DIALOGUE

Dialogue

Send your views, using ‘Dialogue’ as the subject line, to edge@futurenet.com. Our letter of the month wins an exclusive Edge T-shirt

Issue 386

On the shoulders of giants

I was very interested in the idea posited in the Post Script for Capcom’s Resident Evil 4 remake in E383 – that games being remade to bring them up to ‘modern standards’ is actually another way for them to cash in on current trends. It makes a lot of sense – the writer brings up their own examples – but it got me thinking what remake could be said not to be doing this.

I landed, as I often do, on Bluepoint’s Shadow Of The Colossus remakes. Throughout both their reiterations they’ve resisted making changes to the gameplay. The Forbidden Lands haven’t been littered with map-revealing towers. No icons. No skill trees. They’ve even resisted urges from the cult fanbase to include the cut colossi, succumbing only to the wish to include one last mystery with the ‘79 Steps To Enlightenment’. 

New players will face almost the exact same game as those of us did in 2006. The frustration of the player character’s awkward movement, the horse’s stubbornness, the colossi shaking you about just too much.

Even the most recent release (2018) still feels like a product of the initial release’s era. Shadow Of The Colossus is often included in lists of the best games ever made. Measured in this metric, should it now be more widely considered as one of the best remade games of all time?