I hate you, horse.

Zeta · Post by **Zeta** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 6:12 pm

I finished Shadow of Colossus, which I felt was immensely a better game than Ico in any way shape or form.

It was just a really awesome game, although it was often frustrating. Basically, any fight where you had to use the horse was a chore. In fact, the damn horse was a burden on the entire game. One of the reasons I still haven't finished Ico is because navigating moronic and useless Yorda is so damn frustrating. The horse's AI was like having to ride Yorda into battle - if Team Ico ever makes another game, they better damn well not include another NPC sidekick or I'll tear my hair out. No thank you horse, I do not want to run into the wall. No horse, stop, I'm back here you fucking moron. Don't run away, you retard, I wasn't aiming at you. Thanks for obscuring my vision by running past me in a panic, you bastard. I so wanted to kill that damn horse a thousand times over. There were so many times I was playing the game and thinking "Fuck, I miss Epona - now there was a horse."

Anyways, the best Colossus was definately Avis. It was such a thrill grabbing onto a hawk the size of a jumbo jet and riding it through the air while trying to cut it down. The hardest bosses were problably the smallest ones, ironically - the lion and tiger. The most frustrating one was that damn sky serphent that looks like it escaped from a Panzer Dragoon game. Not that it attacked me or anything, it was just the requirement to use the four-legged retard that made it difficult.

Majestic Joey · Post by **Majestic Joey** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 6:41 pm

I never really found the horse very annoying the only thing in the game I hated were the water boses because they took a really long time to beat.

Cuckooguy · Post by **Cuckooguy** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 7:16 pm

I also finished that game sometime within the past two months. The only Colossus I've had trouble with was the sand one. It's because I never knew I could shoot while on the horsie, and God didn't decide to give me any clues on how to defeat it, even though I ran around trying to find an opening for about an hour (so it's the only one I had to use a FAQ on).

The Lion and the Tiger ones were actually quite easy (though one of them was kinda lame, the one who knocks down the pillars).

Light Speed · Post by **Light Speed** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 7:45 pm

Funny, the first thing I thought of when reading the topic title was the basketball game 'Horse'. Then I thought, why the fuck would Zeta be playing that, or anyone here for that matter. Guess I was right. I'm so smart.

Zeta · Post by **Zeta** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 7:45 pm

I feel sorry for Ico. He's the descendant of a Pagan nature God that rules over Life, Death, Earth, and Nature - and all he gets are horns.

And debatably, perhaps a gigantic schlong, although only Yorda will ever know.

Speaking of which, this series has a weird theme of young boys ending up with adult women that is particularly oedipal. Or is that just me?

Locit · Post by **Locit** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:28 pm

I never really had any trouble with the horse either. Same with the Panzer Dragoon-esque boss. The sand worm was a bitch, though.

Did Shadow sell very well? It seemed to reach a wider audience than Ico, at least in the circles I frequent.

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 12:09 am

I actually grew pretty attached to the horse. I called him hoss. The only thing that pissed me off about it was keeping him running at max speed, because he seemed to slow down everytime I tried to turn.

Protodude · Post by **Protodude** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 1:01 am

I, like many others apparently, found the sand boss to be quite annoying, to the point where I too had to turn to an FAQ.

I kind of grew attached to that horse too, and I was pretty sad when He fell down that cliff. I thought he died!

Zeta · Post by **Zeta** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 1:34 am

Now that I think about it, the only characters that die during the whole game are the animals you shoot to get power-boosts. Even the Colossi technically aren't dead if you consider they were reconstituted into Dormin.

Also, shooting down a hawk? The most satisfying moment of the whole game. I'd been trying to do it whenever I saw them, to no avail. I thought it wasn't programmed in. Then they started dropping like flies. Same with the doves. I felt like a total bastard afterwards though, especially when I realized I couldn't eat 'em.

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 2:17 am

I didn't know you could shoot the animals! Even the turtles?

Cuckooguy · Post by **Cuckooguy** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 3:03 am

The turtles just go back inside their shells when attacked. I've never shot any of the birds (they move around too much), but I did grab onto one of the doves and flew for a bit.

Also, there was one weird glitch that happened to me during the fight with the 15th collosus (the one in the castle ruins in the northeastern part of the map). While I was fighting it, Agro appeared while I was stuck trying to figure out how to climb the Colossus' palm (it took a longass time for me to figure that out). I was like "Hey, is that Agro? How'd he get here?" However, he runs through the floor that you have to get the colossus to slap/stomp in order to get to the higher levels of that structure. Like, Agro would stay on grass level so half of him would pop up from the floors that're aligned to the wall. I actually tried using him to get to the Colossus' palm (didn't work).

James McGeachie · Post by **James McGeachie** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 4:28 am

I wish I could find the motivation to go back and finish this, I was really enjoying the game but it's just ended up as one of those titles I shelf because I've become a ridiculously lazy bastard. From what I recall practically every moment of the game while I played was breathtakingly beautiful.

It's probably best I stick away from buying any next gen systems now until I'm finished with what I have, I'm clearly too spoiled as it is.

Forza Johnman · Post by **Forza Johnman** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 6:21 am

I loved this game. I liked Argo and the horse riding. The only animals I killed was the white tailed lizards. I didn't know you could kill the birds though. Mind you it might be because I didn't want to.

I didn't like colossi 9 and 15. 9 was akward and 15 was a pain to get on to the palm. 10 was easy once you realised what to do. During most of the game though was me going wow at the size of everything.

Post by **Popcorn** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 7:17 am

I didn't find the game at all frustrating except for the final boss, when you have to jump from his hand to his chest, or something like that. The series of jumps you have to make seemed woefully ill-considered; or, rather, it was ridiculously difficult to judge them properly. Maybe it was just me.

Colossus is a phenomenally good game-- certainly one of my favourites from this generation-- but I think my beloved Ico remains superior. As far as I'm concerned, Ico is more or less perfect, but Colossus is ever so slightly more ambitious than its format can accommodate... aside from the occasional technical hiccups (the frame rate being the main offender), I also felt that it would have benefited enormously from some Ico-style platforming puzzles before various colossi. That was my main beef with the game: you were either fighting a colossus, or journeying more or less uninterrupted to fight a colossus. It has a certain purity of design, but I really would have enjoyed some pre-colossus puzzles to break up the action. I kept expecting them-- they were hinted at, with the cliff-climb before the first colossus, and the walk up the big spiral with the third-- but they never really came.

Double-S- · Post by **Double-S-** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 7:48 pm

I don't recall ever having problems with the horse. Didn't really have much of a problem on any of the colossi that I can remember, either. Except for that dog-like one (the smallest colossi). I am certain that I had tried the correct method once and it didn't work (making it back off the ledge using the flame), then 40 minutes later when I tried it again it did. That made me very angry.