SotC Gameplay Designed by Monkeys?

[CAMDAWG]

I really, really love this game, so I feel duty-bound to protect its honour... or some shit like that. So here we go...

Camera: I didn't have any issues. So as far as I'm concerned, it's probably just as good as any other game. Plus, I found it did a good job of focussing on the colossi when it needed to, and not doing so when it didn't need to. The 3rd colossi is a good example of this. As for the horseback camera offset, yeah, I'll admit that puzzled me at first, because it seems kinda unnecessary, but it's hardly worth complaining about. It's not like it causes Agro to run in circles or anything. And the game doesn't do fine details. Even if you feel that the angle prevents you from seeing the area of grass at a slight offset to the centre of the screen, there is nothing there of note. And even if there were, you'd go past too fast to notice.

Bow: Again, no problems. I wouldn't call it the best bow mechanics EVAR, but it's not like the bow is used that often. Plus, as burningdragoon said, a later colossi requires you to be riding horseback, pretty much at full speed, aiming backwards, and shooting some very small, moving targets. Much harder than colossi 2, which should've been the only one you needed your bow for (unless you're playing the game wrong). And it's completely doable. You may not be used to the bow quite yet, but that doesn't mean you get to declare it a poor gameplay mechanic.

Unresponsive buttons: That's you're own fault for trying to mount the horse in a regular fashion while moving. You can't expect Wander to be able to run full speed toward Agro, and put his foot straight into the stirrups without breaking his side. The method of mounting at speed is defintely explained to you either in-game or in the instruction booklet. You run at Agro, jump, and press the grab button (which I think is R1). I suggest you learn how to do that, because some colossi will be nearly impossible without it.

Agro: Seriously, don't be bitchin' on Agro. This, unfortunately, happens to be your most valid complaint. Agro does, to some extent, steer himself. If you just mash x down a winding corridor, he will get you through it no hassles. The problem is that he turns a little bit after a human would. So you end up with him trying to do his thing, while you try to do your thing, and everyone gets confused. The other thing to remember, is that this is quite an old game. When I played it as a new release on ps2, I hadn't experienced an auto-steering animal before, especially not in an open world game, so I think this may have been at the forefront.

The map: The whole idea of the game is that wander's in a completely foreign land, he's got no idea what he's doing or where he's going, and all he has to guide him is a shifty sounding god, and a sword that causes light to converge. Getting lost is part of the game. If you don't like it, then that's fair enough, I can understand that. But it's not fair to present it as a failure of mechanics just because you don't agree with it.

Tutorials: All the acrobatics and stuff are explained perfectly well in the lead-up to and fight with the first colossi. The sword-compass is explained as well, along with everything being explained in the instructions. Also, you're complaining that the wrong analog stick moves the sword? Are you fucking kidding me? You try one, it doesn't work, you try the other. Done. Simple.

Aaaand the boss battles: Just because the solution was not the first thing you tried does not mean bad design. If anything, it means good design, because it's making you think of more solutions. If each colossi was beaten by the first thing you come up with, it would make for a crap game. And you're solutions were not just as valid as the actual one, because Team ICO made the game, and they made that puzzle, with a solution. You don't get to pick your own solution. That's not how puzzles work. It's valid to try and see if your solution works, but you don't get to complain if it doesn't work.

Now don't get me wrong, Sotc is not perfect. My biggest complaint is that it has really crappy replay value. But if you're going to call an aspect of a game bad, it actually has to be bad. A lot of your complaints seem to be over personal preference, and as such, calling things bad and implying that the devs of a game held by a great many people as one of the greatest on the platform are monkeys? That's fucking stupid. And hence you got a relatively hostile response from me.

 

[rob_simple]

I played the HD collection when it came out and it did discolour my fond memories slightly; the controls are a bit clunky compared to the more fluid affairs we get nowadays but I like to think of it like this:

In Darksiders, War is literally the size of two phoneboxes gaffa-taped together yet despite this he can swiftly dash around and sail through the air; in real life he'd need to be carried around in a fucking golf cart, how does that make any kind of sense?

