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[Kangu]

The graphics in this game were really a crushing dissapointment to me. The framerate was GTA low, which for me meant it gave me nausea and made any extensive play sessions very unenjoyable. The amount of flickering in the plains was also very unfortunate.

The other huge turnoff for me was the complete lack of plataforming/puzzles to get to the Colossi. Especially because I found the plataforming mechanics to be very enjoyable and refreshing. I understand what Ueda was trying to do but, simply put, it didn't work.

I still loved the games because every single colossus was unique and exciting, something to be anticipated, something you could call people into the room to check out. But the fact that the game was just riding the horse from colossus to colossus made the entire overworld feel like a chore.

 

[gsarjeant]

and some just weren't very memorable at all

Spoiler

the bearded one

.

I love reading the different opinions about this game. That was actually one of my favorite of the battles, unless I'm misremembering it, in which case I'm supporting your point.

Spoiler

Was he the one that you had to get to break down the walls? I loved that fight. I kept trying to figure out how to climb him, and he kept knocking down walls and backing me up. Eventually, the only thing left to do is to go cower under the ledge. So I do that, and just as I'm starting to think "How the heck am I ever going to attack this guy?", he leans down to peer at me! I loved that, and it was the second-biggest "eureka" moment in the game for me, after the one with the earring that you have to jump on from the underground cavern.

Hm, now that I think about it, two of my favorite battles were ones that involved

Spoiler

hiding from the colossus

. I wonder if that says something about me.

 

[Tr4nce]

I just loved getting on top of 13 (the sand worm) and jumping all over, stabbing him!

 

[Drakken]

Just bumping this to say I finally got SotC. Holy crap; it's amazing. The sheer scale of the colossi and just the game world in general is awesome.

I got through the first four colossi tonight. The third one took me 45+ min., amazingly, due to me taking awhile to figure out how to break its armor and then falling off and such.

I'm looking forward to playing it more tomorrow.

 

[Lord Error]

I finished Ico prior to playing SotC, which I enjoyed very much, although outdated resolution at 320x240 with very choppy framerate looked a bit too painful to bear here and there...

For the sake of correctness, Ico was running in 640x224 (with scanlines) and had pretty much near-perfect 30FPS framerate from what I can remember (plus a slight motion blur)

 

[TheMissingLink]

Just bumping this to say I finally got SotC. Holy crap; it's amazing. The sheer scale of the colossi and just the game world in general is awesome.

I got through the first four colossi tonight. The third one took me 45+ min., amazingly, due to me taking awhile to figure out how to break its armor and then falling off and such.

I'm looking forward to playing it more tomorrow.

The next few colossi are going to rock your socks off tomorrow.

 

[brandonh83]

Whoever complains about the graphics in SOTC has ****IGN PROBLEMS.

The frame rate is alright. It's not BAD but it's not GREAT either and it hardly ruins the game.

Yeah. When I see people complaining about these things -- and granted the framerate isn't perfect, but still -- I just can't relate. It's not so great at times but many act like it's so bad that it makes the game unplayable. I've beaten it twice and have never had such experiences.

 

[thatbox]

I hoped for more variety of gameplay.

There's your problem, champ.

SotC isn't even about gameplay.

Spoiler

You're lucky it has any at all!

For the record, Ico was even LESS about gameplay.

 

[StRaNgE]

the wanderer was just a myopic asshole who wanted his girlfriend back and took out his aggressions on everyone else.

i always wondered this too. (i have not played it yet) but is he just pissed and killing them all to get his own selfish ways? or are they all mean bad rock creatures eating the people of the world? :lol

 

[speedpop]

I'm going to get drunk tonight, put Acid Mothers Temple's La Novia CD on and try to play some more of this cursed game.

 

[genjiZERO]

for me what made SoTC so great was that it is the only game I have ever played where I actually felt that I was committing murder. Killing exists in practically evey game, but this is the only one where it felt genuinely immoral.

 

[Lord Error]

you're reading too far into a shallow plot point

What's there to read into? He wanted to save her, knowing he's got the chance to bring her back, something I'm sure, unfortunatelly everyone at some point had or will have a chance to wish for. Anyone would do something irresponsible like that under same circumstances. If you don't think so, you were probably lucky to never be under such circumstences.

 

[WastingPenguins]

What the holy ****? The framerate in SotC was that bad?

Yeah, I never noticed that.

