Limbo isn't even in the same league as SoTC, when it comes to the scale on which the game is rendered.Gannu said:
ICO and Shadow of the Collosus - Discussion Thread
- Thread starter elendil
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Ethan_Hunt said:
When I meant 30 fps, I was referring to the playability of the game. Some titles aren't playable at that framerate whereas some others are. There were several complaints of framerate losses for SOTC when it had originally released for the PS2.
Ofc most titles released for the console have their framerates locked at 30 fps. Heck, even BF3 is capped to 30FPS on the PS3!
I understand where you're trying to get at, but the Limbo example was completely off place. Most of the Indie games are locked at that frame rate, as they don't have a massive amount of detail to render. SoTC, however, has a huge area to render and the issue was the amount of texture loading and draw distance rendering was difficult for the PS2's hardware to handle, hence the slow-downs. I remember it would get stuck for a while to load certain areas while travelling. Not to mention, battling the collosi was even more daunting task. So if the PS3 version has a 30fps lock, it should be stable. Else there is no reason why this game couldn't deliver 60fps on PS3's hardware.Gannu said:
I can't wait to see how the High Def visuals are for both these games. I haven't even touched ICO, but heard so much praise for it, so can't afford to miss it. 
When is your copy arriving?
When is your copy arriving?
Oh noes!
Didn't got my much time to play was playing Driver San Fransisco one of the few games which i have been liking it has some fun factor.
Already beaten the first boss in Shadow of Collosus but i must say the game hasn't received good treatment in up-scaling the visual quality.On the other hand ICO does looks very nice and looks real 1080p.
In regards to Shadow of Collosus the opening sequence music was one of the masterpiece , wonder how a game which does not have anything other than bosses can be so great.
Already beaten the first boss in Shadow of Collosus but i must say the game hasn't received good treatment in up-scaling the visual quality.On the other hand ICO does looks very nice and looks real 1080p.
In regards to Shadow of Collosus the opening sequence music was one of the masterpiece , wonder how a game which does not have anything other than bosses can be so great.
I'm a bit disappointed with SoTC's HD remake. The cut-scenes, specifically, are really poor and screen resolution looks a bit squished. Camera seems to be another challenge, as it pans out in the most odd manner. It's been a long time since I have played the game, but I don't recollect the PS2 controls so weird. Frame rates seem balanced for most part. ICO seemed like a good over-all transfer and looked very vivid. ICO's game selection music is simply captivating.
Spacescreamer
ex-Mod
Half a knowledge is a harmful thing .. esp if it leaves the others befuddled
The name of the song @ selection screen is 'You Were There' i am guessing?? One of my favourites, other one being the Enslaved's selection screen sound track.
The name of the song @ selection screen is 'You Were There' i am guessing?? One of my favourites, other one being the Enslaved's selection screen sound track.
Ars said:
Another kickass review courtesy Ars - Masterpieces: Sony's PS3 re-release of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus is a must-buy
Spacescreamer said:Half a knowledge is a harmful thing .. esp if it leaves the others befuddled
The name of the song @ selection screen is 'You Were There' i am guessing?? One of my favourites, other one being the Enslaved's selection screen sound track.
Jep! That's the one. Beautiful song indeed.
Forgot about this one!
Completed Ico last weekend and it was certainly an experience filled with memorable moments. More so because this was one of those titles which came into public limelight when a footage of The Last Guardian (the then title Project Trico) was posted at the Playstation Life blog and I came to know of this developer team that had developed two titles prior to TLG which were well received on the PS2. As I compose this post, I feel glad the title was remastered alongside Shadow of the Colossus (which btw I am attempting at the moment!). I never got a chance to own the PS2 and had missed out on some of the good titles that were exclusively developed for it. Sony's decision to remaster some of the classy titles in high definition was definitely a welcome move and well appreciated. The remastering also meant that the newer players were introduced to the series prior to the release of an upcoming sequel. God of War III for instance. In addition to the PSN trophy support, some recent titles have been given a sterescopic 3D support as well; for instance Ico and Shadow of the Colossus and God of War Origins Collection. So if your spanking new HDTV supports stereoscopic 3D, about time you grab these titles!
