Shadow of the Colossus Creator Proposes Changes to Remake!

Shadow of the Colossus, aside from being a bugger to spell correctly, was an awesome game. It was so great in fact that following its original release on the PS2, it was released on the PS3 as an HD title (bundled with Ico). Following the announcement that the game is set to be recreated, the original designer has proposed changes to hopefully improve it.

Shadow of the Colossus is being remade?

Yes, it did kinda slip under the radar at E3. It is however definitely being remade for the PS4. I should note that this is not another remaster, it is promised to be a brand new game, however, based on the original. This would be a great idea. Frankly, not enough people played the original to appreciate how awesome it was. It was, for want of a better description, Monster Hunter. You had an insanely large open world and had to go explore to find the Colussi. Upon finding these you had to slay them to steal their essence in order to bring back to life your dead girlfriend. Yes, the plot itself was a bit clichéd, but it was a truly awesome experience.

The original did suffer from criticism for being too slow-paced and the boss fights occasionally too difficult or confusing. This is fair. The game was not particularly well suited for the casual any more than a Final Fantasy. To truly enjoy it, you had to invest time. It has seen a lot of homages paid since it’s release with many games attempting to emulate what Shadow of the Colossus achieved.

I do not really follow YouTube personalities, but some person called Jack (who seemingly has a poorly eye) rates it as his most favourite game. He has at least 1000 subscribers so you know he must largely talk sense.

What suggestions has the original creator suggested?

Speaking to GameZone, Fumito Ueda, creator of the series has not revealed too much: “I transmitted my petition about the content and tuning but I don’t know the implementation will be what I told. Those things of the remake that I would like to change, I can’t mention, because if I say one thing and in the final version that thing is not included, it’s a problem.”

You may recall the suggestions that George Lucas gave to Disney when he sold them Star Wars. They asked him what direction he would take and he told them. They thanked him for his time and effort and promptly threw most of his suggestions in the bin. This might be the same.

The main focus of this game has to be the boss fights and visuals. They were after all the selling points of the original game. What I would suggest is that aside from making the graphics jaw-droppingly amazing, is;

• Multiplayer functionality – Steal some of that Monster Hunter goodness.
• More to do between boss fights.
• A deeper story.

If they get this right, this could very well be the magnum opus of this generation. The equivalent of ‘The Last of Us’ for pushing the technical boundaries as far as possible on the current technology.