I loved this game, and it annoys me to no end how people are constantly nitpicking framerates in every goddamn game, even when its a beautiful game that runs perfectly fine.

 

[Ash Housewares]

I just got it too, pretty interesting so far, too early to judge but I think I'll enjoy it

 

[Amir0x]

What the holy ****? The framerate in SotC was that bad?

Yeah, I never noticed that.

I loved this game, and it annoys me to no end how people are constantly nitpicking framerates in every goddamn game, even when its a beautiful game that runs perfectly fine.

Dude, I love Shadow of the Colossus... but the framerate was just terrible at times. This is not a matter of a game running "perfectly fine" or dropping only a few frames here and there, this shit dipped dangerously low in places. That's not even nitpicking, it was a very serious flaw - not noticing it is more a statement about you than anyone complaining about it.

 

[Lord Error]

for me what made SoTC so great was that it is the only game I have ever played where I actually felt that I was committing murder. Killing exists in practically evey game, but this is the only one where it felt genuinely immoral.

Yeah, Ueda and co. are very good with that. I still cant forget that room at the end of Ico,

Spoiler

where you realize what you were killing.

That was like a punch in the gut

 

[genjiZERO]

Yeah, Ueda and co. are very good with that. I still cant forget that room at the end of Ico,

Spoiler

where you realize what you were killing.

That was like a punch in the gut

you know even in that scene I didn't feel like it was wrong. Ico gave me the sense of survival at all costs. In that game I didn't give two shits about anyone except myself and Yorda - who I'd have done anything to protect and always felt apprehensive when I had to leave alone. That game gave me the desire to kill anyone who stood in my way of achieving this. And that's why Ico is brilliant.

 

[Matlock]

What's there to read into? He wanted to save her, knowing he's got the chance to bring her back, something I'm sure, unfortunatelly everyone at some point had or will have a chance to wish for. Anyone would do something irresponsible like that under same circumstances. If you don't think so, you were probably lucky to never be under such circumstences.

you're looking the wrong way. the entire point of sotc was that he was a selfish dickhead. the colossi in themselves were old and mostly-peaceful creatures that had to defend themselves.

so yeah

 

[Lord Error]

you're looking the wrong way. the entire point of sotc was that he was a selfish dickhead. the colossi in themselves were old and mostly-peaceful creatures that had to defend themselves.

so yeah

I'm only saying anyone would do the same (if physically capable, of course). In fact, given the chance, I think anyone would do things a lot more immoral than killing some walking stone monuments.

 

[Ceb]

you're looking the wrong way. the entire point of sotc was that he was a selfish dickhead. the colossi in themselves were old and mostly-peaceful creatures that had to defend themselves.

so yeah

What's more interesting? An average person stealing a sacred sword, heading off to a closed-off land to perform a forbidden ritual, killing 16 innocent creatures in the progress.

or...

The "chosen one" stumbling across the legendary Master Sword, travelling through lots of palaces and ultimately saving the princess from the clutches of evil. *snore*

 

[Schnicktick]

I liked hunting lizards...When starting, I suddenly realised how full of live this world is...Amazing.

 

[Fallofmart]

I LOVE this game.

That is all.

 

[fmcato]

you're looking the wrong way. the entire point of sotc was that he was a selfish dickhead. the colossi in themselves were old and mostly-peaceful creatures that had to defend themselves.

so yeah

Well, I don't think he was that selfish.

What with the "But that may come with a high price - I don't care" dialogue. It's not like he was saving himself. He was ready to become a sacrifice in order to save the girl.

 

[jett]

For the sake of correctness, Ico was running in 640x224 (with scanlines) and had pretty much near-perfect 30FPS framerate from what I can remember (plus a slight motion blur)

I'm pretty sure ICO runs at an even lower resolution than that.

Anyway...yeah SotC was a bit disappointing, I expected more from that game. I certainly didn't expect cloned colossi designs.

 

[Matlock]

I certainly didn't expect cloned colossi designs.

especially when there were 48 originally, and most of the unreleased ones were pretty neat lookin'

 

[Ranger X]

ICO was very low res. And there's no motion blur like in Shadow of Collosus (that is fake motion blur anyway)

 

[Lord Error]

I'm pretty sure ICO runs at an even lower resolution than that.

I remember some PC tech site measured the reslution off the video caps. It was 640x224. You can tell that the game doesn't have as low resollution as 320x240 when you play some games that use 320x resolution - it's a lot higher than that.

