Whereas Final Fantasy X was a game I had a passing interest in only after hearing people talking about, Ico and Shadow of the Colossus were games I really wanted to play immediately after reading about them in gaming magazines. One's an exploration game centered around themes of protection and isolation? The other is nothing but massive boss battles? That's sounds right up my alley! Alas, the fact that I never had a PlayStation 2 until only a few months ago meant that I had to wait a looong time before I could play them (Which is also why the last retro review I wrote was for a PS2 game). But now that I finally have one of my own, I was finally able to sit down and play these two games that critics and gamers everywhere praise as works of art.
I really, really wish I liked them as much as everyone else does.
It's not that I don't like them. Far from it. When these games work, they work beautifully. Both Ico and Colossus perfectly convey the feeling of expansiveness, of being in over your head in this quest. But every instance of being immersed in these games that I felt was quickly shattered from having to wrestle with the awful controls and camera.
Ico probably suffers from this the worst. There were far too many times where I couldn't see the platform I was trying to jump onto, and the camera would refuse to stay behind me when I moved it there. Blind leaps of faith were the norm, and were only exacerbated by how Ico insists on making these wide turns whenever he walks. These two control issues had me falling off of platforms just from walking. I really don't understand why some developers refuse to look at past examples of games that do platforming right and emulate them. Super Mario 64's control's haven't aged that well, but the camera will stay behind me when I want it to, and the running and jumping is as tight as can be. No one at Team Ico realized that one of the earliest games from the previous generation handled better than their game?
Colossus fairs slightly better in the camera issue. It's not perfect: it swings far too wildly when your on the colossi, which are the times when you need to to be perfectly still so you can concentrate on scaling these monstrosities. But it's serviceable. The sticking point for me was Argo. That stupid horse. Again, Team Ico seems to ignore a previous game that makes controlling a horse as easy as walking on foot. In Ocarina of Time, if you're riding Epona and want her to go forward, all you have to do is hold forward. Want her to go right? Move the control stick right. If you need her to stop, hold back and she'll quickly do so. Argo, on the other hand, requires you to continuously mash a button so he'll start moving, but you also have to hold forward, other wise he'll slow down, even though I'm hitting the damn button over and over. I could never get him to fully stop either. No matter how long I held back on the control stick, he would just go into a slow trot. His turns were far too wide, and apparently there are arbitrary ledges he will and will not jump off of. If it seems like I'm harping on Argo too much, it's because it was hard to feel like I was at the mercy of the colossi when I'm also at the mercy of my horse.
This actually ties in to something i want to say about Yorda. Or rather, Ashley Burch says it best, and I'll just extrapolate. Team Ico said that they purposefully made her helpless in order make you feel like you wanted to protect her. Likewise, they made Argo hard to control to emulate the stubbornness of a real horse. Now I'm all for characterization via game play, but you should never, NEVER sacrifice control to go it. Yorda never did anything for herself, so I felt like I was protecting her just because that was the point of the game, rather than because I actually wanted to. I was so fed up with Argo's unresponsiveness that when he fell off the cliff at the end of the game, I was glad since it it meant I wouldn't have to deal with him anymore.
Here's the funny thing, though: I would still recommend both games to people. Despite all the things they get wrong, those moments of immersion I felt hit hard and are still on my mind. Holding onto the colossi for dear life as it shakes you like an itch it can't reach. Running through the expansive castle for that one "aha!" moment. Those small events make the whole thing worthwhile. As games they're extremely frustrating. As an experience, they're unparalleled. If you'll allow me to reference another internet persona, there's nothing like them, so you should play them anyway, even with the flaws.
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