In SotC you're a skinny teenage boy with no combat experience, you should be falling over yourself, stumbling around and generally being a ham-handed fool, not running up walls like god damn Tony Jaa.

I know your complaint was directed at the actual implementation of the controls and I sound like I'm just trying to explain away poor design by putting it in context, but I'm a pretty average gamer and I completed literally everything there was to do in SotC. Some of those timed challenges were tough and I still managed to do it. So the controls clearly weren't that bad.

If you're having such a hard time then maybe you're just not as good at games as you think you are.

 

[Smertnik]

Never had any of your problems. I actually found the gameplay very well done and enjoyed it a lot. There's a degree of unresponsiveness involved but never did I have to blame my failures on the controls.

 

[Lunar Templar]

I'm thinking its just you.

as i didn't have any problems with any of that.

 

[dagens24]

Rant inc. For TLR version skip to last paragraph.

I know not being head over heels in love with Shadow of the Colossus (let alone actually disliking it) is tantamount to treason, so I'm going to go ahead and skip over all of the story and character and atmospheric stuff that is arguably great about this game and jump straight to my primary beef, the gameplay. How in the world did this game get released, let alone get such rave reviews, with such awful and counter-intuitive game controls at every step of the way? In my short time playing it (I'm only on the fourth colossus) I've already encountered the following problems:

- The most useless camera in recent gaming memory. It's clunky and unresponsive. Turning around with your sword out will reveal Wander's bizarre foot fetish, as he keeps trying to look down at the ground no matter how I aim the bloody thing. The camera regularly decenters itself while you're on horseback, so that you're actually on the far right of the screen for example, which means something as trivial as knowing what's literally five feet to your right becomes needlessly complicated.

- Shooting with your bow. Moving the analog stick even slightly will routinely send your crosshair flying off the screen at the speed of sound. Good luck getting Wander to aim at the giant Colossus in front of him then. You can't even see where the crosshair is, and which direction to push the analog stick in to get it back where you need it.

- Unresponsive buttons. You get on your horse by pressing Triangle AND ONLY TRIANGLE. If you even think about holding down the directional button for moving yourself closer to the horse in the process, Wander begins jumping like a tool around his horse. Well enough once you figure it out, but the game never mentions it. For the first couple of hours I thought my success depended on star alignment and horoscope. On top of that, half of the time I try to jump up a ledge, Wander just shuffles left or right, or just grunts noncommittally. I've heard this is just a PS3 port glitch, not native to the original game, but even so that's pretty unforgiveable.

- The horse, of course. I'm all for the realism in this game (when the game's not making Wander try to tie his shoelaces with his bow while a Colossus is hurtling toward him, that is), I love the idea of a horse controlling like a horse and not like a car... but if you want me to have a horse-like horse, then you'd better make it smarter than a refrigerator. The animal insists on running up to edges or into walls even when there are obvious paths for it to go - paths toward which I am actively attempting to steer the stupid thing. Realism is a noble goal, but you need the tools to do it right. And where did this realism come from, anyway? Wasn't the camera just trying to be unreasonably scenic two seconds ago, when all I wanted was to be able to see what the freaking character is looking at?

- The useless map. I've spent more time running around the world in the hopes of finding the right crevice (that'll lead me to the right hill [that I'll look at from the right direction to notice another opening])... than I have anything else. I'm not saying I need Mass Effect or Dead Space level of guidance here, with an arrow that tells me precisely which way I should go every step of the way, but don't point me halfway across the universe when there's a mountain between me and there, and apparently five different ways of getting through that mountain (this isn't true; each path takes you in completely different directions).