I wish they included that spider and phoenix colossi instead of one of the humanoid designs, or in addition to them, but I wouldn't like signifficantly more collosi than what was in the game. The number of them was quite all right, IMO.

And there's no motion blur like in Shadow of Collosus (that is fake motion blur anyway)

Ico used a lot simpler motion blur, and in a lot lower amounts. Motion blur in SotC was extremely complex for last gen console standards. It was probably the only game that used that kind of blur. So in that sense it's the least 'fake' motion blur last gen has seen, and we only see some simillar and better implementations of it popping up on next gen consoles.

 

[Kai Dracon]

I guess you can count me as somewhere between the people who thought it was okay and couldn't stand the issues like frame rate, and the people who worship SotC.

I didn't mind the framerate. I have this this about games, where if the game seems as if it is "doing enough to justify it" a somewhat choppy framerate doesn't bug me. See Oblivion and GRAW (single player) on the 360.

On the other hand, I fully recognize the artistic and literary qualities of SotC. And though some here say the gameplay "isn't the point", I don't think that's true because team ICO clearly worked very hard to come up with the basic premise of the gameplay and vary it between Colossi (even if they strangely left out the seemingly more interesting ones).

My only problem with the gameplay falls into the category of "not enough between Colossi". I LIKE the idea of the desolate world and only 16 enemies. However, given that this is the ICO developer, I wish they would have let themselves go all-out with getting to each Colossi, or at least some of them. Yes, there's some ICO platforming puzzles. I just wanted much more; it would have been awesome for instance, to have to pursue one of the small Colossi through the runs of an ICO style fortress with real puzzles until finally cornering it someplace it couldn't escape off into the ruins again. I suppose I just wish the environment of the wasteland had been as much of an enemy as the Colossi - then it would have felt more like a true hostile wasteland (hostile to the "hero" at least).

Also, one nitpick with the story that did keep bothering me -

Spoiler

it began to get annoying that they used the exact same tentacle cut scene after every single battle. Yes, yes, Wanderer was being infected with each instance. But this mysterious attack happens again and again, he wakes up back at the temple, and never pauses to consider something fishy is going on? Claim it's due to his obsession or mission or whatever... that part is just bad storytelling and more indicative of glossing over a more traditional videogame structural gimmick that doesn't make a lot of sense by itself. They could have had an excuse to use their loading the temple cutscene if they merely would have had Wanderer ask "what attacked me?" after the first time, and be told some lie, such as he had to be saved from the escaping evil essence of the Colossi and brought back to be cleansed.

 

[fmcato]

I remember some PC tech site measured the reslution off the video caps. It was 640x224. You can tell that the game doesn't have as low resollution as 320x240 when you play some games that use 320x resolution - it's a lot higher than that.

320x240 is basically what most PSX games used. That resolution is pretty noticeable when playing a TV around 20", and I didn't notice that when playing ICO.

Ico used a lot simpler motion blur, and in a lot lower amounts. Motion blur in SotC was extremely complex for last gen console standards. It was probably the only game that used that kind of blur.

There were 2 or 3 different methods used in SOTC for motion blur. One was based on frame blending, another was vertex blending (or something like that).

For reference:

http://dyingduck.com/sotc/making_of_sotc.html

 

[jett]

I remember some PC tech site measured the reslution off the video caps. It was 640x224. You can tell that the game doesn't have as low resollution as 320x240 when you play some games that use 320x resolution - it's a lot higher than that.

I wish they included that spider and phoenix colossi instead of one of the humanoid designs, or in addition to them, but I wouldn't like signifficantly more collosi than what was in the game. The number of them was quite all right, IMO.


Ico used a lot simpler motion blur, and in a lot lower amounts. Motion blur in SotC was extremely complex for last gen console standards. It was probably the only game that used that kind of blur. So in that sense it's the least 'fake' motion blur last gen has seen, and we only see some simillar and better implementations of it popping up on next gen consoles.

A shitload of ps2 games run at 640x224. ICO clearly looks worse than them. I'm not saying it's 320x, but I think it could be 512x. In fact I'm pretty sure it is.

Anyway...It's not empyrical evidence I know, but the menu on my wega tv always looks a bit ****ed up when I run a low-res ps1 game on it. ICO is the only ps2 game that makes the menu look ****ed up.

edit: man I'm gonna miss saying f.uckload. It's one of my favorite words. :|

 

[fmcato]

A ****load of ps2 games run at 640x224. ICO clearly looks worse than them. I'm not saying it's 320x, but I think it could be 512x. In fact I'm pretty sure it is.

