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Shadow of the Colossus

Shadow of the Colossus is not a game. It's an experience.

Okay, sure, but what do I mean by that? Let’s take a popular game like God of War. God of War is carefully put together and very well made, but it’s basically a modern version of Double Dragon (remember that game?). In other words, God of War is basically the best version of a certain type of game. It has taken everything that has come before it and tried to improve upon it. It is a video game that is steeped in the tradition of video games. There is nothing wrong with this, but it does lead to a certain type of thinking in terms of game design: a succession of levels each with its own texture, hordes of enemies that culminate with a huge boss, a health meter that is replenished by items scattered about the levels, basic fighting styles that get powered up as the player progresses through the game, various simple attacks with a few super attacks that can be used a limited amount of times, etc. These are the tropes that most games deal in. Shadow of the Colossus abandons most of these. There is a health meter (which is a change from Ico), but health is replenished by resting, not by finding health packets randomly lying on the ground. Also, there are no levels. There is a linear sequence to the colossi that the player must defeat, but these monsters all exist in various spots in a single location that the player can explore. The world is whole and open from the very beginning of the game. It allows the same kind of aimless wandering that the Grand Theft Auto games offer. Also, the player starts out with two weapons and that’s it. In the normal game, you don’t get any new weapons. And besides increased grip strength and increased health, you don't gain any new abilities as the game progresses. Probably the most notable difference in Shadow of the Colossus is that there are no hordes of enemies. While in many games the player must fight through waves of opponents and then face off against one big boss, Shadow of the Colossus has nothing but big bosses (B-I-G bosses). There are sixteen colossi that the player has been instructed to defeat (get the full story here). Essentially, the game is sixteen boss battles. So you can begin to see how Shadow of the Colossus is so unique in the video game playing world. But I’ve hardly scratched the surface.

Shadow of the Colossus was made by the same people who made Ico and there are plenty of similarities (some people even hypothesize that Shadow of the Colossus is a prequel of sorts to Ico). What Ico had was texture. The old decaying castle was incredibly detailed. The light and the sound added to the experience. The fact that there was no music or distracting health meters on the screen made Ico even more of an immersive experience. The player wasn’t distracted by game elements, but instead was focused on the world presented. Shadow of the Colossus has a similar feel. There are two meters on the screen, a health meter and a grip meter, and there is a soundtrack to this game, but the world in incredibly textured and detailed. Like Ico, half the fun of this game is just wandering around looking at the environment. It’s really beautiful. Since part of the game is hunting down the hiding places of the various colossi, the player has plenty of chances to get to know the details of the terrain. The player is enclosed in a valley, but it consists of forests, deserts, mountains, and beaches. Each type of terrain has its own light and sound, as well as random realistic elements, such as falling leaves and wandering lizards. And you get to explore it all from horseback. Agro, the horse, is the most realistic animal I’ve seen in a game. In fact, if the player dismounts to look at something, Agro will wander to a nearby water source and take a drink, or go run around by himself. Agro’s realistic behavior isn’t part of the game plays, but it adds to the texture of the game. It’s an added bit of realism that sucks you in.

Still, when I first started playing Shadow of the Colossus, I didn’t think it was as good as Ico. Sure, the visuals were nice, but it acked Ico's heart. What made Ico so special was the innocent determination of the young Ico and his relationship with Yorda,. For the player, the fact that one had to guide and protect Yorda made for a game with deep emotional resonance. Shadow of the Colossus doesn’t have this resonance, at least not in the same way. Sure, the player has Agro, but Agro takes care of himself. There is no special bond that develops. I missed that connection between Ico and Yorda. Also, the first few colossi I encountered were ones I had already seen in preview videos. Sure they were big and it was fun figuring out how to bring them down, but I was still missing Ico. But then I fought the fifth colossus. This colossus is a huge birdlike creature that sits on what appears to be a broken dam on a huge lake. I don’t want to give too much away, but, as with all the colossi, in order to defeat it the player has to get on it. In order to do that the player must shoot arrows at it to get its attention. Then, as it swoops down, the player must jump and grab onto the fur on one of its wings. At the same time, the colossus heads back up into the sky. Basically, the player has to scramble across the body of the colossus while it wheels and turns through the sky above the lake. It’s a blast. One thing that make this so fun is the visuals. As the colossus picks up speed, the scene blurs a bit and the player’s hair and clothes whip in the rushing air. The sound and the dual shock vibration contribute to the intensity of the experience. Add to this the sound track and you have a pulse-pounding experience that I haven’t felt outside of a movie theater. After this I was hooked. Shadow of the Colossus had me.