- The lack of tutorials on basic game mechanics. The game never tells you that you have to move the left stick, not the right, to get the sword compass to work at all. In fact it doesn't tell you anything about your sword, other than that you've got one. Silly me for thinking that the square symbol in the distance represented the first Colossus I had to seek out, and not (magically) realizing that the prism converged into a beam if a Colossus was on the other end. That was about ten minutes down the drain.

- The boss puzzles. Yes, surprise surprise, this rant was inspired by a particular frustration. So I'm on Colossus #4, a giant giraffe with sickle legs and nothing to climb. All right, I passed a hill on my way here, maybe that has to do with it. I figure if I stand on top, it'll attack the hill and get its leg deep into the earth, and while it's all tangled up, I'll run up. Or something. Cue five minutes of failure. All right, there's bunker-like entrances inside. I figure if I run in, maybe it'll attack from above and get stuck that way. No dice. And of course getting it to try any of these things can take a ridiculous amount of time, because the Colossus turns around at the speed of continental drift. I finally look up a walkthrough on youtube: I'm supposed to get its attention so it pops its head in there and I can climb up its ass, or something. How in the world is that a more intuitive solution than the ones I spent 20 minutes trying? And haven't I already been down under? So I go back, keep trying this for five minutes, shooting it, calling my horse to make noise, whatever. Note that half of the times I go down a hole, the Colossus forgets about me and starts turning around. By the time I get it back facing me, that's another minute gone. Five minutes of this, nothing, it just stabs a few times and then gets distracted. I go back to my laptop and hit "play" on the paused video. The guy doing the walkthrough fails and after a minute the text "Sometimes it doesn't work right away" pops up on the screen.

Really, Team ICO? REALLY? I have to guess the single solution that you happened to think should work for this encounter, from a plethora of other equally valid solutions, then spend ten minutes aiming the crappy bow and getting the giraffe to look in the direction it's supposed to be looking in, and after that my success is still based on freaking luck? As of this writing, I still haven't figured it out. Another walkthrough suggested getting the giraffe's attention at one end of the bunker, running out on the other side, shooting from there, then running back and waiting two minutes before coming out to jump on its ass. I wasted five minutes doing that, and when I finally came out the giraffe wasn't even remotely interested in what I was trying to do. It was already walking away.

Do people forget all of this when they say this is the greatest game on the PS2, if not of the last decade, period? Or is the other stuff supposed to be so good that the gameplay doesn't even matter? I don't get it. From the moment I manage to latch on to a Colossus, until the thing goes down and the cinematic plays, the game's golden. Practically every single thing outside of that, however, is actively trying to make the game as frustrating as possible with its mechanics, in-game information, and user interface. All of these glitches and struggles with the interface have done so much to demolish my immersion in the game's world that I can't even see that world, I just see more empty space that I'll have to navigate with this idiotic horse in the BLIND HOPE of a Colossus being at the end of this mountain pass, and not some other one that I didn't notice.

The first time I played SotC I couldn't get passed the controls. I didn't even make it to the first Colossus. I was like 'eff this shit' and put the game down for a year. I decided to give it another shot and boy, oh boy, am I ever glad I did. Yes, the controls take some getting used to and even once you do they aren't AAA, but all of that melts away when the joy of scaling these moving mountains takes over. What I'm trying to say is that the controls are the weakest aspect of a DAMN good game, a game that otherwise is SO good that I'd gladly wrestle with some shitty controls to play.

EDIT: I'm aware that this doesn't address the points your post made; what I'm getting at is that sometimes the aspects of a game that work work so well that you kind of forget about the shittier parts.

 

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

I felt about the same.

I heard about SotC and how you climb up all the bosses while they try to shake you off, and I thought, "that sounds a bit gimmicky." The person who told me about it then played through the whole game while I watched, and I thought, "meh." The graphics were nice, the story was okay, but it didn't really stick with me.

Then, many years later, I got access to the Team Ico collection. I played Ico and fell head over heels in love with it. I think its charm was in its simplicity.

