• From: Norway
  • Registered: 2009-12-01
  • Posts: 1,471
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Re: Unplayed games - a backlog adventure.

SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS

Okay, so, uhm, this game has always been on my radar. Haing pirated it on my chipped PS2 back in the day, only to have it be one of the few games that for some reason did not work.

However, being without a PC has made me move more towards console games.
Shadow of the Colossus is one of those highly appraised titles that always comes up in conversations of the best games evvver.

And I just don´t see it.

Now, let it be known that I played the PS4 remake by Bluepoint games, which is considered a 1:1 remake.
So, the visuals and music is all remastered etc, and the controls are modernized. That being said, the controls are still a bit wonky.

That aside, the game starts with Wander, Agro and Mono riding over a massive bridge across a canyon The first being our protagonist. The second our trusty steed, and the latter a dead girl. Wander confronts a god-like voice to have them resurrect Mono. The gods claim this is not a feat for mortal beings to be given, and that it is not possible. However, as Wander has a forbidden sword or something, it may actually be done. He just has to complete a trial which includes slaying 16 colossi first.

You can already sense where this is going. Sort of.

You use the sword as a guide to locate the first colossus. A giant. But a gentle one at that. After climbing it, you find a weak point, and penetrate it for the first kill. Fairly easy, but you get the gist of how it´s done. After that, you wake up in the temple at the end of the bridge. A shadowy figure stands you as you wake up. A statue representing the colossus is destroyed. The godly voice tells you about your next foe.

And then, that´s sort of it. The story is completely absent until you defeat the 6th colossus. And then it´s not really a story beat, more of a possible future, and it´s about 10 seconds long.

Again, rinse repeat is the name of the game as you slay these unassuming(and some assuming) beasts. Not until Beast 12 has been defeated are you given more of the story.
And while the game is not very long(I used 5 hours and 20 minutes), the scarce, drip-fed story is too little for me. Yes, the world is gorgeous, the art design as well. And the music is absolutely fantastic, sure, but I don´t see the hype.

After the 16th and final colossus(Okay, that fight was pretty damn epic, I will give them that), the story ends. On a predicted, but melodramatic and dark ending. All very much open for interpretation, which is fine, but unless you are a die hard fan of this game, and it´s predecessor "Ico" (which is supposedly set in the same universe some 100-ish years later), my interpretation is thusly:

It´s fine. It´s not great. It´s fun enough for 5 hours, but had it been 5 more, I may have called it quits.
The ending,

SPOILER ALERT: is that the godlike creature sent you on a fools errand. They had been split into 17 entities. 16 physical and one spiritual. Buy destroying the 16 physical manifestations, the entity is free, and claims Wander as their host. The guys from the second drip of the story from colossus 12 seem to know what is going on, and promptly re-seals the bad guy, and it seems like all hope is gone for Wander, who is definitely killed in the process, after getting radiant eyes and a couple of horns.

Then, after the credits, Mono wakes up, Agro greets her, and they find a newborn infant with horns.


.. Okay. That, was and ending alright.

SPOILERS OVER


I don´t know what I expected going in, apart from boss battles with bosses that mainly won´t try to kill you or anything, but it certainly wasn´t a story like this. It feels artsy for the sake of being artsy, and that´s just not me.

Mediocre+, as it was fun enough to keep going, but nothing more. Took me a fairly short amount of time, and will not be going back to it for any additional trophies and/or upgrades or collectibles.

-Tom out.

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  • From: Norway
  • Registered: 2009-12-01
  • Posts: 1,471
  • User Karma: 249

Re: Unplayed games - a backlog adventure.

ASTRO BOT
Yes, I'm still here, and yes, I still play games.

