DarkNight_DS said:
It felt like the developers wanted to outdo Zelda and fell short on development money along the way. Hence the dead and empty world, the short story and the emphasis on the boss fights. Also, the game was plagued with slow down and graphic glitches. It felt a little cut short and rushed. I assume they had bigger plans for the game but saw the PS3 and the launch of the Xbox 360 and decided to just release the game as is. The boss fights would often become a chore once you died. If I'm suppose to feel lonely, why not have a good resurrection system for the main character to cut the boring sections out of the game? I didn't have that lonely feeling while playing when I died 6 times fighting the boss in the colloseum. It's an over rated game. I enjoyed it while it lasted. Also, what did this game do that was so new? Metroid conquered the loneliness aspect on the SNES. Zelda has had the big boss fights with secret strike zones since the NES. Metroid on the SNES also had some huge boss fights. Nothing that took over an hour to accomplish though... which to me felt a little over kill. Especially when most of the fights were wash and repeats. |
Team ICO have no shortage of development money, and they especially didn't back when Sony was swimming in the stuff from 2001-2005 when they were developing SoTC. I don't see any resemblance to Zelda, tbh.
I noticed no slowdown, but you are right about the graphical glitches. That pop-in is the worst I have ever seen. Worse than inFamous. It took away from some of the immersion when riding around, but not enough to severely harm the game, I don't think.
They certainly did have different plans for the game. One was to make an online game where many players team up to kill the colossi. But that would have wrecked the story. One was to sprinkle basic enemies around. But that would have killed the sense of being alone, and the calm before the storm. They chose what they did because it fit best with Ueda-san's vision. It had nothing to do with the 360 and PS3. I'll also mention that SoTC outsold the majority of, if not all of, the 360's 2005 titles.
You're not meant to always feel lonely, that would be a pretty pathetic game. Only when riding around and finding the colossus. When fighting the colossus, you're meant to be too focused on killing the damned thing to feel lonely. As for the resurrection system, I think it's your own fault that you died six times fighting "The boss in the Colosseum" (number 15, I assume, he was my favourite). What were you doing, running around his feet? I didn't die once fighting that guy.
What did it do new? Firstly, neither Metroid nor NES Zelda was 3D. SoTC, firstly, managed to create a seamless open world without a single load time. It had some of the best graphics on the PS2. Every boss was different (none of them were repeats, what are you talking about? Every boss had a different strategy required to beat it). There was not a single quick time event in any of the 16 boss fights.
And above all, I've never felt so immersed in, as attached to the characters in, or thought so much about, any other game.