I tried playing SotC next, but quit in frustration before I'd even beaten the first colossus. It pretty much threw out everything I'd loved about Ico; the gameplay was overly complex and frenetic, I didn't like the addition of a HUD, and I didn't find the story anywhere near as touching.

Still think The Last Guardian looks wonderful, though. I hope it comes out of development hell soon.

 

[Darkmantle]

I played it when it was new at a friends house, I did not enjoy it. I can;t remember why, but I didn;t like it.

 

[Yarkaz]

I felt about the same.

I heard about SotC and how you climb up all the bosses while they try to shake you off, and I thought, "that sounds a bit gimmicky." The person who told me about it then played through the whole game while I watched, and I thought, "meh." The graphics were nice, the story was okay, but it didn't really stick with me.

Then, many years later, I got access to the Team Ico collection. I played Ico and fell head over heels in love with it. I think its charm was in its simplicity.

I tried playing SotC next, but quit in frustration before I'd even beaten the first colossus. It pretty much threw out everything I'd loved about Ico; the gameplay was overly complex and frenetic, I didn't like the addition of a HUD, and I didn't find the story anywhere near as touching.

Still think The Last Guardian looks wonderful, though. I hope it comes out of development hell soon.

You lost me at "didn't finish the first Colossus." You obviously didn't play the game for more than 20 minutes, and then you move to criticize it's story, a story you didn't even give a chance.
I also think bundling ICO and SotC together was a bad idea, neither was meant to be a direct sequel/prequel to the other. They're two very different games which happen to take place in the same universe, and I cringe a bit when people compare them to one another.
I guess I can see your complaints against the HUD though... There were probably better ways to convey health/stamina that wouldn't detract from the cinematic nature of the game. And did anyone else hate how a huge chunk of the screen got blocked out once you got your stamina bubble high enough?

 

[getoffmycloud]

I do feel your pain about the controls sometimes I felt they did add some challenge to the game but other times they were a pain in the ass it was odd and I do think it was something that should have been tweaked a bit in the hd collection but the navigation wasn't too much of an issue I think it was only one of the later ones I had a real issue finding.

I do think there is a bit of a case of rose tinted spectacles going on round here and to be fair its the same with most nostalgic games but at least you cant fault it for not being original

 

[Terramax]

My advice to you OP is that you should try being better at games and generally try being less miserable.

Zing!

I love the 'I'm not great at this game, ergo, it's the game's fault, not mine' logic.

*sigh*

We're still getting these senseless posts? My advice is, if you haven't got anything productive to write, or you don't agree with someone's hard thought opinion, please don't write something for the sole reason of offending.

OT: I didn't have a problem with the controls, but then again I recently completed Gun Valkyrie 3 times over.

These are mostly legitimate points, but I do recall an interview that much of it was intentional. The horse riding was to immitate real life riding. If I'm correct, the programmers actually learnt to ride horses to help understand the limitations of riding.

The map's problems are probably there to inspire exploration. But indeed I do recall having frustration at one or two points where I appeared to go round in circles.

There were two bosses I got stuck on the puzzles. The only thing I can say is that 'the voice' should've been clear on such occasions.

EDIT: Another thing to think about is that this game will only appeal to certain gamers. If you like your games with their action served very direct i.e. CoD, then you're not likely to ever enjoy a game that's known for its subtlety. For instance, you're supposed to enjoy the 20 horse rides from one side of the map to the other.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

My advice to you OP is that you should try being better at games and generally try being less miserable.

Zing!

I love the 'I'm not great at this game, ergo, it's the game's fault, not mine' logic.

*sigh*

We're still getting these senseless posts? My advice is, if you haven't got anything productive to write, or you don't agree with someone's hard thought opinion, please don't write something for the sole reason of offending.

OT: I didn't have a problem with the controls, but then again I recently completed Gun Valkyrie 3 times over.

These are mostly legitimate points, but I do recall an interview that much of it was intentional. The horse riding was to immitate real life riding. If I'm correct, the programmers actually learnt to ride horses to help understand the limitations of riding.

