Sunday, October 24, 2010

PS3: Ico, Shadow of the Colossus and the Last Guardian

Ico
Ico covers

The escort-a-thon/ puzzle game. It had the main character tug the objective (princess Orda) around literaly by holding hands, and randomly destroy shadowy pursuers all while trying to solve inane puzzles without throwing your controller in anger. The graphics were unbelievable for the time (hey man, we are talking about the old blue cd games. you can't compare it with today's games)and don't really hold up compared to Shadow of the Colossus. I had a ton of other games to play at the time so I never really had to focus on more than just beating the game once. Though I had a ton of friends that went through the multiple difficulties unlocking the light saber and the special watermelon ending, which is cute as hell.

Shadow of the Colossus
Shadow of the Colossus covers
What a simply amazing game. The game seemed to be more of a for the fans, than a mainstream money maker. The games narrative only mentions something about the forbidden land, then you are free to roam. It doesn't take long to figure out what to do from there. The game was different from ICO but still had the atmosphere, level design and made up language. Much like the feeling you get when traveling into different games like Vagrant story, FF Tactics, Tactics advance and FF 12, there are many different styles of play through but it's all within the same universe of Ivalice. Ico and SOTC share that world whenever they took place from each other, The last Guardian is seeming to continue that tradition.

SOTC HD
One thing I'm sure people didn't like about Shadow of the Colossus is that you are essentially alone in the game. Besides the bellowing colossus and the shrine where the voice of the statues lay, your only real objective is to follow the sunlight that gleams off your sword until you find another colossus.

The Last Guardian
I look forward to seeing these two in HD. It's a fantastic move for sony to make. The last guardian is going to be even more so.


Ico HD "Yorda demands it"

 If Ico had the princess permanently bound to the castle, and Shadow of the Colossus had the Hero sacrifice his life for his resurrected love, than the last Guardian will have the tragic loss of either the boy or the griffin. It's what this division of Sony is good at.