Astro Bot. Holy goddamn piece of stellar feces what the fuck is this?
It makes no sense. Astro's Playroom is a piece of tech demo that comes bundled with every PS5, and it's a small platformer that's genuinely fun and intuitive. It imagines a "mascot" for the Playstation in Astro Bot, and imagines what it would be like if Mario was imagined up by the devs at Sony as they were making their own console to play on.
Fast forward a few years and Team Asobi made a fully fledged game based on that formula. Astro's Playroom was a top tier tech demo you could play, and had a bunch of collectible that were "residual images of the digital self". You gather a bunch of collectibles that have full 3d models of every piece of hardware that Sony Computer Entertainment made. PS1, PSone, Memory cards, multi tap, PS2, PSVita, Memory sticks, you name it, it has a digital copy in the game. Of course it also has the sounds. Hit the PSone, and it will give you that PS original startup sound, making sure your geese have bumps.

Fast forward, and Team Asobi made their sequel. A top tier 3D platformer aptly named "Astro Bot". The premise is easy enough. Astro and his friends are cruising through space, when a giant, evil space squid shows up, and dismantles their space ship. Their PS5-shaped space ship.
Astro is now stranded on a desert planet, with a ship that needs repairing. So you choose the first level, and go. As you move along, the PS references are resplendent. Each galaxy (world hub) has a final planet that's a play of a PS classic. I won't spoil all of them here, but if you are a fan of "Ape Escape" or "Uncharted", for instance, this game manages to pay homage to those  franchises, but still keep it very much on the level of what the game is. The platforming is solid. The music is downright GREAT, and the presentation, ie the grahpics, is top notch. They took what they learned from the tech demo and amp it up. In every aspect.

Astro bot was goddamn amazing. It shouldn't be, but I still managed to platinum the game, because I had fun every second of playing it. It's a goddamn 3D platformer, that in 2024 still managed to break the standard, and introduce something new and exciting for every world.

If you own a PS5, I'd highly suggest playing this title. It's damn fun.

-Tom out.

Last edited by Tomahawk (2024-11-03 00:12:06)

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  • From: Norway
  • Registered: 2009-12-01
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  • User Karma: 249

Re: Unplayed games - a backlog adventure.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA - SKYWARD SWORD

I said I'd get to it.

The very beginning of the much-discussed split-in-three Zelda timeline. Where it all begins. We finally get to learn how it all started. How the lands were formed, how the cycle origined, how the Master Sword came to be.

But you know what? No.
I tried, so hard, and got so far, but in the e-
erm.
No.
This game looks fantastic, it sounds fantastic, but it plays like absolute dog shite.

I don't even mean that in any positive way, if there is one. Skyward Sword was 100% made for the Wii. Unlike it's predecessor Twilight Princess that released on Wii alongside the Gamecube, Skyward Sword was made from the ground up for the Wii motes. And it doesn't age well.

I opted to play with the Pro Controller, because why wouldn't you? And after about 12 hours, that feels like an eternity and a half, I couldn't stand it anymore. See, how do you map a "1 to 1" hand movement from the wii motes to an analogue stick? You don't, as it turns out. Normally in these games, the left stick is movement, while the right stick is the camera. In Skyward Sword? Right stick is the sword hand. YOU TRY PLAYING THAT! 12 hours in, I still swung my sword around instead of pressing the Switch-equivalent of R1 to ENABLE THE CAMERA ON THE RIGHT STICK, all the fucking time.

I did, after all that, try to switch to the joy cons instead, and while it was definitely more doable, the damage was already done. I just can't with this game. I'll go and watch a playthrough or something instead.


And to add to it; my girlfriend did try it after me, and started with the joy cons. She just quietly stopped playing it, and isn't eager to come back. I get it now. I get why it isn't highly rated amongst the Zelda games.


I actually tried this awhile ago, and forgot to write anything about it, because I didn't complete it. Now that I know I never will, I'm okay with writing about it. In fact, since then, I completed The Wind Waker again, and it was an absolute BLAST of a game. Love it!

But watching paint dry is better than Skyward Sword.


-Tom out.