Amazingly, each of the colossi are unique and require different strategies. There are some basic principles that apply for all of them– stab them on their tattoos, hold onto their fur– but they are each very different. Even ones that seem similar in size and looks (like 11 and 14) are different in behavior and in how the player must use the environment to defeat them. It is this last bit that makes this game so interesting. While you don’t get new weapons, each environment that a colossus is in must be used to the player’s advantage. Some of these environments are used in offensive ways, such as getting things to fall on the colossus. Other times the environment is used to affect the colossus’s behavior, such as using a low part of the architecture to get the colossus to bend over. And some environments work against the player. In one, the colossus hides under the sand so the player cannot see it. In another, dust gets blown around so much that it becomes hard to see. The fact that the player has to figure out how to use and/or overcome the environment out while trying to keep from getting crushed by a giant monster makes for an incredibly exciting experience. The player is constantly called upon to use problem solving and reaction time in the same moment.

Also, there is not always one single way to defeat a colossus. I found this out after I made it through the game and then read some posts on the discussion boards at IGN. For example, I had figured out a way to get on colossus four (the horse) that involved climbing up its face. As I read on the boards, I realized that most people got on this colossus by climbing onto its bony tail. So while many games require the player to memorize the patterns of the opponents (this is one of the things that bored me to tears about Metal Gear: Solid), Shadow of the Colossus allows for a variety of problem solving techniques (see the link to the time attack movies below to see some insane solutions to defeating the colossi).

Let me talk about emotions again. While Shadow of the Colossus doesn’t inspire the same feelings of responsibility and friendship that Ico does, there are still emotions unique to this game. For one, no game makes you feel the thrill of going against the odds like this game. When you first see some of these colossi stand before you, an utter feeling of helplessness can wash over you. When you eventually defeat them, an incredible feeling of doing the impossible takes its place. Yet there is also a creeping feeling of dread in the game. As the player continues (minor spoiler here), the character has more and more black marks on him. He begins to look more and more like one of the shadows at the beginning of the game. The player begins to realize the horrible toll this is taking on the character. The player is warned about a heavy price at the beginning of the game and this price can be seen to manifest itself as the game progresses. So there are conflicting feelings of victory and worry that grow throughout the game. This also adds to the feeling of grim determination that the main character exudes. After each battle, he is returned to the main temple by an invisible force. There, he staggers to his feet again, looks at the inert figure of Mono (the woman the character is attempting to bring back to life), and awaits the next order. To see him increasingly beaten and altered (possessed?) only makes the player feel more deeply the beauty/foolishness of the main character’s determination. There is also an incredible feeling of loneliness in the game. The castle in Ico was a lonely place, but there was Yorda and the queen to provide some life. In Shadow of the Colossus, there is no-one. Sure, there’s the horse, some animals, and the colossi, but there are no other humans, besides the dead form of Mono . The huge open environment adds to this feeling of isolation. The player can gallop from one end of the valley to the other, but there is no-one there. The player really gets the feeling that the main character has gone beyond the power of humankind and is braving something beyond mortal comprehension. The quest is extreme and, because it is so, fraught with danger. While I still prefer the touching friendship in Ico, the emotions in Shadow of the Colossus lead to interesting contradictory feelings. There is no moral clarity to the game. On the one hand, the main character’s determination fills the player with hope, but on the other hand it strikes one as wrongheaded and possibly catastrophic. While the ending of the game explains some of the mystery, there are enough gaps to keep the ambiguity going. There are no easy answers in this game. I love that.

