🏹 Shadow of the Colossus and Hunting

Hey you,

Today's Listening: What the hunt sounds like

How many "hunting" games have you played?

As you might imagine, I am not talking about those arcade games with the plastic guns you point at the screen.

What I call a "hunting" game is when the experience gives you considerable time to size up your opponent, learn their weaknesses and you must exploit said weaknesses to succeed. Oh, and usually the opponent is formidable, or big, or both.

So yes, Shadow of the Colossus is a big game hunter...game

For me at least, there is something innately satisfying about crafting a plan on the fly and then executing it. In strategy and RPG games, there are often elements of planning out your attacks and moves. I would be remiss to not mention the explicitly named Monster Hunter. It highly rewards through planning and understanding of your prey, and I love how immersive and emergent the gameplay is.

But I want to talk about Shadow of the Colossus because, there are not many other games like it.

In this game, there really is not much preparation, you simply let a glowing sword lead you to an enemy of monstrous size and then you figure out how to stab it multiple times.

The game does a (mostly) excellent job of subtlety communicating how to approach each fight. And one of the ways it does that is restraints.

In a fight, you pretty much have 2 options, shoot them with your bow, or crawl onto them and stab them with your toothpick like a mosquito. And most of the time the bow does not do much.

So stabby sessions is almost always the answer.

The interesting part is finding your way into stabby position, because you can't just stab them anywhere, it has to be specific. So, first find a way to approach them, find something grabbable, find their weak spot, find the stab button on your controller, and find a way to not ragdoll yourself to death when they roll over.

Every single colossus is a puzzle, each with different weaknesses, quirks and arenas that force you to think quickly and adapt your approach. And in truth, it can be a tedious system. Sometimes you spend ten minutes attempting a strategy that simply does not work. Or you get shaken off the creature and have to wait patiently to go back on the attack.

But that is part of the novelty.

Planning out your moves multiple steps ahead is what keeps the hunt intense, so whenever the colossus does something different, or changes their pattern, you have to reevaluate your plan and try something new. And not many games do that. Usually if the boss goes into phase 2, that just means you gotta dance different to survive, while you do the same attack pattern from before.

And maybe this sounds not that special to you, but that's because you haven't played it yet, and I am having a hard time articulating the experience. It is unlike any other.

In fact, we will return on this topic, from a new angle.