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  • From: Norway
  • Registered: 2009-12-01
  • Posts: 1,471
  • User Karma: 249

Re: Unplayed games - a backlog adventure.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA - THE WIND WAKER (HD)

THE WIND WAKER is one of those games I bought an entire console for. I bought a Gamecube, complete with a limited edition Wind Waker, that came with a copy of Ocarina of Time and Ocarina of Time Master Quest(The rumoured Ura Zelda) back in what must've been 2003. I bought the console for that sole purpose. And sold it to a friend after.

It's not that I don't like some gamecube games, on the contrary, but I didn't need one to play Smash bros or Mario Kart. Everyone had one. And to Owen's great dismay, I hated Super Mario Sunshine.

I played Wind Waker, more or less 100%, and haven't touched it since. Not even the HD-remaster that came in 2013, but it is the version I played now. See, I actually bought a Wii U. Granted, I got it in 2022, and haven't really played it either, but that's beside the point. I played Wind Waker HD on my PC using an emulator. Because I'm a big boy, and all, but not big enough to use the Wii U gamepad. Holy carp that thing is wildly uncomfortable.

The HD version of the game is more or less the same game. Some controls are refined, there's a speedy sail that makes sailing more than twice as fast, and there's some streamlining towards the end of the game, to speed up the process. The graphics are also touched up a tad, but not much, and they're more or less exactly how I remember it looking.

Now, let's get to it.

Meet Link. Or Fritz. Babe, Knil, whatever you want to call your main protagonist. We'll stick with Link, for all purposes. Link is a young lad living on Outset island with his grandma and his sister. It's a quiet, easy life.
One day, a massive bird appears, a young blond girl clenched twixt its talons. Totally not Zelda. It lands on top of the island, in a dark forest. Our hero promptly sets out to seek out what the hell happened, and to rescue Ze, er, this girl.

Of course things go sour. He rescues this girl called Terra, but his sister is abducted in the chaos, and taken to THE FORSAKEN FORTRESS.  Link decides to go with the newly appeared pirates, to whom Zeld- eh, TERRA is the captain. They set out towards the fortress, Link goes on his merry way to rescue his sister, and is completely bitch slapped by a tall, red haired brute of a man. He is thrown out to sea, and wakes up on Windfall Island, guarded by the King of Red Lions. A small boat that can talk. After a bit of chit chat, it is revealed that the tall man was, to nobody's surprise, the Gerudo King himself; Ganondorf. I know, big shock! This of course, sets a number of events in motion to defeat Ganondorf, and rescue Link's sister, and the other girls that were taken capture.

Wind Waker is an absolute gem of game. The art style alone is worth it, but the gameplay is, while classic Zelda, really good. The music is also Zelda, through and through. Some themes of old, some themes of new, and an entire different take on most characters design and such. Yes, the sailing in the OG game was a bit tedious, as you'd have to use the titular wind waker to compose tunes to change the direction of the wind, in order to go faster. But in the HD remaster, you can get your hands on a super sail, that never cares about wind, and always travels twice as fast as the original sail. Great success! It made the sailing that much less bothersome, and it never got tedious.

Of course, the world of the Wind Waker is mostly water. In fact, it's the great ocean, and some mountain-y islands scattered across it. Once you get further into the story, you do understand what's going on, where Hyrule is, and so on and so forth. The story, for a Zelda game, is actually quite good, and often times much darker than it has a right to be. Most of the characters are fun, and my favorite character, without a shadow of a doubt, the manager of the Battleship mini game. "spliiish" and "ba-boom!".

The Wind Waker isn't a massive game. It can be long if you don't use any sort of walkthrough, and there are definitely missable stuff that helps your journey. Like most older games, it rewards exploration, and seldom tells you exactly where you need to go. It does, but it leaves out that you should probably head to that Island you weren't able to access that time. As such, I'd recommend a spoiler-free walkthrough for a better use of your precious time, and you'll have an absolute blast.

Love this game, even 20 years after playing it originally.

-Tom Out

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