When you win the game, you can play again in hard mode, and also time attack mode becomes available. Hard mode is fun. Not all the colossi are more difficult, however. It seems like only the first few actually require new ways of defeating them. I don’t like time attack. To me, having to defeat the colossi within a time limit takes away the fun. It makes Shadow of the Colossus too much like a regular game. Instead of being immersed in the experience, you are overly conscious of the timer. You are playing to get a numerical ranking, not to live the experience. Even if you defeat the colossus, if you didn’t get it within the time limit, you need to go back and do it again. The fun of the experience goes away. Also, the things you get for beating the time limits are pretty useless. Some are kind of neat, like the fruit tree map, but you’ve already won the game. You don't need any aids at this point. And collecting stuff makes Shadow of the Colossus too much like other games. It cheapens the game. Fortunately, your original stab at the game is unadulterated. Still, I kind of wish they didn’t include time attack mode.

The beauty of the environmental detail, the originality of the colossi, the openness of the game play, and the thought provoking subject matter make Shadow of the Colossus a unique experience. This is one of the best games of all time.


some thoughts on the game for those that have played it
Not many specifics are given about the story in Shadow of the Colossus. Even the motivations of the characters are open to interpretation. We never really learn for sure why the main character is trying to revive Mono, for instance. There are a lot of theories (see links below) and I don’t want to add my own. I just want to comment on the ending, specifically the part where the main character is being sucked into the pool. In this part, the player has control again. It’s the last time the player has control. The main character is injured, but the player can make him hop. The wind blows him down, but moving him in diagonals, the player can gradually hop him up the room. Once the main character gets to the stairs leading to where Mono was (she isn’t there anymore, oddly enough) an invisible wall keeps him from progressing. The player can sit there all day, mashing the buttons, but there is nowhere to go. Mono is gone and can’t be reached. So what is there to do? Nothing. Let go. Stop trying. That’s all the player can do. Think about this for a second. The entire game was about doing the impossible. The player went up against sixteen colossi, some as big as buildings, and, through sheer determination, brought them down. The game up until the end was all about not giving up, about fighting with only the slimmest glimmer of hope. So the last time the player has control over the main character what does the player have to do? Give up. The player has to stop trying. Once I realized that the game was making me do this, I was blown away. It was such an incredible and unique capstone to an incredible and unique game.

secrets
Like Ico, there aren’t many. Eating fruit increases health and getting the silver tails of lizards increases grip strength. You can also catch ahold of the birds and fish and go for a ride. Also, whatever items you get in time attack mode the main character will be wearing in the intro movie when you restart the game. Once I saved my game while wearing the Cloak of Invisibility and when I restarted and watched the movie, the character of Wander(er) was invisible. I got a good view of Mono wrapped in that blanket.

The only real secret is that you can get to the secret garden seen in the ending movie. There’s not much to do once you get up there, though. In fact, it’s kind of disappointing. Here’s a movie that shows you how to get there. The key? Diagonal jumps. They don't use as much strength as straight climbing or jumping.

links
A description of the game at Wikipedia.
Faqs at IGN.
A whole faq about theories regarding the game- very interesting and well-argued.
Discussion board at IGN.
Forum at GameSpot.
Nice blog about the game, including various glitches.
The incredible time attack movies from Japan.
An interesting artice on the game mechanics in SOTC and how they relate to emotional responses.

my own movies
Agro dead - haunted by Agro's floating ghost

posted April 4, 2006

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Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne

I don't like role playing games on video game systems. I really don't. In RPGs, you just sit there and click through a story about how the world is going to end and only you can save it, but you have to defeat a powerful warrior who was once good, but has succumb to the forces of evil. Yawn. Oh, and there’s some love interest who ends up dieing. Your endless clicking is broken only by cut scenes that might be nice and all, but are often in a very different visual style than the rest of the game (think Final Fantasy 7) and tend to be longer than you’d like. Now add to this that the story itself is hastily put together, a crazy quilt of scenes and quests, and is intended to hold the interest of a fourteen year old boy, not a mature adult. What you have is a waste of money and time.

