Ico / Shadow of the Colossus

*spoilers*

jeezus christ the end sequence

the sleeping lady finds the baby (where Wander fell into the pit of darkness) while the limping horse he killed off slowly climbs up the stairs? that's kinda fucked up

hahaha, you have discovered one of the great endings

it was a very nice surprise after what happened just before (regarding Wander's fate), which i unfortunately jokingly predicted before playing the game. i didn't think it would actually happen!

overall i had a blast playing it, though!

of the two notorious issues with the game that are frequently mentioned, i found the controls to be sluggish but functional, and the camera to be awful in certain sections (like swimming under a beast) but ok for the most part. maybe they were improved a bit for the remaster?

also, lol, i didn't realize until the very last shrine that i was supposed to shoot the lizard, and soon afterward also realized i could pick up the little glowing piles of dust. oops! up until then i was very impressed at the restraint in adding "collectibles" to the game

the glow piles were new to the remaster! there's an insane story behind it.

a story within the game behind it, or a developer story? either way i'm curious to hear it!

also i see that there were also piles of fruit i was supposed to be collecting?

and probably also hidden locations near each of the shrines. i ran across in the woods, a little cave hideout with some human stuff in there, and an -ACHIEVEMENT- popped up. that was the only one i found, so apparently i was very bad at exploring despite spending literally hours trying to hop up the sides of mountains that i didn't realize were impassable boundaries

I didn't learn about the lizard thing until well after I beat the game. I don't think it was common knowledge back then.

tread lightly with this i suppose
https://www.polygon.com/2018/2/11/17001204/shadow-of-the-colossus-sword-of-dormin-how-to