ICO and Shadow of the Colossus Collection

[ly000001]

Originally Posted by celticmoon

So my understanding is that these games feature little to no text and/or voice overs.... Is that correct?

I'm fluent in Japanese, so whenever I play text-heavy Japanese games and/or Japanese games with voice over work, I tend to like to actually play the Japanese versions to keep as much of the original essence in tact. But in the case of these games, it doesn't seem like that would be much of an issue, right?

The price difference here is just so great, that I'm heavily leaning toward getting the US version, so I just wanted to make sure that this understanding is correct.

The characters speak a made-up ancient language, so all the dialogue is subtitled.

[celticmoon]

Thanks for the replies, guys. I think I'll just go stick with the US version. Even the full US retail price of $40 beats spending nearly $100 on it.

Unfortunately Amazon's price went back up from $30 to $40. I'll wait til Cyber Monday to see if there are any better deals.

[Shin-Ra]

The Inspiration Behind Ico’s Iconic Cover Art

Completed sometime between 1911 and 1914, The Nostalgia of the Infinite (left) features two small, dark and lonely figures dwarfed by an enormous tower. It's a theme that runs through many of De Chirico's other works as well, like The Anguish of Departure and The Red Tower, which also show large structures looming over small, lonely people.

De Chirico wasn't just the starting point for the cover art, either (which, as you can see, has a lot in common with Nostalgia). Ico creator Fumito Ueda has cited his entire body of work as a big inspiration in the development of the game (alongside Eric Chahi's Another World/Out Of This World), as that loneliness they capture so well, that feeling of being almost trapped by an overpowering building, carries through into Ico and is present from the moment you start playing until almost the very end.

[Snake_XRS]

I just completed my first playthrough of ICO, and am about 30 minutes into my speed run attempt for the 2 hour trophy (just started the sewer area). I have to say that whoever put in the speedrun trophy really did a disservice to the game. This game is really not designed well for speedrunning, as dealing with Yorda's goofy AI on top of ICO's clumsy control just doesn't work in a lot of situations.

Also, a couple of the speed run videos i've watched NEVER play out like my game, even if I do exactly what is done on video. These guys leave Yorda alone for over 2 minutes at times with no shadow invasions, yet if I leave her for 30 seconds she gets abducted.

Is there a difficulty difference between a new game and NG+? Maybe they're more aggressive because of NG+?

Even though I owned the original version, I think I had gotten stuck somewhere and never finished it. Loved the final battle, simplistic but still cool. Also, at the point of getting out of the main gate, I thought the game was over, little did I know there was still around 45 minutes to go

[Talyn]

I should get around to playing the HD versions of these....just makes me wish Last Guardian will get released sometime before the end of time....

[Snake_XRS]

A quick update-- I finished my second playthrough, and got to the final save at the main gate with a time of 1:38. With around 40 minutes (minimum) remaining (including about 10 unskippable cutscene/credit minutes) it would have been impossible to get under 2 hours.

So now i'm 2 playthroughs done, with every trophy minus the Castle Guide trophy (finish under 2 hours). I'm starting a 3rd playthrough and hope I can keep up with the speedrun videos.

Also, I'm pretty convinced that NG+ has more shadow enemies and more of the bear-looking huge guys than the standard human size shadows than a standard new game. Not to mention doing a speedrun on a new game will not allow you to save at the very end so you won't have an exact completion time. Best to do your speedrun on a brand new game.

[Monkey]

I bought this collection a while ago but never got into either of them. Need to get to it soon

[Snake_XRS]

Just got the plat for this last night . What a relief! As a guideline, a couple of my major timestamps at locations were

Windmill: 0:22
Stone Pillar: 0:28
East Area (departure): 0:43
Water Tower: 1:01
Main Gate (final save): 1:20

I'm missing a few others but these were pretty well spaced out saves or just before or after a frustrating part. By far the worst area for me was the sewers, followed by the graveyard.

After the final save, I got all the way to the area where you need to drop down to the bottom (where you pick up the queen's sword) flawlessly, but died on one of the jumps. I continued that area again, and completed the game with a final time of 1:57 (3 minutes to spare )

So glad it's over, though. That trophy takes a game with minimal stress and makes it a nail biter. It doesn't help when (multiple times) Yorda will climb a ladder, get a quarter to half way up, then decide to go down again .