The map's problems are probably there to inspire exploration. But indeed I do recall having frustration at one or two points where I appeared to go round in circles.

There were two bosses I got stuck on the puzzles. The only thing I can say is that 'the voice' should've been clear on such occasions.

You mean when someone spouts hyperbole, I'm not allowed to criticise that?

Damn.

The controls are a little sluggish, I'll be the first to admit that, but they're hardly 'counter intuitive'.

 

[Blow_Pop]

Just a few quibbles.

You can't even see where the crosshair is, and which direction to push the analog stick in to get it back where you need it.

I won't disagree that the aiming is pretty sensitive. I think you can probably change it in the settings, but I can't remember for certain. I always found myself adapting within a few minutes so I never bothered. But I have to say I've never really had trouble seeing the crosshair. I'm not even sure why you would normally to be honest. It stands out quite well against most of the environments. The only one I can think of that would be a bit of a problem would be the sandworm because it does blend in with the sand a bit, but holding L1 always centers you on the colossus anyway so you know where to look to quickly find the crosshair.

- Unresponsive buttons. You get on your horse by pressing Triangle AND ONLY TRIANGLE. If you even think about holding down the directional button for moving yourself closer to the horse in the process, Wander begins jumping like a tool around his horse.

I won't deny the controls can be pretty clunky sometimes either, but if you jump at Agro while moving you can hold R1 to grab the saddle and climb up just like just about anything else in the game.

- The horse, of course. I'm all for the realism in this game (when the game's not making Wander try to tie his shoelaces with his bow while a Colossus is hurtling toward him, that is), I love the idea of a horse controlling like a horse and not like a car... but if you want me to have a horse-like horse, then you'd better make it smarter than a refrigerator. The animal insists on running up to edges or into walls even when there are obvious paths for it to go - paths toward which I am actively attempting to steer the stupid thing. Realism is a noble goal, but you need the tools to do it right. And where did this realism come from, anyway? Wasn't the camera just trying to be unreasonably scenic two seconds ago, when all I wanted was to be able to see what the freaking character is looking at?

I have to disagree with you here. Agro can control poorly in tight spaces on occasion, but those are few and far between, and never an issue when it counts: in Colossus battles. In fact, I've owned the game since it came out, have played it several times over, and am playing through again on the PS3 now and I've never had a time where I relied on Agro to steer itself while fighting a colossus and not had it go just fine, steering around obstacles and avoiding walls without any input from me. Hell, sometimes when traversing the world I just point in the right direction and hit X a few times and sit back while Agro does the rest for a bit. It's kind of relaxing actually.

- The useless map. I've spent more time running around the world in the hopes of finding the right crevice (that'll lead me to the right hill [that I'll look at from the right direction to notice another opening])... than I have anything else. I'm not saying I need Mass Effect or Dead Space level of guidance here, with an arrow that tells me precisely which way I should go every step of the way, but don't point me halfway across the universe when there's a mountain between me and there, and apparently five different ways of getting through that mountain (this isn't true; each path takes you in completely different directions).

Exploration is part of the game, and actually one of the things I enjoy. It's fine if you don't like it, but that's part of what many enjoy about the game. On my first playthrough I once followed the light beam to a cliff with a lake below. The cliff seemed scalable so I thought the colossus would be somewhere below and began climbing down. It was actually a fairly challenging climb half way down. Then I ran out of ledges to easily grab and realized I had to be going the wrong way, but it was too late to climb back up. I ended up dropping down into the lake, hoping I didn't die on the way down, swam to the other side, and proceeded to do a bit more climbing and traveling through some woods before finding the colossus. Climbing that cliff and eventually having to jump off was tense as hell and a lot of fun. Yeah, it took me longer to get to where I was going, but the journey to get there was legitimately enjoyable, and almost as much fun as fighting a colossus to be honest (because I actually did almost die getting to the water).