Coming back to the game, Ico is based on a subtle storyline based on the game's lead designer Fumito Ueda's 'girl-meets-boy' concept. The game opens with a cutscene showing a group of horse ridden warriors transporting a young boy Ico, who seem to have a pair of horns. He is taken into what seems like some sort of an abandoned castle situated in an island and locked up inside a sarcophagus in a huge chamber filled with similar sarcophagi. They depart telling him not to be angry on them and that this is done for the good of the village. Luckily, Ico manages to escape out of the sarcophagus when it topples and breaks. And while he explores the castle, he meets a mysterious beautiful girl trapped inside a cage - Yorda. He manages to free her and the pair decides to flee the castle. What ensues is their adventures on the abandoned castle, platforming, solving puzzles, Ico escorting Yorda and in essence the game!
The entirety of the game features Ico and Yorda going places holding hands with each other and do a lot of things which otherwise cannot be accomplished by Ico himself. An innocent girl Yorda, is less agile compared to Ico and cannot fight the dark souls who seem to drag her into portals that emerge from the ground. Nor can she jump higher distances or climb ledges, neither the chains or swing by the pole or push some object. Ico can do all that and even more and must help Yorda from time to time such as lending her a hand in climbing a platform or when she has to make a jump over a large distance. Yorda however, has a unique ability - to open the several idol doors strewn around the castle. There are some interesting platforming sequences to be encountered during their adventures and environmental puzzles to be solved reminiscent of the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time series. The combat in the game is limited to battling dark souls that emerge out of portals and intends to capture Yorda. She is dragged into the portal and must be pulled out before time runs out. If Ico fails in doing so, a flash runs across the display for a moment and Ico freezes as a result indicating the game's end! The game saves at predefined points indicated by what looks like a stone settee! The game saves only when the two of them sits on the couch and prompts the user to do so. I happened to miss the first save point somehow. Maybe because Ico was in some sort of hurry to escape the castle pulling her along! A trophy whore that I am, there was this trophy being rewarded to the player if he/she manages to save the game at all the points from the start to the end. And a Gold one at that! I decided to restart the game from scratch the moment I came across the next couch and realised that this is actually a save point!
The game does not feature an HUD of any sort. As simple as it gets, Ico doesn't sport any health or armor bar; the souls cannot harm him either. No weapons being displayed thanks to the limited combat in the game. No maps or indications pointing to some location. No powers displayed. No nothing! For a change I quite liked it. Of course the game doesn't demand any HUD. If the Prince of Persia series however was missing one, it could have been well, bad. When I meant limited combat, Ico could use a wooden stick (a sword later) to ward off the dark souls. No QTE, no light or heavy attacks, no parrying either. The voice acting as well is minimalistic. Ico speaks Japanese (I assume) and the English subtitles are displayed. Yorda however speaks some alien language and the subtitle shows some weird hieroglyphic symbols that the player cannot comprehend. Other than the music played at the title screen You Were There (an awesome one at that!), save screen and the ending credits, the game doesn't feature any sound track. There is this silent wind blowing, waves of the ocean lashing the island, birds chirping, fire of the lantern burning but that's about it. This sort of silence gradually pulls you into the game and fits in right there in the game.
The visuals in the game requires a dedicated mention. The game seemed to have been the first of its kind to feature bloom lighting when it debuted back in 2001 on the PS2. The lighting inside an enclosed space or the outdoors clearly stand out. The super bright rays of the sun actually resemble them and you couldn't stare if you were climbing the stairs or dragging some object and the rays shone at the player. However, I am not sure if the textures were enhanced in the remastering but it wasn't all that great TBH. There is an option of zooming in towards Ico and the bad textures are evident thus. Level designs clearly stand out among the most notable aspects of the game. The entire game like I mentioned before revolves around the two escaping the castle and the castle, the outdoors such as the gardens, the tombs, the graves, the two idol towers located symmetrically opposite to the main gate etc have been designed quite well. At several points in the game, one would notice that Ico ends up at the same location he was there before. Except that some change might have occurred later on. Character designs are simple but effective. One can distinctly notice the way he ends up landing on the floor when falling off a great distance or when knocked off by the enemies or when shimmying across pipes or painstakingly climb a ledge. Similarly when Yorda is hastily pulled by Ico, she reluctantly moves to keep pace with him. The camera angles in the game are however pretty bad. At times, I have felt the need to pause the character from moving, pan the camera to another location and then find out what exactly comes where and then move Ico.
