Discussions on SotC is to be done HERE.
[I made this post so that the first post, which is sticky, doesn't have to be graphic heavy]
[I made this post so that the first post, which is sticky, doesn't have to be graphic heavy]
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Shadow of the Colossus
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1 Shadow of the Colossus Fri Dec 24, 2010 5:30 pm
Red
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2 Re: Shadow of the Colossus Fri Dec 24, 2010 5:38 pm
Red
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Shadow of the Colossus
Second game in the proposed trilogy by Team Ico (a division of Sony Computer Entertainment), this is definitely one of my favourites till date. The first in the series, Ico, I haven't played as of yet. Thanks to the PS2 I borrowed not reading the disc after the first couple of times I played it. But SotC is a hell of a game and thank God I could finish it without the damn thing crashing or making save errors. Oh and special thanks to my friend from college who let me borrow the PS2 and a whole lot of game discs for a couple of months.
Onto the game now. The game is about... a.... guy.... and his horse... and a girl... I think.... I dunno.
Well, that's the thing about this game. It doesn't tell you the entire story. It shows you what's happening and just that. It does not reveal any backstory and at times refuses to explain why some things are the way they are. So, I'll just tell you what I saw.... with pictures of course! ^_^
The huge-ass bridge to... THE FORBIDDDEN LAND!
Ooooh! Aaaaah!
Shadow of the Colossus begins with a man(Wanderer... yes, that's what they call him) on his horse(Agro) who travels through hills and mountains and valleys and forests and what-not to reach a place that is called the Forbidden Land. The Forbidden Land can be accessed from the outside world through only one huge mother-loving bridge.
Anybody hoooooome?
On the other side of the bridge is a huge-ass temple. It is called the Shrine of Worship but it's abandoned.
..pretty hot legs for a dead girl...
DON'T JUDGE ME!!!
He goes up to the main altar of the shrine and gets off his horse.That's when I noticed there was a package he was carrying. He unwraps it, what I first thought would be a rolled up carpet; it's a girl(Mono). But she's dead.
Agro is the best animal companion in any game EVAR!
He puts the dead girl on the altar. And then he makes a deal with this voice that comes from the bright ceiling of the shrine (Dormin) to bring the girl back from the dead. But for that he has to kill 16 colossi who roam the Forbidden Land. Sounds easy. He agrees.
From then on, it's you and Agro roaming a desolate uninhabited wasteland in search of the colossi your new employer tells you to take out. Yeah, you'll have to be an old god's errand boy and kill giants about a thousand times as big as you are. And that is no exaggeration. Trust me.
See! I told you it's no exaggeration!
What I really liked about the game is that it is so bloody simple. Take the orders from the bossman, kill 16 giants one-at-a-time. That's it. No annoying minion battles, no sidestories, no nothing. But there's plenty of challenge:
-Getting to the colossus' lair is pretty tough, considering you're the only human in the WHOLE GODDAMN MAP! Not a single soul but you and your horse and the 16 colossi you have to kill. The place is HUGE but there's just nobody home. You have an ancient magic sword that you can use to guide your way but it only works if there's enough sunlight. Enter a forest or a foggy place and you're most certainly lost.
-A colossus is a huge creature and it can only be killed if you get to its weak spot and stab it with your sword. But to climb onto a 100 foot tall beast while it's trying to kill you isn't what I'd call an easy ordeal.... unless you're Kratos.
The game is very minimalist in that it just has you and your horse and the bossbattles. No minions to fight, no leveling up required, no additional weapons (only your bow and arrow and your sword), no customisable underpants, no shops selling potions or armour, NOTHING. Nothing to make matters complex. It's just as easy as pie. Kill giants in hopes of bringing your girl back. End of story.
Awwww!
That's just the sweetest pic ever!
The landscape and surroundings are beautifully made. The gorges and canyons and lush green hills and the rivers and mountains and sand dunes and forrests and ruins and caves and EVERYTHING in the game is nothing short of WOW! The music is just awesome too. God bless Koh Otani, the composer. The soundtracks only show up rarely in the game but when they do, it totally transports you to the Forbidden Land and gives you a one-of-a-kind experince.
See what I mean?
Speaking of experience, the story is definitely the kind I've seen before. It's so abstract and mysterious that it doesn't even tell you if Mono and Wanderer were lovers or just friends or siblings even! It doesn't tell you anything. You are free to make whatever assumptions you feel fit and that way you derive a unique experience from the game which may or may not necessarily be what others got out of it. I call that genius on the part of Team Ico. Pure genius!
Team Ico plans to make a trilogy of games with "companionship" as the main theme. So the games are :
-Ico: A little boy with horns as protagonist, teamed up with a princess. Both of them trying to escape a castle where they are imprisoned.