Are you sure you aren't thinking of most PS2 games running at 640x480? A lower vertical resolution might be the problem with ICO.

 

[jett]

Are you sure you aren't thinking of most PS2 games running at 640x480? A lower vertical resolution might be the problem with ICO.

No...well, lately, most ps2 games run at something like that, but early on in the ps2's life the norm was 640x224. It's the main reason for the famous jaggies.

 

[truffleshuffle83]

i said it then and ill say it now...we need a SOTC on psp where to wanderers can take on colossi at the same time..just use the the smae worl and put in the colossi that got scrapped

 

[jett]

i said it then and ill say it now...we need a SOTC on psp where to wanderers can take on colossi at the same time..just use the the smae worl and put in the colossi that got scrapped

...no.

 

[djkimothy]

I'm sure this was covered before but I didn't get to play ICO, so can anyone tell me the connection to SotC and ICO at the end of the game? Thanks.

The game is awesome BTW. Everyone must at least own it.

 

[Lord Error]

No...well, lately, most ps2 games run at something like that, but early on in the ps2's life the norm was 640x224. It's the main reason for the famous jaggies.

You are confusing resolutions. 640x224 resolution used in games like RRV is not the same thing used in Ico. RRV rendered every half-frame and ran at 60FPS, Ico rendered ever 2nd half frame and run at 30FPS with scanlines, basically skipping every 2nd line on TV, where 60FPS games like RRV would fill in those lines in the second 1/60hz pass.

 

[fmcato]

I'm sure this was covered before but I didn't get to play ICO, so can anyone tell me the connection to SotC and ICO at the end of the game? Thanks.

Spoiler

Wander's body is stolen by Dormin, but then Dormin is beaten by the priest, and all that's left is a baby that is supposed to be Wander's reincarnation. The baby has horns, like Ico. SOTC is supposed, thus, to take place centuries before Ico in the same universe.

Edit: OK, I answered that as if you'd have played ICO and not SOTC. More Ico facts:

Spoiler

Ico is a boy born with horns, and that's supposed to mean he's cursed in his world. So he's sent to a castle to be buried alive in a stone grave. But he scapes and must get out of the castle, finding Yorda on his way and deciding to bring her with him.

The most obvious link is the horns. Also, there seems to be some relationship between the girl in SOTC and Yorda in Ico, mostly because of the design. Reincarnations?

 

[truffleshuffle83]

...no.

.....YES. they have all the material. its a game that can be played in short bursts. and its exclusive to sony.

 

[djkimothy]

Spoiler

Wander's body is stolen by Dormin, but then Dormin is beaten by the priest, and all that's left is a baby that is supposed to be Wander's reincarnation. The baby has horns, like Ico. SOTC is supposed, thus, to take place centuries before Ico in the same universe.

Thanks

 

[Sander]

What the holy ****? The framerate in SotC was that bad?

Yeah, I never noticed that.

I loved this game, and it annoys me to no end how people are constantly nitpicking framerates in every goddamn game, even when its a beautiful game that runs perfectly fine.

I fixed your avatar for you.

 

[bluemax]

you're looking the wrong way. the entire point of sotc was that he was a selfish dickhead. the colossi in themselves were old and mostly-peaceful creatures that had to defend themselves.

so yeah

Did you finish the game?

Spoiler

Sure many of them appear to be simple peaceful creatures, but they're all portions of the creature/personality/demon known as Nimrod. They were created as prisons to contain him and the evil he represents.

I do agree that he is selfish and single minded in purpose however. And with many of the peaceful Colossi I truly felt ill after killing them, albeit as they got more aggressive and the game progressed I realized that the feeling kinda numbed.

My only problem with the gameplay falls into the category of "not enough between Colossi". I LIKE the idea of the desolate world and only 16 enemies. However, given that this is the ICO developer, I wish they would have let themselves go all-out with getting to each Colossi, or at least some of them. Yes, there's some ICO platforming puzzles. I just wanted much more; it would have been awesome for instance, to have to pursue one of the small Colossi through the runs of an ICO style fortress with real puzzles until finally cornering it someplace it couldn't escape off into the ruins again. I suppose I just wish the environment of the wasteland had been as much of an enemy as the Colossi - then it would have felt more like a true hostile wasteland (hostile to the "hero" at least).