The game ends just like how a similar title - Limbo did. It is left to the player to assume what happened towards the conclusion and how Ico and Yorda ended up there. It took me 7 hours to finish the game (and later realised that it had an alternate epilogue as well!). It doesn't take more than 6~7 hours to complete for the average gamer. Apparently so, it can be done in a single sitting in 2 hours or less since there was a Gold trophy for accomplishing that feat! Now THAT is a mighty one if I may add since it will take sometime to beat the game in under that limited time. If I may add, there is another Gold trophy for completing it in under 4 hours as well.
Be sure to wait until the ending credits roll out. Alternate ending:
Finally, I felt quite glad that I played the game when it released at a time when I could appreciate every bit of it. I mean if I were to lay my hands on the copy when it had released for the PS2, back when I was in my 9th grade or so, I couldn't have probably recognised the worth of the game, its mechanics and the emotion filled story of a boy escaping captivity with a girl. Just like how it felt when I played Heavy Rain sometime ago.
Completed Ico last weekend and it was certainly an experience filled with memorable moments. More so because this was one of those titles which came into public limelight when a footage of The Last Guardian (the then title Project Trico) was posted at the Playstation Life blog and I came to know of this developer team that had developed two titles prior to TLG which were well received on the PS2. As I compose this post, I feel glad the title was remastered alongside Shadow of the Colossus (which btw I am attempting at the moment!). I never got a chance to own the PS2 and had missed out on some of the good titles that were exclusively developed for it. Sony's decision to remaster some of the classy titles in high definition was definitely a welcome move and well appreciated. The remastering also meant that the newer players were introduced to the series prior to the release of an upcoming sequel. God of War III for instance. In addition to the PSN trophy support, some recent titles have been given a sterescopic 3D support as well; for instance Ico and Shadow of the Colossus and God of War Origins Collection. So if your spanking new HDTV supports stereoscopic 3D, about time you grab these titles!
Coming back to the game, Ico is based on a subtle storyline based on the game's lead designer Fumito Ueda's 'girl-meets-boy' concept. The game opens with a cutscene showing a group of horse ridden warriors transporting a young boy Ico, who seem to have a pair of horns. He is taken into what seems like some sort of an abandoned castle situated in an island and locked up inside a sarcophagus in a huge chamber filled with similar sarcophagi. They depart telling him not to be angry on them and that this is done for the good of the village. Luckily, Ico manages to escape out of the sarcophagus when it topples and breaks. And while he explores the castle, he meets a mysterious beautiful girl trapped inside a cage - Yorda. He manages to free her and the pair decides to flee the castle. What ensues is their adventures on the abandoned castle, platforming, solving puzzles, Ico escorting Yorda and in essence the game!
The entirety of the game features Ico and Yorda going places holding hands with each other and do a lot of things which otherwise cannot be accomplished by Ico himself. An innocent girl Yorda, is less agile compared to Ico and cannot fight the dark souls who seem to drag her into portals that emerge from the ground. Nor can she jump higher distances or climb ledges, neither the chains or swing by the pole or push some object. Ico can do all that and even more and must help Yorda from time to time such as lending her a hand in climbing a platform or when she has to make a jump over a large distance. Yorda however, has a unique ability - to open the several idol doors strewn around the castle. There are some interesting platforming sequences to be encountered during their adventures and environmental puzzles to be solved reminiscent of the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time series. The combat in the game is limited to battling dark souls that emerge out of portals and intends to capture Yorda. She is dragged into the portal and must be pulled out before time runs out. If Ico fails in doing so, a flash runs across the display for a moment and Ico freezes as a result indicating the game's end! The game saves at predefined points indicated by what looks like a stone settee! The game saves only when the two of them sits on the couch and prompts the user to do so. I happened to miss the first save point somehow. Maybe because Ico was in some sort of hurry to escape the castle pulling her along! A trophy whore that I am, there was this trophy being rewarded to the player if he/she manages to save the game at all the points from the start to the end. And a Gold one at that! I decided to restart the game from scratch the moment I came across the next couch and realised that this is actually a save point!
