June Modern Community Playthrough - Shadow of the Colossus

[Boshamp]

That is awesome. A lot younger than I thought he would be. My son is 4 and with his attention span, I doubt he would sit there and watch me without losing interest and wanting to play some more Mario Kart with me or something.

[singlebanana]

I have some great stories about my kids watching the playthrough which I'll share later. My son just turned 3 and daughter is 6.

[Raidou]

Whew.. finally up to the week 2 checkpoint!!

Awesome! How are you enjoying it?

Gaius (#3) gave me a LOT of grief (even though I knew how to beat him), and I almost quit.  Glad I didn't, as the later Colossi reminded me why I enjoyed this game.

[singlebanana]

Gaius (#3) is sort of the first boss that has no real hint as to how to work your way onto him. With colossi #1 & #2, there are subtle hints on the leg and foot bottoms respectively. It's obvious that you need to run up the sword on Gaius since it is flat and stays in the ground for a while, but you can spend hours trying to find a way to traverse that bracer if you are unaware of how to shatter it. There are several colossi with armor that has to be broken and I think this is a really fantastic trope used in the game.

Probably the most aggravating of the colossi for me was Pelagia (#12). I know that this is the last colossi for the week, so I will keep my thoughts to myself regarding this one.

[singlebanana]

This is one of those games where I need to put myself in the shoes of the character. Would I do this if it were my Wife/Daughter/Sister/Mother on the stone table?

I think you're dead on it. I believe what this game does well is that it creates a story around you that is ill-formed and extremely minimalistic. Though that may not sound great on the surface, what it does is throw you into the middle of a story uninformed and makes you create your own interpretation of the events leading up to your current state. It also forces you to try and make sense of your actions and the consequences that might enfold from them. As a result, you want to play more and more to see what's going to happen; it becomes addictive.

This game is similar to the movies and books that I prefer; while some may like concrete stories with well-defined endings, I tend to prefer more abstract media with fragmented endings that leave you to interpret what may or may not happen next. I think media like this leaves more of a lasting impression on you and stays in your mind for days, weeks, and even months.

The "unknown" sort of becomes it's own character in this story and I find that fascinating.

[Fleach]

Even though the game throws the player into the middle of the story the opening cinematic offers enough context to justify Wander's intentions. The beginning is open to speculation (how did the girl, I think Mono is her name, die? What's her relationship with Wander?) but the events of the game are pretty clear to me except for the shadowy figures in the temple.

This game offers more questions than it does answers.

[Fleach]

Defeated the tenth colossus. What a scary battle. I've still got an adrenaline rush.

But darn.... those eyes...

[img width=300 height=385]http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090521191051/t__/teamico/images/1/15/DirgeTemplate.jpg[/img]

[singlebanana]

Tell that Sand Tiger to stop staring at me! I'm Brian Fellows.

[Fleach]

Holy cannoli was #11 difficult to find! I had to use the SotC wiki to find it. The battle itself was quite fun and not very challenging.

Spoiler (hover to show)

I liked how this Colossus was afraid of fire. Giving it an emotion certainly made understand the benevolence of the Colossi. As many others have pointed out most Colossi aren't harming anyone or anything until Wander comes in and disturbs them.

[h1ghw1nd]

I'm glad you mentioned what Ico was banana. LOL i've been meaning to ask. Didn't know if it was related to SotC or just the same developer. Kinda cool that this is the prequel and I don't know the first thing about Ico's storyline.


7

I think I was going around in circles looking or this one FOREVER. At least I found around 10 or more lizards during that time heh. I guess I finally found it because I got a 3 second cut scene. This one was actually pretty easy. Funny how you lose stamina really deep in the water and it takes forever to float to the top ha. I liked this one a lot.

Trying to catch up on 8 now so I can get back on track this week.

[singlebanana]

***FYI, I removed your spoiler tag h1ghw1nd. Week 3 is upon us and since #7 fell within Week 2, we can discuss it openly.

I thought the water serpent battle was a great fight and it was very creative how they implemented this terrain. Your immobility underwater and spurts of running down the creature's back when it surfaced was exciting and very cool. I was a little surprised that when you ran out of air, you just released and floated to the top. I don't recall taking any damage for this. Kind of odd considering it's quite the opposite for most games.

One of my favorite parts of this game is looking for the colossi. I love the sudden cut scenes when you stumble upon them. Some are very serine, while others are so aggressive that you know the fight is immediately being taken to you.

[wildbil52]

I'm up to 15 and I'm waiting until the final week to take him down.  Been looking for lizards and fruit lately.  Should I post the pic of my health and stamina bar or is that kind of spoiler-y?

[singlebanana]

No, I think posting that is fine. Everyone knows what the lizards and fruit do you're not giving away any essential parts of the game.

[wildbil52]

[img width=700 height=525]http://i.imgur.com/F3F1hZC.jpg[/img]

Max life bar and almost max stamina.

[singlebanana]

That's awesome. I bet you have no problems hanging on for long amounts of time.