(no subject)

[prog]

I finished "Shadow of the Colossus". After getting through the frustrating bit I wrote about a few days ago, I rather enjoyed it.



Ending reaction: What the, its "2001". What the, it's "Snow White".

I have gone back and forth on thinking that the baby grows up to become the boy from "Ico". It was my first thought, but then I remembered the implication in "Ico" that there are many horn-head kids... though it's not clear how long ago they lived.

I'm now thinking "prequel" again because of what the shaman says after the bridge falls, hoping that the poor crazy kid has survived and will find a way to atone for his transgression. It borders on non sequitur, but can be made into foreshadowing: ridding the world of another shadow-demon-thingy (the queen) would probably do the trick nicely, hm?

I discovered the lizard-hunting subgame on my own, but did not notice any effect collecting white tails had beyond a little "you did a good thing" sound effect. One FAQ says it increases your grip meter a bit, but I'm not convinced. I do like how you can shoot their tails off (rather than just killing them) to go for extra animal-friendly style points.

Other "secret" things mentioned in the FAQ which I managed to blunder into while playing: If you press circle when your horse is stopped and you have no weapon equipped, you pat your horse. I like this. Also, I did not realize that the white mark on the horse's forehead was the "I" from Ico's title design; this happens if you have a memory card with an Ico save file in it, as I did. Otherwise, it's a diamond-shaped mark.

My total play-time was something over 14 hours.

Comments

[radiotelescope.livejournal.com]

My vaguely-spoilery commentary (you probably already saw this) is http://eblong.com/zarf/gamerev/shadowcolossus.html.

I liked the horns popping out in the story -- hey! story! -- but there *were* generations of horned kids in Ico. I am certain that the sin, and the need for atonement, was carried down through those generations. Which is not fair to anyone involved; but then neither was nailing horned kids into sarcophagi.

There's more going on than we have been told. (And it'll be another three or four years til the next one, I'm sure.)

[prog.livejournal.com]

Another thing I mentioned, which could be me hearing things: When I watched some friends play through the intro the other day, I thought heard the main character say the word "ico" (if pronouncing it EE-ko) when he said "She was sacrificed because she had a cursed fate." I immediately thought: She was sacrificed because she was ico.

That'd be pretty cool if true, explaining the title of the first game (ico is not the boy's name, but the name of his condition) and giving weight to this idea of an implied shared background.