I totally felt the same way. They billed the game as a puzzler/platformer but the only puzzles ended up being the colossi themselves. I remember from some of the media (like images of the area leading to collosus #3) that there would be a lot of jumping and climbing puzzles to get to each one. I still enjoyed the game for what it was but I feel like they could've done more with the enviroment. I did like how in many of the fights you needed to examine the arena you were in for clues on how to approach the fight. Of course after watching insane Japanese speed run videos of each fight there was a lot I didn't think of during the fights.

i said it then and ill say it now...we need a SOTC on psp where to wanderers can take on colossi at the same time..just use the the smae worl and put in the colossi that got scrapped

So something similar to the original video where they showed all the little guys killing one colossus? It's an interesting idea but I don't think it'll ever get done and I don't know how it'd fit into the world they have etc.

I really enjoyed this game and could talk about it a lot. I was playing LTTP recently and going through the overworld there was stuff that made me think of SotC, just some of the random objects and ruins scattered around Hyrule and such.

 

[buckfutter]

The way I heard it the ICO engine could handle a lot more than the game would let on. The early test footage of ICO (and SotC, which was running on the ICO engine at the time) moves at 60fps at a higher resolution. The designers intentionally reduced the rendering resolution (or maybe just the output resolution, I wouldn't have a clue, really) and the framerate to lend it a hazy, dream-like feel. Which worked beautifully, but is obviously going to annoy some of the people who have nice, big TVs.

I can't remember where I actually read that, though. It sounds about right, and is consistent with the glaringly different test footage using the game engine.

 

[Ghengis Cohen]

The way I heard it the ICO engine could handle a lot more than the game would let on. The early test footage of ICO (and SotC, which was running on the ICO engine at the time) moves at 60fps at a higher resolution. The designers intentionally reduced the rendering resolution (or maybe just the output resolution, I wouldn't have a clue, really) and the framerate to lend it a hazy, dream-like feel. Which worked beautifully, but is obviously going to annoy some of the people who have nice, big TVs.

I can't remember where I actually read that, though. It sounds about right, and is consistent with the glaringly different test footage using the game engine.

That doesn't sound right at all given that the framerate would have to be consistent in order for that to be true.

 

[buckfutter]

The framerate in ICO was a buttery smooth 30fps for me. I noticed only one frame drop, in the intro, when the horse's hoof hits the ground right in front of the camera and throws up some particles.

Maybe the American version was a little unoptimized as well as unfinished? Who knows.

 

[Ghengis Cohen]

Are you talking about Ico or SOTC? Becuase Ico runs smoth and I could see an intentional drop in framerate, but SOTC is by no means smooth.

 

[buckfutter]

You've misunderstood. People were talking about the odd resolution ICO is rendered in. I was saying that I'd heard the resolution and the framerate cap were design decisions. It had nothing to do with SotC, except that the test demo that Ueda created to pitch SotC used the ICO engine. They then created a new engine for the game proper.

 

[Ghengis Cohen]

Ahh. You worded in such a way that I thought you meant Ueda had intentionally dropped the framerate on both games. My mistake.

 

[buckfutter]

No problem, I probably did word it rather ambiguously. (Note that I'm too tired to even check... time for sleeeeeeep)

 

[etiolate]

Ico is why I bought a ps2 and SotC was big on my list, but I just now got to it.

I may share my judgements later, but right now all I want to say is that trying to stab the damned wings on the 5th Collosus is DRIVING ME MAD@@$@$

I can't take much more falling off, slowly swimming to a platform and repeating over and over.

 

[Vlad]

Ico is why I bought a ps2 and SotC was big on my list, but I just now got to it.

I may share my judgements later, but right now all I want to say is that trying to stab the damned wings on the 5th Collosus is DRIVING ME MAD@@$@$

I can't take much more falling off, slowly swimming to a platform and repeating over and over.

You can crouch down on the non-furry parts of the wing to get more stability and gain balance back faster.

Personally, the big thing that really bugs me about this game is how once a colossus starts shaking, you're basically just stuck sitting there until he's done, so you spend a lot of time just watching your guy do his little flailing animation while the colossus shakes around the exact same way for the tenth time. They should have given the player some way to counteract the shaking and get a grip faster or something, like having to press the analog stick in the opposite direction of the shake or something.