-SotC: A warrior has to battle huge giant monsters with the aid of his horse to bring back a girl to life.
-?: Untitled as of yet and still in the works, Team Ico wants the third game to be like SotC but with a horned protagonist this time, like ICO. And a GRIFFIN for companion. Seriously, I CANNOT WAIT to.... see the teaser trailers.... coz I don't have an Xbox or a PS3 >_<
Shadow of the Colossus is the second game I've played in the PS2 and I love it ( first game was Burnout: Revenge and that is one hell of a wild ride)
SotC is one of those very few games that you run into without any or with very little expectations but after playing which, it leave you awestruck and you know you'll never forget how awesome it was. I put this game up there at the top of my favourite videogame lists maybe on the same level as Metal Gear Solid. Even with it's lack of characters, speech and fight sequences, this is one true GEM of a videogame. This is the Monalisa of videogames. Just a dumb chick smiling and it's amazing for the reason that you don't know who the broad is or why the heck she is smiling. More questions than answers and it's this confusion that makes her pretty. [chek out Omkar's "Monalisa: Hawt or Nawt" thread for more on that. Apparently she's not a lady at all O_O ]
RATING
An amazing 10/10
If your idea of a good game is beautiful gameplay and an even more amazing (mysterious) story, then you MUST play this before you die.
I definitely am going to buy it! I will buy it and play it over and over and over again till the damn controller breaks into pieces!
I'll make my wife and kids play it. If they don't like it, I'll beat them with a stick.
It's such a shame that it was never released for the PC. Shame...
3 Re: Shadow of the Colossus Wed Dec 29, 2010 1:28 pm
Ampitup
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Sweet sweet SotC. A rare gem in the world of gaming. I loved every aspect of it. The game in itself, like Red mentioned is very simple yet hard to play. Simple being the lack of minions and other side quests like find a big @$$ sword or weapon with a lot of power and so on. Hard - finding the huge colossi. Believe me, you can get lost big time in that huge place. You can't always access the correct route to them bosses even if the sword points in that direction. There's always some nook or corner you need to look at closely before finding the way. It has two worthy replay options. Beat it once either on easy/normal/hard (not sure if there are three modes..been a while since I played it) so all you do is load the new game, wait for it to start and hit circle at every colossi statue at any point of time. The character does a prayer stance and you will be taken to that colossus' lair where you need to kill it before the time runs out. For every one/two kills you unlock a specific weapon that you enable from the pause screen. Both modes have different weapons like one has the whistling arrow and the other an exploding one. You also get a sword that glows even without sunlight and a parachute type thing that you can use when falling from the colossus'. One of my favorites is the sword(?) or was it a cloak. Well anyway it increases the damage done so all you do is equip, hit the colossus and voila! almost half of the life bar goes down so you can use that time to get to the other weak spot.
Coming to side-quests, there are two; though I wouldn't actually call them quests. You find trees and use the arrows to shoot the fruit down, eat them and it grows your health meter. There is a specific variety of lizard found near save points (which are usually around the colossi lair), kill it and it'll leave a glowing tail. Consuming it will increase the grip meter. If you stand still the health and grip meter get filled gradually. I'll deviate a bit from the topic and talk about another game I like(d) Soul Reaver 2 Legacy of Kain for the ps1. Again, I haven't played that many games on the console but that game is prolly one of the games where you never die. Yea you heard me right, the character never dies =P. I'll give SotC 10/10 cuz it's worth it. Before I forget, you can change the color of Agro after finishing the game. Google for unlockables to know more (<- forgot everything).
Coming to side-quests, there are two; though I wouldn't actually call them quests. You find trees and use the arrows to shoot the fruit down, eat them and it grows your health meter. There is a specific variety of lizard found near save points (which are usually around the colossi lair), kill it and it'll leave a glowing tail. Consuming it will increase the grip meter. If you stand still the health and grip meter get filled gradually. I'll deviate a bit from the topic and talk about another game I like(d) Soul Reaver 2 Legacy of Kain for the ps1. Again, I haven't played that many games on the console but that game is prolly one of the games where you never die. Yea you heard me right, the character never dies =P. I'll give SotC 10/10 cuz it's worth it. Before I forget, you can change the color of Agro after finishing the game. Google for unlockables to know more (<- forgot everything).
4 Re: Shadow of the Colossus Tue May 03, 2011 5:54 pm
Arr0wHeaD
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So FRUSTRATING that this never came out for the PC.
I mean, What is it, team ICO? You're too good for PC? Huh? Is That it?
Dammit I have NO access to a PS2. Not sure if it's worth getting an emulator.
I mean, What is it, team ICO? You're too good for PC? Huh? Is That it?
Dammit I have NO access to a PS2. Not sure if it's worth getting an emulator.
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