- The lack of tutorials on basic game mechanics. The game never tells you that you have to move the left stick, not the right, to get the sword compass to work at all.

I seem to recall that the game explains many of the basic controls on the way to the first colossus, though I can't remember what specifically it explains. Just the same, I don't know anyone who doesn't press buttons to see what they do at the start of any game. Moreover, criticizing it for not telling you that the left stick moves you around when using the sword to reflect light and find the colossus seems pretty silly to me. You have to hold down circle to hold up your sword in the first place, meaning the only analog stick you can use at the same time is the left one. This should be fairly self-evident to anyone who's played more than a handful of video games in their life. Moreover, it would take half a second of moving that analog stick to realize the beams change as you move it, eventually converging on a single point. I believe the game also tells you you can use the light to pinpoint the weaknesses when you fight the first colossus, but I may be remembering incorrectly.

I have to agree with almost all of this. I haven't owned it since it came out but I do own it on both the PS2 and PS3.

On top of that, half of the time I try to jump up a ledge, Wander just shuffles left or right, or just grunts noncommittally. I've heard this is just a PS3 port glitch, not native to the original game, but even so that's pretty unforgiveable.

I have NEVER had that problem. In the original or PS3 version of the game.

Also as to the controls. The game gives you tutorial all the way up to that first colossus. if you are struggling enough the "mysterious voice"(I refuse to call it what everyone else calls it just because I enjoy calling it that) will give you a hint.

Another thing to the controls if you bought the game and it came with the instruction manual and you read it, it tells you about the controls. But I guess reading is something the younger generation is doing less of.....

Spoiler

hey look!

Oh my gosh. Look at that! A list of controls!

And what's this? gameplay tips, finding the colossi, lizards, and fruit

 

[Terramax]

You mean when someone spouts hyperbole, I'm not allowed to criticise that?

Damn.

the controls are a little sluggish, I'll be the first to admit that, but they're hardly 'counter intuitive'.

Don't make a post out to be something it's not. 'More fun to' was writing 'you're crap!', more or less.

Hell, he probably doesn't even think that. He just couldn't be bothered to spend some time actually debating the OP's well laid out thoughts, so just settled for an offensive post.

Personally, like you and More Fun, I also think the OP has miss-understood many of the design choices in SotC (as I explained). But that's not my issue here, it's the fact that someone had to post this typically provokative post, which you appear to have supported.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

snip

What do you expect?

You've read the OP right?

It oozes nitpicking and the presentation of opinions as facts.

 

[Terramax]

snip

What do you expect?

You've read the OP right?

It oozes nitpicking and the presentation of opinions as facts.

Well, don't expect to look any smarter, or to have any sort of moral highground with such ridiculous remarks as yours, especially if at least the OP has spent some time explaining in detail his gripes, and yours are unproductive, snarky remarks.

Furthermore, it seems to me you've both at least partially miss-understood the reason for his post. He doesn't appear to be stating SotC as terrible or completely unplayable game, but questions various opinions that this game is somehow close to perfect (which it isn't).

Whilst I hugely enjoyed Colossus, there is no question that the game is deeply flawed, simply on the grounds of its premise. It's a string of boss fights padded out with very long and bland (yet, for some, still enjoyable) trekking, with controls deliberately flawed for artistic reasons.

The OP is not trolling, nor is he nitpicking. It just so happens that he found the flaws to be less bareable than others did, and questions how some appear to glossen over these faults. And reading other posts, he's clearly not alone.

 

[Wayneguard]

Granted, the controls aren't the most responsive; but, they are hardly as bad as you make them out to be. As for points one and two, there is a 'lock-on' button that may aid you keeping the camera oriented towards the colossus and will certainly keep you bow reticule from flying off-screen. And as for the horse AI, it really should not be running against walls or getting stuck unless you are sprinting at full speed straight at a wall; the horse basically guides itself if you just let the AI do its thing. Don't steer it like a car making fine adjustments. Just pick a direction and go auto-pilot. I will concede, however, that the map is fucking garbage.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

snip

What do you expect?