That said, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne is an RPG and I love it. It’s thoughtfully put together, creepy and thought-provoking in its subject matter, and thoroughly engrossing. Just to give an example of how it is unlike other RPGs: Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne is rated M, for mature. According to the cover of the game this is because of “intense violence and sexual themes.” Now, this would probably make you think that this game is like Grand Theft Auto, Silent Hill, or Manhunt. It’s not. Yes, you fight in the game. Yes, there are some floors that have drops of blood on them. Yes, some of the female characters in the game are hardly clothed. Yet, when you kill someone they simply disappear. There’s no blood or severed limbs. The game is less gory than Mortal Combat. Actually, the violence is more like Street Fighter, to use a similar comparison. And the sexual themes in the game don’t equate to any sexual action, violent or otherwise. I think the most sexual thing I’ve experienced in the game was when one character said that another character had a nice ass ("language" is another reason it has an M rating, but the worst I’ve encountered are "ass" and "shitload"). In other words, this game doesn’t have an M rating for the reasons most games get an M rating: by sensationalising the violence and gore. This game has an M rating because its subject matter is mature.

When I say "mature," I don’t mean that you pay taxes and worry about mortgage payments in the game. I mean that it’s philosophical, but I also mean that it’s very bleak. As for the former, the philosophy here would probably dull younger players. Hence the mature rating. As for the later, the game offers some very dark opinions about how the universe works and young children would probably be disturbed and confused by this. For example, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne gets around the old trope of the main character trying to prevent the world from ending by having the world come to an end within the first few minutes of the game. Your goal is not to save the world, but to decide what kind of world you would like to see created in its place. Yet, the decisions you make are not black and white ones. The choices of how to reinvent the world are all equally bleak. You can choose to side with those who believe that the old world was done in by all of its mediocrity, so the new world should be ruled by strength and beauty. The corollary to this, which is shown in the course of the game, is that the weak need to be exploited or killed to ensure the rule of the strong. Or you can choose to side with those who believe that the old world was out of step with the natural order and that the new world should be one without desire, a world of perfect stasis. And if you have to kill everyone to get that, then so be it. Or you can choose to side with people who believe that everyone should just look out for number one, and that instead of one big unified new world, you can have an infinite number of individual worlds where all people can do what they want. Alone. These are mature, albeit grim, choices to have to make. Again, this is a far cry from most RPGs where the choices tend to be whether to save a group of doe-eyed innocents or side with a megalomaniac bent on destroying the world.

Fitting with the dark mood of the game, this world you are wandering in is inhabited almost entirely by demons. They randomly attack you throughout the game and powerful boss demons often await you at the end of the various dungeons. Yet one of the more interesting aspects to this game is that you can, instead of fighting, choose to negotiate with a demon and get it to give you something or even to join your party. This doesn’t always work out too well, but it’s fun to try to acquire a diverse collection of demons (there are actually benefits for doing so, according to this FAQ at Gamespot.com ). Another creative aspect to this game is that once you have a few demons in your party, you can fuse them together to create even more powerful demons. I don’t want to get too much into how this is done, but it adds a lot of variety to the game. Since you often fuse demons into new ones, your party is constantly changing. So, except for the main character, you are not stuck with the same people throughout the entire game. This keeps the game continually new. Also, there’s a nice variety to the demons. The creators of the game have lifted creatures from the folklore of the world. So you might have the British fairy queen Titania in your party, along with the snake god Quezalcoatl , and the Hindu goddess of death, Kali. Then you could fuse them together and maybe get one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Another aspect to this game that adds to its variety is the various story lines. As I said above, there are different ways to remake the world and each path leads to a different ending to the game. Also, while there is a main storyline that you follow in this world of demons, there is also another world that you can travel in whenever you like, The Amala Labyrinth. I don’t want to give away what this is exactly, but basically it’s a series of floors, called Kalpas, that present considerable dangers, but also considerable rewards. Though I should warn you that your traversing of the labyrinth affects the outcome of the game. Still, in practical game playing terms, what this means is that if you get stuck in the main game, you can always enter The Amala Labyrinth and try to get more of it mapped out. And when you get bored of that, you can get back to the main story. But now your character is probably stronger, so maybe the thing that was giving you trouble before will give you less trouble now.

