Video Game Deconstruction: Shadow of the Colossus, Part 3

Colossus 9
Stupidstupidstupidstupid.

The path to this one was mostly the same path that lead to one of the previous ones. #6, I believe. Only this time I went slightly to the left. Exploration involved going around a couple mountains and navigating terrain that made Horse go stupid. He’d either get hung up on trivial bits of scenery, or he’d swerve around said scenery, only to run face first into a wall.

I eventually came across some barren land with a geyser shooting up out of the ground. I thought this was a very neat piece of scenery. Then I found the Colossus two seconds later and instantly knew that I had to use the geyser to kill him.

If I may go into a tangent for a minute, I’d like to say that shit like that pisses me off. Not the “obvious boss weakpoint” part of it, but the “neat scenery that is actually a gameplay mechanic” part. If you’ve been reading for a while, you may remember my story about finding that amphitheater in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. This is the same deal here. What is, at first, a very cool set piece, only there to be interesting to find and enjoy, later becomes just a part of the actual “game” part of the game. It kills the charm and whimsy it used to have and boils it down to simple gameplay mechanics. And that disappoints me.

Anyway, that giant turtle was stupid. Just being near its feet hurt, even when they weren’t touching me or stomping anywhere near me, and it had this laser attack that managed to hurt me NO MATTER WHAT, even if I was nowhere near the lasers’ impact point or blast radius. It was obvious that I had to lead the Colossus onto the geyser, but the dumb thing hardly ever chose to chase after me. And why would it, with its long-range lasers?

I eventually tricked it into Death’s parlor for tea and board games, but not after it got a few choice words out of me. Managing to roll onto its back and climb up to its head required mostly luck, the bulk of its attacks proved to be unavoidable, and the fact that such a tiny geyser could LIFT A GIGANTIC ARMOR-PLATED TURTLE OFF THE GROUND was just outlandishly silly. Let’s just try to pretend that this whole segment didn’t exist, shall we?

Colossus 10
Okay, listen Japan. I know you really really like doing this. And it breaks my heart to have you tell you this, but it must be said.

Sand does not work that way.

I’m sorry, but it is true. I don’t care how you design your big bad monster. It just simply cannot sail through sand like water. It just. Doesn’t. Work.

Now with that nerdrage out of the way, lets cut to the normal rage. It seems I have finally found the horseback battle I have been dreading for the entire game. Now, there have been a couple Colossi that had the option of using the horse for, but I never did. Why would I want to deal with all that clunkiness in the middle of a fight?

Well, this dumb snake seems to finally require it. And let me tell you, nothing is more fun than hopping onto your horse in a desperate effort to flee a gigantic monster, only for it to just kinda stand there until it gets hit. I love controlling this stupid beast in an arena filled with obstacles, forcing me to subdue it and correct its course while a Colossus barrels down on me. And I love having 3/4 of my health bar knocked out of me the instant I get within a 100ft. radius of the damn thing, too. Boy howdy.

After many attempts at this bullshit, I had to stop. I’ll try again at a later time, after doing some research on the battle. I just plain don’t have the patience for this kind of nonsense.

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Attempt #2 ended in victory, but only in the strictest of technical meanings. After looking up the method to fight this thing and saying to myself “wow, that’s insanely obnoxious,” I proceeded to actually do the fight, during which I said to myself “wow, this is insanely obnoxious.”

Let me be fair for a moment. The actual mechanics of the fight worked better than I had expected, and the windows of opportunity it gives you are more forgiving than I had initially expected. No, the actual obnoxiousness came in the form of the core gameplay mechanics. Horse loves to get stuck in corners and on the sides of obstacles, which gave me at least one faceful of humongous sandworm dong. And the bow loves to just kinda refuse to shoot arrows until a couple seconds after I release the button sometimes.

But the big problem here was the arrows’ innacuracy. This is actually something I’ve been noticing for a while now. It’s not an issue when you’re aiming at a Colossus’ flank, but it’s almost always an issue when trying to do things like shoot those damn stupid white-tailed lizards. There have been many, MANY times when an arrow will hit the empty space next to a wall or corner and stop dead, and there have been even more times when I’ll shoot a lizard DEAD ON, and the dumb thing will outright ignore it. It might fall to the ground like I grazed it, but then it’ll just get right back up. There was one time where I fired a good five or so arrows into a lizard FROM POINT BLANK RANGE, and it didn’t die until the sixth or seventh arrow hit.

Now you may say that this is intended, or isn’t that big of a deal. I would then counter that this Colossus is entirely centered around the fact that your arrows need to be accurate. I shot this bastard directly in the eyes multiple times without him reacting. I didn’t miss, I SAW THE ARROW EMBED ITSELF INTO THE EYE.

I almost quit the game here. But I’m gonna soldier on, and see which level of Hell the game will take me to next.

Oh, and side note: I guess my previous theory about the post-battle voice thing is completely shot. I haven’t heard anything outside of the standard murmurs for a couple of clips now.

Colossus 11
*Pause game*
Oh look, a bull! I bet if I dodge and let it run into a wall, it’ll get stunned and allow me to climb aboard and play rodeo!
*Unpause game*

Okay, not quite, but close enough. There was an extra, inane step thrown in. Why do I call it inane? Because I’m expected to believe that a great and mighty Colossus, which is covered in armor, by the way, is supposed to be afraid of fire. Fire, which according to God, this Colossus is supposed to be the guardian of.

And how the shit does this qualify as a Colossus anyway? The dumb thing is about the size of a perfectly normal, if not slightly small, bull. Wasn’t the entire point of this game to scale and kill incredibly massive beasts? Why am I scaring a completely normal bull off of a cliff and riding it like I’m trying to win the blue ribbon at the county fair? This is stupid. Let’s move on.

Colossus 12
So I noticed something neat this time around: Boy’s face is getting all jacked up. Neat. I guess that’s what happens when you get stabbed in the gut with swirling black mist over and over again.

My journey to this Colossus lead me through a neat little forest. I thought it was a dead end and took a detour through some giant desert, since the map said I could go that way. I found a neat castle, which I’m sure is where the final Colossus is, but no path. I went back to the woods and found that, yes, there is another path out of there... almost right next to the entrance. I felt dumb. Although to be fair, it is kind of a dick move to do something like that, map designers.

The Colossus itself was kinda dumb too. Nothing’s more awesome than lightning attacks that you can’t dodge while you swim to some kind of land! The fight was pretty easy to figure out though, if a bit obnoxious. I had to climb the thing a good four or five times before it died. Not nearly as bad as the past few, though! My faith in the game is starting to grow again!