![]() All Ueda's player characters have a youthful, clumsy exuberance and a fragility that make for a striking contrast with the ancient, implacable masses that surround them. In fact, I'm not entirely sure it's not deliberate. This would have been a much harder fix - and it would have been even more wrong to undertake it. The same goes for our hero Wander's loose-limbed animation, which is very lifelike but uses lengthy routines that can be ungainly and unresponsive to control. It's far from perfect but it is an integral part of the game's character leaving it to its own devices is often the best course. The stubborn camera, for instance, which occasionally struggles to find the right angle and fights user input, always pushing back to its preferred position. It's just as important to note what Bluepoint's developers haven't changed, even though they might have been tempted to. On Pro, you can choose between a Performance mode that boosts frame-rate to 60fps - again, pretty much flawless - or a Cinematic mode that kicks resolution up to 1440p for those with 4K TVs. On PS4, the game looks stunning and runs at a flawless 30 frames per second at 1080p. You also get a beautifully engineered and smooth-running piece of software on both PS4 and PS4 Pro, far removed from the original game's chugging performance on PS2 - its grandest scenes having always been too much to ask of what, at the time, was an ageing console. In short: as well as the new art and stunning new lighting, you get a revised control scheme which is easier to use (the original controls are also available), a very welcome reduction in control lag, some optional, moody visual filters and a photo mode. You can read about its technical specification in detail in Digital Foundry's analysis by John Linneman, or watch his video which I've embedded here. Bluepoint has achieved an unprecedented feat in game preservation that creates the definitive version of Shadow of the Colossus and makes a generations-old game feel excitingly modern. ![]() In a literal sense, this is an artist's game remade without the original artist and containing none of the original art. Ueda wasn't involved and everything he and his team made for the original game has been redrawn and embellished to satisfy our hunger for fidelity. This is a remake, rebuilding the game from scratch using new technology and all-new, much more detailed art. The developer, Bluepoint Games of Austin, Texas, is the undisputed master of remasters and has even been here before, having made the Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection for PlayStation 3 in 2011. ![]() So this PlayStation 4 remake is a risky undertaking. The game is effectively little more than a boss rush, but it has a rare delicacy of mood as well as epic scale. In the case of 2005's Shadow of the Colossus, it is the art that inspires awe and sorrow in equal measure as you explore a desolate landscape on a quest to slay 16 stone giants.
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