What also sets this game apart from other RPGs is the characters. The motivation for the characters in most games is pretty clichéd: their family was killed and they want revenge, they were victim to a horrible accident and made evil, they believe in hope and goodness and will protect them at any cost. The motivations for characters in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne are a little more complicated. Basically, character flaws early on get mutated out of all proportion by the end of the game. I don’t want to give too much detail, because that would spoil the story. Still, let me offer one minor example. Towards the beginning of the game you meet a little Jack Frost fairy who is behind the counter at the first shop you come across. This fairy tells you that he wants to become a great hero and that he’s planning on going out to look for adventure. You meet him later in the game, next to a powerful boss demon. When you talk to him on this occasion, he says that he is attracted by the power of the boss and that he wants to be powerful himself. So his desire to be a hero mutates gradually into a desire for power. Later on, there is an option to encounter him again. Yet this time, he is a boss himself. He appears before you as an enormous, black version of himself and says he wants to suck the power from you. Now, this is a minor character and a minor storyline, but you can see how small defects or beliefs affect characters down the line. And as I said, they tend to get mutated out of all proportion. But such is the nature of this demon world that you are in.

Even the minor characters that you encounter in this game don’t talk like characters in most RPGs. I love some of the offhand comments that these creatures make. For instance, at one point a character tells you that a certain group is amassing power and taking over the place that you are in. Then you click to continue and the character adds, “I’m jealous.” In a scene not long after this, you fight a battle against three demons in order to be set free from a prison. When you win, a demon guard leads you out and says a few words before he disappears. “The boss set you free.” And then there’s a pause and the demon says, “and that really pisses me off.” In such an otherwise bleak game, these little bits of comic relief are very welcome.

While the story drew me in more and more as I played the game, it was also the strategy that hooked me. It’s pretty simple really, and since I don’t play RPGs it may not be too unique, but having to develop battle strategies is a really fun part of this game. The combat in this game is based on turns. Usually, each demon in a party gets a single turn that they can perform an action in and when everyone has gone then the other side gets to go. The strategies you devise tend to affect the amount of turns your side or the opposing side gets. This is done through exploiting weaknesses. The attacks in this game are based in certain elements- fire, ice, electricity, physical, etc- and each demon has particular strengths and weaknesses regarding these elements. For example, a demon that uses fire spells is probably weak to ice attacks. So you want to exploit that weakness. Likewise, if you are fighting this demon, you want to make sure that no one in your party is weak to fire. The drawback to a weakness is not only that the attack does more damage, but also that the person attacking is given an extra turn when they exploit that weakness. For instance, if I have four people in my party, I get four attacks. If one of my demons hits a demon with a weakness to ice with an ice spell, I get one extra move to make in that round, or a total of five attacks. But this can work against me as easily as it can for me. Enemies will get an extra attack if they exploit one of the weaknesses in my party. Likewise, a party loses an attack if they use an attack that someone on the other side has a resistance to. To continue with the example above, if the demon attacks my party with a fire spell and the demon the enemy hits is void to fire, then that enemy’s party loses a turn. Now, there are multiple elements so this basic idea can get multiplied greatly within a battle. Add to that status enhancing spells, as well status reducing spells that you can cast on the enemy party, and the ability to cancel those spells, you can see how things can get more complicated. Obviously, a lot of your learning what strategy to use against a certain demon involves being killed by that demon a few times. This can be frustrating. Personally, I used a walkthrough to help with suggestions for how to defeat the particularly nasty demons.

