I loved Shadow of the Colossus back on the PS2 and loved it all the same with the PS3 remaster. Now it's been remade from the ground up on PS4 and god damn does it look good. I can't sing enough praise for the base game - it's a stunning classic that holds its own as a unique experience akin to Journey. And while I could talk about the things I love about the core game and even the remake until I'm blue in the face - the remake is far from perfect and I want to discuss the things that I truly wish the had done differently with the remake.
For starters - the mother f*cking horse. Now the horse mechanics were notoriously bad when the game first came out on PS2, but they were forgiven for the hardware the game launched on. Even on PS3 the game's horse mechanics were given some slack as it was understood and accepted that the PS3 version was nothing more than a 1080p remaster of the original game. This time around however the game was again, remade from the ground up for new hardware and for reasons I cannot fathom they decided to make the god damn horse mechanics a 1-for-1 recreation of how they were on the PS2. I understand the logic of wanting to remake the game as pure and true-to-form as the original; but that's what remasters are for - not fullblown remakes. The horse is so irritating to maneuver that it constantly distracts you from the amazing visuals and experience. Again, this was part of the charm back when the game originally launched. But a remake needs to offer more than updated visuals - it needs to offer a gameplay experience that players of the current hardware generation have come to expect.
Furthermore, a new welcomed addition to the game also happens to be it's biggest curse: autosave. I dont recall if the PS3 version updated the game with an autosave mechanic, but it is a welcome addition to the PS4 remake.... or so I thought. As it turns out, the developers of the remake made another decision that I cannot for the life of me understand: autosaves in this game will overwrite your most recent manual save. This may not seem like a big deal, and it probably wont be a big deal for most casual players. However the game just royally f*cked me over on my no-death run of the game, as I always manual save after each boss. Well after finally being killed, I quickly reloaded my previous manual save to retry the boss fight without it affecting my no-death run - only to discover that my manual save stats were replaced with the autosave stats (the death). Why in the name of heck would any developer with common sense design a save system like this? This game isn't like Dark Souls where your stats are automatically saved every 10 seconds - there are in-game trophies for things such as not dying in a playthrough, so manual saves are a necessity.
I hope both of these issues can be simply patched - another great feature of modern gaming - and these are really the only two speedbumps I've encountered thus far in an otherwise phenomenal remake of a true classic. If anyone has never played Shadow of the Colossus and owns a PS4, now is a great time to add it to your collection.
For starters - the mother f*cking horse. Now the horse mechanics were notoriously bad when the game first came out on PS2, but they were forgiven for the hardware the game launched on. Even on PS3 the game's horse mechanics were given some slack as it was understood and accepted that the PS3 version was nothing more than a 1080p remaster of the original game. This time around however the game was again, remade from the ground up for new hardware and for reasons I cannot fathom they decided to make the god damn horse mechanics a 1-for-1 recreation of how they were on the PS2. I understand the logic of wanting to remake the game as pure and true-to-form as the original; but that's what remasters are for - not fullblown remakes. The horse is so irritating to maneuver that it constantly distracts you from the amazing visuals and experience. Again, this was part of the charm back when the game originally launched. But a remake needs to offer more than updated visuals - it needs to offer a gameplay experience that players of the current hardware generation have come to expect.
Furthermore, a new welcomed addition to the game also happens to be it's biggest curse: autosave. I dont recall if the PS3 version updated the game with an autosave mechanic, but it is a welcome addition to the PS4 remake.... or so I thought. As it turns out, the developers of the remake made another decision that I cannot for the life of me understand: autosaves in this game will overwrite your most recent manual save. This may not seem like a big deal, and it probably wont be a big deal for most casual players. However the game just royally f*cked me over on my no-death run of the game, as I always manual save after each boss. Well after finally being killed, I quickly reloaded my previous manual save to retry the boss fight without it affecting my no-death run - only to discover that my manual save stats were replaced with the autosave stats (the death). Why in the name of heck would any developer with common sense design a save system like this? This game isn't like Dark Souls where your stats are automatically saved every 10 seconds - there are in-game trophies for things such as not dying in a playthrough, so manual saves are a necessity.
I hope both of these issues can be simply patched - another great feature of modern gaming - and these are really the only two speedbumps I've encountered thus far in an otherwise phenomenal remake of a true classic. If anyone has never played Shadow of the Colossus and owns a PS4, now is a great time to add it to your collection.
