Ico & Shadow of the Colossus HD remakes

[Sketcz]

Can you imagine how much damage those stupid trophy messages will do to the atmosphere of these games if they rear they're ugly head during play? Hopefully they can be turned off because they're PS2 games. It's one of the reasons why I never play my PS3.

Precisely. They would KILL these games. Flower was utterly ruined for me because I was just exploring, enjoying the experience, and suddenly I get RINGDINGDING!!! YOU WON THE EXPLORATION TROPHY FOR EXPLORING!!!

Blissful moment of peace utterly ****ing ruined.

I wish you could turn that crap off. I don't see why I should be forced to even be aware of it.

And you know what, on Sony's blog, where you can vote for changes to things, several have asked to be able to manually disable trophies, and some absolute cocks were downvoting it, and posting comments demanding that Sony ignore and not allow people to choose to disable their own trophies.

Why would anyone not want other people to have that kind of freedom? Why would they downvote it? Why would anyone want to force trophies on those who don't want them?

[baad bwoy]

Because they can!

[Jebus]

They don't kill the game for me, I barely even noticed them pop up to be honest.

For what it's worth, Shadow of the Colossus is still the standout - it looks ****ing INCREDIBLE.

ICO has had a bang up job done too, but SotC is the star. The soundtrack too. I'm in love all over again.

Was thinking about getting the trophies in these games. What's the save system like, or level revisiting for returning to missed trophy opportunities?

The save system for both is identical to the original. Slot based, plenty of them too.

At the risk of gazumping my own review before it's published, people who own a PS3 NEED to buy this.

[Flabio]

Shadow does have one of the all-time great soundtracks.

[Jebus]

It's actually both for me. The sound work on the remasters is incredible!

I can't get over how stunning SotC looks now. So smooth and...well, it's gorgeous.

[hudson]

Man, the save game music on Ico is an elegant audible kola cube of love.

[JSR]

I don't quite get how much love this release gets compared to the port of Resi 4, outside of the 3D mode, none of the games have been changed in any way. Yett Resi gets criticized for being a sloppy port while everybody simply adores this one.

[hudson]

I'm not sure I understand you. Surely, if you like these games and now have the luxury of having them HD'd, with trophies. It's win all around.

[Brad]

Wide screen in ico. 30fps on both plus the resolution in the original ico was lower than some ps1 games. This has clearly had way more love poured into it than re4 (which is an awesome game).

[Jebus]

I don't quite get how much love this release gets compared to the port of Resi 4, outside of the 3D mode, none of the games have been changed in any way. Yett Resi gets criticized for being a sloppy port while everybody simply adores this one.

Who is hating on Resi 4 HD? It's a fantastic game, and looks lovely.

[JSR]

Wide screen in ico. 30fps on both plus the resolution in the original ico was lower than some ps1 games. This has clearly had way more love poured into it than re4 (which is an awesome game).

They are both rendered at higher resolutions and gain small performance boosts by the better hardware. Don't see the difference. Haven't played either re-release yet (already have the originals), but the games seem to me to have gotten an equal amount of love.

I'm not a hater of any of them, I just don't get how people can commend one of them, and expect more from the other, when they are equal upgrades.

[saturn-gamer]

RE4 HD has more slowdown than the original game and certain lighting is said to be removed. Its still a great game and it looks good, but I think its legit to expect more of this port as its not your average game.

SotC HD has actually less slowdown than the original game and for the rest it doesn't seem to be worse than the original in any way. Portwise, SotC is simply better.

Trophies? They'll pop up once and never again.

[JSR]

Well, if it's actually more slowdown than the original, I see your point. I still feel that we should be able to remove all slowdown from both of the games, and maybe even having them running at 60 fps at these consoles, but that wasn't the case.

[cutmymilk]

Just ordered this. Never played SOTC so looking forward to giving it a go.

[Brad]

They are both rendered at higher resolutions and gain small performance boosts by the better hardware. Don't see the difference. Haven't played either re-release yet (already have the originals), but the games seem to me to have gotten an equal amount of love.

I'm not a hater of any of them, I just don't get how people can commend one of them, and expect more from the other, when they are equal upgrades.

I'll try again.

Ico has had to be upresed more than RE4 because the source material was essentially PS1 resolution - more work needed
Ico was originally a 4:3 game. It is now 16:9 - more work needed
SOTC had a terrible framerate due to pushing the PS2 to its limits in terms of lighting.
Both SOTC and Ico now run at 30fps, higher than the originals - more work needed. You can't just let the hardware make the games run at higher frame rates. That'd break all kinds of stuff like collisions etc. You have to make them run at a higher framerate.

The devs might have been able to remove all slowdown and output at 60fps if they had rewritten both games in their entirety from scratch but they're hardly going to do that.

Notice that RE4 has zero framerate increase. There's as much slowdown as ever there was.

It's quite clear to me that much more care has been taken with the team Ico collection than with RE4HD. Of course RE4HD had to be proved to 2 platforms bit Ico + SOTC = 2 games.

Overall I think the reason why Ico and SOTC are getting so much more love is because they have only ever appeared on 1 platform so far. RE4 has already been on 4. Also Capcom are getting a reputation for selling us the same thing over and over e.g. RE5 can't be patched to have Move controls, buy the Gold editions. SFIV can't be upgraded to SSFIV, buy a new disc. Both of those may be totally genuine, I dont know but people are less likely to cut them some slack because of it I reckon.

Anyway, I'm not surprised to see the Ico collection get more love than RE4HD.