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Thoughts on Shadow of the ColossusThe first post in a series on games I didn't likeSep-28-10, 6:55 pm by HanfordFile under: fun, tech, game design, Video games, Games I didnt like In talking with a lot of fellow gamers over the years, it turns out there's a ton of great games that for whatever reason I didn't like. I'm calling them "Great Games" because everyone loved them, deservedly. Except me. No, seriously. This is not about bad games. It's about truly great games that didn't hold my attention. Hopefully in reading this you'll discover some insights about game design. I know I did, when I wrote it. Shadow Of the ColossusThis particular post came in response to a Buzz my friend did for this article. I wrote a reply that I'm reposting here via Games I didn't like.
I loved ICO and played it to the end. Colossus on the other hand I only played for one session and never booted again. I killed 3 Colossus in that first session, although I remember it being frustrating as hell ... I just kept falling off the damn thing. To the point where I found my hand hurting -- I was instinctively gripping the controller as hard as I could in order to keep from falling. I remember being infuriated. After the 3rd beast fell, I thought "ok, I think I know what this is all about now." and took a break.I just never turned the game back on. I never felt compelled to see what the subsequent Colossus looked like or what variations on the kill method was. Especially if it meant my hand aching again. I don't think the game gave me enough positive feedback in that first session. I don't think there was anything enticing me to come back and see what was going to be different. It didn't appear as though anything would be different. I know the game is considered breathtaking and a work of art. I thought it was beautiful and the beasts were truly epic. I know it defied the conventions of games at the time (and even most games today) by making it basically just boss battles and nothing in between except for the loneliness of travel. I ejoyed those aspects of it. I just didn't enjoy the act of killing the bosses themsevles. It wasn't gratifying, it was just tedious. I'd like to try it again sometime, especially with the new graphics. By the time I got to play it, PS2 graphics were already old and chunky looking. perhaps I needed break from it.   Feedback - One responseDisplayed newest to oldest. Leave a comment.This post is closed to new comments. |
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Very timely! I'm playing through Shadow of the Colossus myself these days. Well, that is, my girlfriend and I played to the 10th colossus or so but haven't played now for several weeks now, though I still intent to resume it. Like you, I played Ico before this and I fond it one of the best games I've ever played, and we finished it in a few days of long, intense sessions. While I found some of the battles in SotC rather entertaining (favorite so far is the Salamander-like monster that can crawl on walls), SotC as an experience doesn't do much for me compared to Ico.
For me there's several reasons:
- Ico has the premise of escaping a threatening castle together with a mystic and fragile girl - something immediately compelling. At the end of the game, leaving the universe and the characters behind felt the same as when finishing a great book or movie. I had become attached to them and it, and it felt very bittersweet. In SotC you need to resurrect a dead girl the player has never gotten to know by killing 16 colossus that are portrayed as creatures of which a lot are aggressive but none seem decidedly evil, and killing them doesn't feel honorable. Not nearly as compelling for me.
- The castle in Ico is a very spatial place that you gradually get to know as you explore and overcome it. The different sections are very varied and exiting to uncover and there's a great sense of progress that way. In SotC There's just 16 bosses that needs to be killed, one after the other. You even go back to a spawn point after each one, and so far (2/3 through) there haven't been any twists to this formula at all. It feels pretty repetitive.
- The graphics in Ico looked stunning to me even though it's PS2 graphics and I played it just half a year ago. Somehow they perfectly set a mood and spent the triangles and effects just the right places to provide excellent suspension of disbelief. In SotC the vast terrains look embarrassingly bare, the fog gets in the way and changes color too fast not to be noticed, and the polygons are much more noticeable everywhere. It seems like they pushed the platform much further but to a point where it didn't hold up nearly as well. I was impressed by the fur on the colossi though, and there's a few good-looking set pieces in there as well (which reminded me of Ico).
All in all, I think SotC is still worth playing for the innovative gameplay of the boss battles (and it does get a little more entertaining along the way), but Ico is the game I'd recommend anytime for the whole unique experience it offers.