Ico and Shadow of the Colussus Collection

It may have been a little while since I've updated and I may or may not have been watching movies and playing games in the meantime that I probably should've reviewed. But let's leave that to the past shall we? Unlike these next two games, which have been resurrected from the bygone days of the PS2 in full HD graphics and 3D if you're one of the few who own a 3DTV.

Sony's been doing a lot of dredging up the classics recently, with their first venture being the very successful God of War 1+2 remakes. So it's only natural that the trend continue, and we get two artful masterpieces in Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, redone as they should've been seen.

Now, I never played Ico though I heard a great deal about it, and I enjoyed Shadow though it seemed a little repetitive and lacking for my tastes. So how's the transition into HD? It's beautiful to a fault. Allow me to explain.

It's been 10 years since the release of Ico, and 5 since Shadow. That may not seem like a long time to most, but in game years every couple years brings about a giant shift in graphics and improved gameplay experiences. Every couple years we get better and better games. So to drag these games back from the depths, you're also dragging back old design.

Both games are astonishingly beautiful. The HD update works perfectly, and the old lag problems in Shadow from the strain it put on the PS2 are gone. It basically plays how it was meant to play. Unfortunately, with this amazing graphical quality you start to instinctively expect more modern gameplay as well, and this is where the collection went wrong. By doing a straight port with better graphics, the glaring camera and pathfinding issues in Ico, and the awkward horse maneuvering and glitchy jumps in Shadow seem all the more prominent. We gamers could forgive those kinds of issues back in the day. Not anymore.

For those unfamiliar with the series, Ico tells the story of a boy with horns brought to a prison, who miraculously manages to escape his cell and find a fellow captive named Yorda who speaks a strange language he can't understand. You spend the game dragging Yorda around by the hand, trying to solve puzzles while avoiding/fighting these shadow creatures that keep trying to drag her back (for purposes later revealed), and figure out how to escape the prison. It's basically one long escort mission, though it's a miracle that it somehow never feels too tedious. What's key in Ico is the story, which though it says little, speaks volumes. It's quite a journey Ico and Yorda share, however short it may be (I finished it in 6 hours, though there's a trophy to complete it in 2). Somehow even though they never understand what each other are saying, there's an inexplicable and unbreakable bond forged between them that drives the story forward and makes the entire game a joy to play even if you want to punch Yorda in the face sometimes for her poor pathfinding.

Shadow is the spiritual successor (if not prequel) to Ico. This time we step into the shoes of a mysterious man who has traveled to a forbidden land where a demon named Dormin is held captive, in order to try and get Dormin to bring his girlfriend back from the dead after she was sacrificed for some reason. Dormin agrees to help, in exchange for you traveling across the lands and killing 16 Colossi, personifications of the 16 statues keeping Dormin trapped. Joining you on your adventure is your trusty horse Agro, who while mostly serving as a fast form of transportation across the rather large game world, is also invaluable in defeating certain colossi. Where Shadow falls for me is that it feels like a story driven game, but there's little to no story throughout. Mostly it's "Your next target is this colossi. Go kill it." Then you find it with the help of your sword, which if you hold it up in the light points you in the right direction (and reveals weak spots on colossi), figure out the particular puzzle for each colossi that gets you its weak spots so you can kill it, kill it, and then get transported back to the main shrine to receive your next target. Other than that, you get very small snippets of story about every 4 colossi (girlfriend is looking better, wanderer is looking worse, there are some people after you, they've arrived) but most of the story happens in the beginning and end, and it just seems a bit lacking.

The game world is pretty damn large, but there's nothing to do in it and no reason to explore it. There are save points scattered all over the map but only a few are actually important (being near colossi), and you can also collect fruit from trees to increase your health and collect tails from glowing lizards to increase your stamina, but each one has such a minimal effect that it's easier to just kill the colossi to get the upgrades, and even then it apparently takes 3 to 4 complete playthroughs to max them out. The battles with the Colossi can be quite epic, but can also feel repetitive as some designs are used for more than one colossus, and in the end each one comes down to "Find weak spot, stab weak spot, hold on for dear life as it tries to shake you off, then stab again. Repeat until dead."

This all isn't to say Shadow is a bad game. As with any work of art, the experience is all in the eye of the beholder. Others praise Shadow for its lack of things in the world because it adds to the sense of solitude, really makes it feel like an ancient land you're not supposed to be in, etc. It's just in my experience, I got bored with it. But it is hard to deny how gorgeous this game is with the updated graphics. Sometimes you will just want to stop and stare around at this fallen yet majestic land.

So overall I enjoyed Ico more than Shadow. A deeper story and more varied gameplay overcomes its quirky camera and relics of bad design. Is it worth it to get the collection versus the two on their own if you own a PS2, or even have the games already? Honestly, I would say yes. You can tell that while the actual gameplay issues weren't fixed, they put a lot of effort into making these games look stunningly beautiful, and the way they were originally meant to be seen. Plus you get some free themes and several behind the scenes videos (that I admittedly haven't watched yet). On that note...

Ico gets a 9/10.
Shadow of the Colossus gets a 6/10.
The Collection gets an 8/10, as it's greater than the average of its parts.