Shadow of the Colossus: Post Mortem

The work of Fomito Ueada have influenced hundreds of indie developers over the past decade.  You can take a look at games like Journey, Papa and Yo, Monument Valley, and dozens of others and see the elements of the sleepy cult classic Ico and the blockbuster that is Shadow of the Colossus.  I never owned Shadow of the Colossus on PS2, due to a number of reasons.  With my love for Ico, it is a little weird that I never got the game and went through it without a moment's rest.  I knew from the word "go" that I would love this game, and it has not let me down.  Put in context of the year it was made, it did amazing things that we did not see implemented by western developers until well into the PS3 era.


The premise for this game is simple; you want to bring a young woman back to life that has been sacrificed for some reason that we are not told.  The main character, Wander, has taken an ancient blade to a forbidden area, and while there asks forbidden spirits to bring her back to life.  The spirits task Wander with killing 16 colossi that are represented by 16 statues that line the hall.  Each colossus is a level unto itself.  The methods to dispatch them is different with each, and the puzzles involved with figuring them out are mostly ingenious and intuitive.  The spirits will give you clues if you do not solve things for a while, but generally I find that with trial and error, you have more fun figuring it out.  In between fights, there are no other monsters or puzzles to figure out.  You are given this vast stretch of land with ruins and beautiful landscapes that are just there for you to discover on your own.  You may find yourself adding hours to your gameplay just exploring.

The graphics for the game have always been amazing, and the HD remake of it does not disappoint.  Because of the stylized artwork, nothing ever feels all that dated.  The plants, the sand, the water, all are done very beautifully.  There never needed to have large special effects because that is just not Team Ico's style.  Ueada pairs down the world to the most basics, but then adds beautiful little details into the world.  The horse, if left alone, will go and find water, or munch on the tallest grass in the area.  There are birds that soar through the air, and sometimes take an interest in following you.  The music, likewise, is paired down, leaving lots and lots of areas with no music at all, but there is still a soundtrack playing.  This soundtrack is that of nature.  A rustle of branches, a crunch of twig under foot, or the snort of a frustrated horse companion.  Even with no music, the world is alive with sound.

People may be let down by the small amount of story in Ueada's games, but I have always felt the entire world tells a story if you give it patience and curiosity.  In both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, we are given only enough to get our imaginations going.  We aren't told what the colossi are, we aren't told the relationship between the girl and Wander.  We are presented with ruined cities, dark spirits who tell no tales, and a world to explore.  The endings to the games are likewise vague, and generally if you have not played through Ico, you may be confused as to what a lot of it means.  There are still forum posts that have been going on since the turn of the millennium that discuss what these stories mean, and the vagueness is why there is such spirited discussion.  Never forget to watch and wait till the end of the credits on Ueada games, you get rewarded.

After all was said and done, I loved Shadow of the Colossus.  This series could have been Sony's Zelda equal if they had been able to keep focus with the team.  If I have complaints it is that a few bosses give you just enough guidance to steer you in the wrong direction.  On the opposite end, I do not like that you can't turn off the spirit's tips to defeating the colossi, as figuring out the game is the real fun for me.  People that use tips have the internet for spoiling things if they really wish.  Lastly, they do not tell you the "advanced" riding techniques to go with your horse, and I find that a real shame as I refused to look up things like that till I was done, and now I know there's a way to do quick stops, quick starts(omg I needed this one so bad) and 180 turns.

Shadow of the Colossus was great, every bit as great as people say.  There is a reason why it is a model for so many indie games, one of them being that Team Ico can't seem to get their shit together and make more games, but other reasons include that it exudes a simple style while being powerfully moving.  I want to go through and replay the colossi already and learn the better, quicker ways of beating them.  It is an urge to replay things that I have not had in a while.  There are just too many games to revisit some so soon, but with Shadow of the Colossi I will because it is immensely enjoyable to fight and defeat these creatures.

God of War II Post Mortem

God of War II
Published by Sony Computer Entertainment, America
Developed by Santa Monica Studios
Directed by Cory Barlog

What I liked about God of War was that as brutal and as action oriented the game was, it was just as much intelligent.  The really "great" games on the edge are like that, and the pretenders are easy to spot because you can't fake that kind of thing.  The original God of War made me feel like I was playing this epic mash up of Metroid(once you get to the Tower) and Clash of the Titans, mixed with the closest we ever got to a "Wolverine" like character outside of comics.

I was worried that God of War 2 would not live up to that.  I was wrong on most accounts.

When it comes to story, God of War 2 does increase and better it over part one.  There are several twists and a few foreshadows of what's to come in later games, but it does not forget the past either.  Even though we are firmly planted in what is happening to Kratos now, we get some resolving of story threads from the first one.  Kratos even confronts several of the enemies he's faced in his past, including an enemy he robbed of a great future.  On top of that, we are presented with Kratos as not only the godslayer, but the mythbuster as well.  It is really really cool that they got Harry Hamlin to reprise his role as Perseus from Clash of the Titans.

The level design is the top of its genre.  Not only are the puzzles satisfying, but several were of types I had not seen before in a game.  While the world did not feel so much like a Metroid, the world was very much larger and things did interconnect to each other as time went by.  The boss fights are, again, the top of the genre, with none of them repeating.  They even resisted the temptation of redoing the Minotaur(the best boss from part one) and instead stuck with making new bosses each and every time.

Gameplay is still rock solid, though this time there are more creatures that can interrupt Kratos when he's going nuts and swinging those blades around everywhere.  Instead of 1 sub-weapon, there are several now, though I did not like any of them nearly as much as the sword from Part 1; I stuck with Kratos' main blades the entire game.  Magic has also been redone, though again I kind of chose the Cronos stuff and stuck with it.  There is a new time slow mechanic that is really fun, and is the basis more for puzzles than for fighting.  The game also separates into these mini-games at times where the play is different than from the main game.  These segments are memorable, and the Pegasus one is the most enjoyable and impressive of them.

The HD remake that I played was flawless, and just like with part one, looks to have improved immensely.  I never spent a lot of time with part 2 on the PS2, but I played through part 1 a couple of times, and the HD remake of part 1 only enhanced the game, never took away.  The cameras are repositioned, the textures are tightened up, and the frame rate is rock solid locked at 60 frames instead of dipping below 30 on the PS2.  There is no reason not to play the HD versions over the original, it is a vast improvement in every way.  The only "jarring" part is that the cutscenes are many times still done in low resolution, so many times the cutscenes look worse than the actual game play segments.(the picture is of the God of War 1 remake)

They pretty much knew they were getting a part 3.  When God of War 2 came out, they were showing it at E3 alongside Playstation 3.  God of War 2 was the Playstation 2's swan song, God of War was going to be on the PS3 eventually, so they finish this one with a cliffhanger.  Luckily you can buy God of War 1, 2, 3, and the PSP prequels for 30 bucks and get all the story(Ascension is a prequel as well).

Basically it is what every big blockbuster in Hollywood believes a sequel should be: the same as the first but more more more.  While that kind of sucks in the world of RPG's, its pretty apt in the world of Kratos and leaves a satisfying experience.