I'm better than this

Games
1

I am so pissed off at my gaming skills. After the total letdown I had with Chrono Cross, (another thread about it here somewhere) I decided to look in the used bin basement at my local Gamestop for a more modern, but still old, PS/PS2 game.

There it was. Shadow of the Colossus.

I rolled through the first four easily, but I knew I was in trouble after the first. I can’t master the damn jumping in this game. The camera, the controls, I can’t get it down.

So I’m riding this damn flying thingy, I know EXACTLY what to do, jump out to a wingtip and stabstabstab…but I fall off every time. For like an hour I’ve been doing this.

I’ve always had problems in games early, but I usually win the endgame boss fight easily, to the point that my friends say “How the hell did you do that?” I don’t know how I do it, but I do it.

But this game, supposedly the best game ever made for the PS2, is about to make me throw things. Because I can not JUMP. Correctly.

Anyone else ever have this problem?

Not just this game of course, but in general. Something so easy and trivial to everyone else, but you can’t do it right.

I think Tom had an issue with this in Braid, but I may be projecting my own frustration…

Fuck it, time to shoot the thing with an arrow and grab on again…

2

I’ve never played the game mentioned here, but I will say there have been many things that have made me very frustrated! Off the top of my head, the Resident Evil 4 battle with the lake monster took me probably 17 tries. I was so mad watching that cinematic for the 17th time. I think I found out later in the game that you could skip it…

Another fight that took me a long time was my first Big Daddy (on the hardest difficulty). Of course, after you get your rhythm, the rest of them are really easy.

3

Great…I made the jump, killed the right wing with my stabstabstab skills…Crawled back to the neck and rested, ready to try for the left wing…And my formerly bulletproof PS2 crashed…

I think God hates me…

For FUCKS SAKE, I HAVE TO DO THIS AGAIN!?!?!?!

4

Well, if it makes you feel any better, the fights in Shadow of the Colossus aren’t just something you have to pass in order to move the game forward. They ARE the game. And they’re meant to be very challenging. So, you’re at the very core of the gameplay right now. You can’t get any closer toward the center of what the game is all about.

5

I got a 360 and Tales of Vesperia for Xmas. I got pretty far into the game and came upon some boss down in a basement in the game. I was attempting to do the “Secret Missions” for beating bosses (essentially, bizarro conditions you must fulfill while fighting the boss to get special items and rewards).

Let it be known that I missed Secret Mission #1. No matter how many of the others I get, I will not get the full completion for Secret Missions in this game now. It is impossible.

I have failed the secret mission on the basement-boss more times than I can count. I played him a dozen times over Xmas break and have been breaking the game out once or twice a month since then and failing miserably, despite being hyper-levelled and reading tons of FAQS that describe exactly what to do to accomplish the SM.

BUT EVEN IF I DO IT IT WON’T MATTER AT THE END GAME.

Why do I refuse to just kill the boss normally and continue?

Why the fuck is the cinematic before fighting him so GODDAMNED LONG?

And why the Christ do my attacks bounce off of him when he is up on two legs despite that being the only time you can knock him back? Why do my R-Trigger-launched explosion-thingies not even touch him in that mode? My special attacks? etc.etc.etc.

I am being completely serious when I say that I hate that game and it is singularly responsible for me barely using my XBox 360 in the tiny glimmers of free time I have these days.

6

Just wait until you have to jump off of your horse at full speed, if you’re having difficulty with the jumping now…

7

Two things this usually ends up being for me:

  1. I’m overthinking it.
  2. I’m tired but manic. I am NOT going to get it tonight.
    Inevitably when I go to bed and try again tomorrow it all comes together.
8

Yeah, sometimes I’ll take a couple days off even, and when I come back, I’ll be amazed at how I was unable to get it before.

The one case of this that sticks out for me was Space Channel 5. I played through the whole game without too much difficulty, but I’ve never beaten it. Because of the very last note in the game. The very end of the game is a triplet note that you have to hit all 3, otherwise you lose and play the last section again. I’ve never been able to get that last triplet. Played that level probably 5 times in a row, failed every time, and just said “screw it”. Still haven’t ever beaten the game.