You've read the OP right?

It oozes nitpicking and the presentation of opinions as facts.

Well, don't expect to look any smarter, or to have any sort of moral highground with such ridiculous remarks as yours, especially if at least the OP has spent some time explaining in detail his gripes, and yours are unproductive, snarky remarks.

Furthermore, it seems to me you've both at least partially miss-understood the reason for his post. He doesn't appear to be stating SotC as terrible or completely unplayable game, but questions various opinions that this game is somehow close to perfect (which it isn't).

Whilst I hugely enjoyed Colossus, there is no question that the game is deeply flawed, simply on the grounds of its premise. It's a string of boss fights padded out with very long and bland (yet, for some, still enjoyable) trekking, with controls deliberately flawed for artistic reasons.

The OP is not trolling, nor is he nitpicking. It just so happens that he found the flaws to be less bareable than others did, and questions how some appear to glossen over these faults. And reading other posts, he's clearly not alone.

I think your reading a bit too much into it...

My comment was an off handed sarcastic remark.

If I knew someone was to over analyse it, I would have made it more interesting

 

[TehCookie]

Spoiler

hey look!

Oh my gosh. Look at that! A list of controls!

And what's this? gameplay tips, finding the colossi, lizards, and fruit

Hey man I was drinking when I clicked on that! That has a lot more info than the original manual too.

 

[scorptatious]

Shadow of the Colossus is one of, if not my most favorite game ever. So forgive me if I sound a wee bit biased.

The camera: I'll admit that on the rare occasion it gets kinda wonky, it's gets pretty wonky. Other then that though, I never had too much of an issue with it.

The Bow: Are you sure you're using it right? I find aiming the bow pretty easy. Sure, sometimes, for whatever reason, the camera gets stuck and doesn't go where you're trying to aim. But those moments are pretty rare for me. So I don't know why you're having so much trouble with it.

The controls: While I can admit, when compared to some of today's games, the controls are sort of clunky at first, I still find the controls easy to get into after a few minutes. I think you may be making a bigger deal out of climbing onto Agro than it actually is. As for Wander being unresponsive in jumping and climbing onto ledges, I'm not sure what you're referring to. Could you give a specific example of something like this happening?

Agro: For the most part, Agro moves by himself. All you can do with him is to get him to move faster and steer. If you attempt to directly control him, you're just going to run into a lot of walls and trees.

The map: I'll admit there are a few hard to find colossi. But half the game centers on exploration and thinking outside of the box. If your sword is pointing in the direction you need to go and a mountain is in your way, find a way around it. It takes a bit of patience, but finding the colossi you're looking for makes it all the sweeter.

The boss puzzles: Okay, I'll admit, I had the guide to this game. So whenever I got stuck for a while I went to read it for a little help. Some of these solutions can be pretty hard to figure out. Although I can't really say how getting colossus #4's leg stuck in the ground is a more intuitive way then getting him to bend over looking for you in a tunnel. Besides, Dormin does give you hints the longer you spend trying to fight a colossus.

While I don't neccesarily agree with most of your points, you're entitled to your opinion of the game and I respect that.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and finish up the Normal mode Time Trials for this game. I've played through this game at least half a dozen times and I have yet to beat them. :/

 

[Electrogecko]

The game has it's problems for sure. I agree that the controls can be counter-intuitive and clunky and that the horse is a pain in the ass, (no pun intended) but I found the real challenge of the game to be in finding the correct strategy to kill the things; not in the execution of that strategy. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part, I didn't have any trouble with the actual shooting, climbing and stabbing during the boss fights. I liked the idea of a universal stamina bar....circle....thingy, and the risk/reward system of charging up stabs, and the climbing controls seemed strange at first, but they grew on me.

All in all, I do feel that the game is overrated slightly, but I enjoyed it immensely and I wish there were more games like it coming out today.