those areas.