9

In Jak 2, there is a race with Erol where you’re blasting through Haven City on crotch-rockets because he’s going to show Keira what a real man is all about (it makes sense in the game, promise). The first time I played Jak 2, I lost count of how many times I failed this race with him, and I was counting up until 35 until I lost track. I was -livid-. Cursing the game, the controller, the phase of the moon, the White House, anything and everything I could think of. I lost to him once by ONE second. I lost to him once by hitting a cop cruiser over the first bridge to the right. I lost to him by getting completely turned around in the canals. I lost to him by turning the wrong way into the canals. I lost to him by crashing into the lamppost right before the canals. I lost to him when he hit a car and it bounced into me, destroying my ride and killing me. And so on.

I tried the race two days later and aced it on the first try.

My recommendation is the same as Andrew Mayer’s – put it down and come back to it later. You’ll likely do much better.

10

I remember that damn bird well. Turns out the easier method as I recall to move about is time time your let go and jump with the flapping, And he will damn near flap you back to the body again, so you can get to the other side. Also, the thing is very forgiving about what you can hold onto so you don’t fall. The worst is to time it exactly wrong and get flapped right off into the water.

This was one of the hardest bosses for me too. Once you get the hang of it, it DOES get easier. There is another boss later on that also gave me grief, but it wasn’t the jumping, it was the aiming for his eyes while steering your horse being chased by the thing in a small arena…

11

God, Shadow of the Colossus…

It was so beautiful. One of the few games that truly was.

… so beautiful…

12

Regarding Secret Mission #1, I totally got that by accident (ie: I didn’t know it existed).

As for the other one, if it’s the one I’m thinking of then I haven’t been able to get it either. :( I have separate save files for the boss fights I didn’t complete the secret mission on to go back and try later; I’m not really an achievement whore (and if I were, I wouldn’t give a shit about 5 points) but I am obsessed with completing these now (the other one I couldn’t get was where you have to knock the guy off the ship).

Other than my frustrations with not being able to complete some of the Secret Missions, I am loving the game.

13

I figured that one out by accident, when my wife suggested it. We pan around ready to see what it is and it’s a giant sand worm with glowing eyes about to eat me!

I was so surprised I dropped the controller. Then it ate me.

14

Turns out I was doing it wrong. You don’t have to make some complicated jump to the wingtip, you can just run and grab. sigh Still took me a few falls into the water and remounting to complete, but I splashed him. And felt sad about it, just like all the other ones.

The worst i have felt so far was when I killed the horse type one, he was so easy to kill, so slow and, honestly dumb. Just stomping away at a tomb while I casually climbed his tail and stabstabstabbed him to death. I was not proud of myself for that one.

15

You can jump, though. When I was doing the Time Trials on that game I got good enough to let go of the wing in mid-barrel roll and land on the other wing as it circled around.

Love that game. Ranks only below Panzer Dragoon Saga on my all-time favorites list.

16

Heh, you bastard. ;)

Fozzle alluded to the same trick earlier. I waited until the wings were still, stood up, realized I wasn’t being blown backwards and just ran across the
no grip zone and grabbed and stabbed. Your way is teh sexy, mine is the efficient. Or teh lame. Either way, works for me.

I guess I’ll try #6 tonight.

One thing I’m disappointed about is the video quality, my Samsung HDTV flatscreen is really letting me down here. I’m sure it’s probably the cables I’m using, but damn, this game is so dark I can’t see what the hell is going on in some places.

The only time I’ve “died” so far was against #1, and half of the reason for that was because I couldn’t see the hair on the back of his leg to grab onto because of the dim light.

17

Damn I need to buy this game. I beat it on a rental and if there’s one game that should stand proudly on any gamer’s shelf it should be this.

18

You rented Shadow of the Colossus?

Do you rent art for your walls too?

19

I commited a worse game-crime. I sold both Ico and Shadow for some crazy-low price, and now, like most games I’ve sold, I want them back.

And the comments about how sad it is to fell a Colossus are so true. I think that’s what stopped me after the first three… murders.

20

There is some data that there is a ~25% improvement in newly learned physical tasks after a decent night’s sleep, so the idea of putting down the controller and trying again the next day isn’t a bad one.