Patience is a virtue and we have lost it!

I recently sat down and played Shadow of the Colossus and was surprised to find myself getting annoyed. The action was so slow, the climbing felt laborious and the sword strikes took literally seconds. After ten minutes I slapped myself. I mean it. I gave myself a damn good slap because I bloody well deserved it!

No introduction is necessary.

Shadow of the Colossus, developed by Japan’s Team Ico, is probably one of the most beautiful games of my generation, it portrays the struggle between man and fate, the dissolution of an individual consumed by their goal and all this is encapsulated subtly within the themes of death and religion. I was experiencing this and instead of enjoying it was complaining about the speed I could stab! What happened to me? How could the 15 year old version of myself appreciate something so artistically pure without effort, whereas the older, apparently wiser version of me missed the point entirely?

It’s simple: I don’t have the patience anymore, or at least I didn’t.

Climbing like a hero, not like a monkey.

When I realised that I was equating speed and prowess with overall enjoyment the spell thankfully vanished and I could enjoy Shadow of the Colossus like I did all those years ago. In fact, I found myself enjoying the game not for nostalgia’s sake but because I haven’t played anything like it for such a long time. Seriously, can you remember when games had different buttons for jump and grab?

Remember platforming in the original Tomb Raider? Things have certainly gotten easier!

Uncharted style auto-grab which has become the fashion now, even permeating into games like Tomb Raider which made their names as tricky platformers back in the day. Its a small thing, but it added texture to the game and gave the hero’s climb so much more texture. Every foothold felt tenuous, every leap made my heart stick and the falls were so frustrating that I couldn’t wait to get back up their and stick a sword in the big bastard’s skull. That’s kind of the point right?

Failure isn’t an option

In a lot of games like Shadow of the Colossus, you can’t die. Well, you can, but you really don’t want to! Save points can be frustrating; they can leave you out in the cold with hours of gameplay lost in the digital ether. But they also force you to take stock of your situation. When you are halfway up a Colossus’ back and your health bar is low, you are determined not to fall. There’s no autosave here; if you die it’s back to the save point you go and there ain’t nothing that can stop it.

So you know what? Don’t fail.

You calculate every move, you make every moment count and you sure as hell don’t rush in without knowing what you’re getting into. You make sure that your grip is firm and you do your damndest not to fuck up. When you do fail it’s infuriating but when you sink your blade into that weak spot for the final time and you watch the Colossus fall you feel like you
did it, you feel the bittersweet satisfaction that comes with every “victory” in that game because you owned that victory. Mechanics didn’t help you, autosave didn’t inspire you: you did it and it was not easy.

The perfect moment