The game does not feature an HUD of any sort. As simple as it gets, Ico doesn't sport any health or armor bar; the souls cannot harm him either. No weapons being displayed thanks to the limited combat in the game. No maps or indications pointing to some location. No powers displayed. No nothing! For a change I quite liked it. Of course the game doesn't demand any HUD. If the Prince of Persia series however was missing one, it could have been well, bad. When I meant limited combat, Ico could use a wooden stick (a sword later) to ward off the dark souls. No QTE, no light or heavy attacks, no parrying either. The voice acting as well is minimalistic. Ico speaks Japanese (I assume) and the English subtitles are displayed. Yorda however speaks some alien language and the subtitle shows some weird hieroglyphic symbols that the player cannot comprehend. Other than the music played at the title screen You Were There (an awesome one at that!), save screen and the ending credits, the game doesn't feature any sound track. There is this silent wind blowing, waves of the ocean lashing the island, birds chirping, fire of the lantern burning but that's about it. This sort of silence gradually pulls you into the game and fits in right there in the game.
The visuals in the game requires a dedicated mention. The game seemed to have been the first of its kind to feature bloom lighting when it debuted back in 2001 on the PS2. The lighting inside an enclosed space or the outdoors clearly stand out. The super bright rays of the sun actually resemble them and you couldn't stare if you were climbing the stairs or dragging some object and the rays shone at the player. However, I am not sure if the textures were enhanced in the remastering but it wasn't all that great TBH. There is an option of zooming in towards Ico and the bad textures are evident thus. Level designs clearly stand out among the most notable aspects of the game. The entire game like I mentioned before revolves around the two escaping the castle and the castle, the outdoors such as the gardens, the tombs, the graves, the two idol towers located symmetrically opposite to the main gate etc have been designed quite well. At several points in the game, one would notice that Ico ends up at the same location he was there before. Except that some change might have occurred later on. Character designs are simple but effective. One can distinctly notice the way he ends up landing on the floor when falling off a great distance or when knocked off by the enemies or when shimmying across pipes or painstakingly climb a ledge. Similarly when Yorda is hastily pulled by Ico, she reluctantly moves to keep pace with him. The camera angles in the game are however pretty bad. At times, I have felt the need to pause the character from moving, pan the camera to another location and then find out what exactly comes where and then move Ico.
The game ends just like how a similar title - Limbo did. It is left to the player to assume what happened towards the conclusion and how Ico and Yorda ended up there. It took me 7 hours to finish the game (and later realised that it had an alternate epilogue as well!). It doesn't take more than 6~7 hours to complete for the average gamer. Apparently so, it can be done in a single sitting in 2 hours or less since there was a Gold trophy for accomplishing that feat! Now THAT is a mighty one if I may add since it will take sometime to beat the game in under that limited time. If I may add, there is another Gold trophy for completing it in under 4 hours as well.
Be sure to wait until the ending credits roll out. Alternate ending:
After the credits roll out, Ico is seen inside the boat that grounded off the coast. He can be controlled as the cutscene pans out. If you were to just walk along the coast and discover Yorda later, that results in one epilogue and a cutscene ensues. If you want to unlock the alternate epilogue, proceed to that large piece of rock to find some watermelons on the grassy lands. Grab one and walk further ahead to find Yorda. Ico will be seen sharing the watermelon pieces with Yorda and the screen pans out.
Finally, I felt quite glad that I played the game when it released at a time when I could appreciate every bit of it. I mean if I were to lay my hands on the copy when it had released for the PS2, back when I was in my 9th grade or so, I couldn't have probably recognised the worth of the game, its mechanics and the emotion filled story of a boy escaping captivity with a girl. Just like how it felt when I played Heavy Rain sometime ago.
Spacescreamer
ex-Mod
^^ that write up still has lots of spoilers left in the open Ganesh.
Spacescreamer
ex-Mod
the last para infact.
I was of the impression that everything would be clear and we ll have the happy ending or whatever.. but not the least about the ambiguous ending u mentioned and related it even with limbo. Now if i havent played either.. i am in for a double whammy.
I was of the impression that everything would be clear and we ll have the happy ending or whatever.. but not the least about the ambiguous ending u mentioned and related it even with limbo. Now if i havent played either.. i am in for a double whammy.