This brings me to the downsides of Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. There are two main drawbacks to this game: it is very long and it is very difficult. The fact that the game is long can also be seen as an advantage (more bang for your buck) and it seems funny to count this as a drawback since the drawback to the other games here, Ico and Rez, was that they were both too short. Still, this game is long and it sucks you in. That means that you are going to be taking a lot of your time to play it (seventy to ninety hours, probably). It’s very easy to intend to just get through the next part of the game and then look up at the clock and see that you have been fiddling with the controller for three hours. So don’t play this game if you have other, more important things to get done in your life. Once you get into this game, you are going to want to finish it. The second drawback, the game’s difficulty, has some easy solutions. One: there is a four hundred page hint book that you can buy. I haven’t seen it so I can’t really comment, but it’s supposed to be good. Two: there’s a very helpful (though filled with typos…) walkthrough of the game on-line (which I mentioned above) that manages to describe everything without giving too much of the plot away. I personally have been using this walkthrough to get help. Without it, I’m sure I’d be stuck forever in certain places. In general, I think hint books and walkthroughs are cheating and take away from the game experience. Yet this game can easily get very frustrating. Some of the mazes involve random teleportation and so are impossible to map and some enemies have abilities that are hard to counter without some advice. Furthermore, I’ve found that the walkthrough has given me insight into some of the subtleties of the game and has helped me discover different things to explore. While I don’t always agree with the strategies that the walkthrough I mentioned suggests, I’ve found it extremely helpful. And it’s free.

This game may not have the stunning beauty of Ico, or the out-and-out creativity of Rez, but Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne is well put together piece of work. It is captivating and thought provoking. I even found myself discussing the various philosophies in the game with my wife and that’s not something I can say of any other video game.


secrets
The links below contain the most complete secrets and hints that I have found on the internet. However, there are certain things that they don't cover or only refer to briefly. So I want to fill in some blanks. Obviously, these secrets only make sense if you are playing/have played the game.

The Black Visor. This is an item that you can pick up in The Labyrinth of Amala. It’s in the first Kalpa, but you have to complete the second Kalpa to get it. At the end of the second Kalpa, you get the Moon Key. This allows you to move on to the third Kalpa, but it is also the key to the vault that you couldn’t enter in the first Kalpa. So go back to this vault (it’s down a ladder to the west of where you first enter) and use the Moon Key. Inside is a bunch of goodies, one of which is the Black Visor. Now when you read a tombstone in one of the burial chambers in The Labyrinth of Amala you can battle the demon whose name appears on the tombstone. Unfortunately, the experience points and macca you get for doing so are pitiful. Yet, according to this FAQ, if you defeat all the burial chamber demons you get a discount when buying demons from the demonic compendium.

Bishamon. You might have noticed that northwest of Asakusa is a temple that you can’t enter, Uguisudani (go past the junk shop in Asakusa, past the save point titled Asakusa C, go up the stairs, and head north-west). What you need in order to get into this temple is the Kimon Stone. You get this from the guy digging at Yurakucho Station (you have to give him a demon). Once you enter the temple, you meet Kishon Bishamon, who challenges you to a fight. The first time I agreed to the challenge, he annihilated my entire party in one round. He has attacks that can do over 200 points of damage and he usually gets two turns per round. So that’s up to 500 points of damage on everyone in your party. What you need to do to survive is make sure that he doesn’t get those two turns. Most of his attacks are either fire-based or physical, Prominence and Hassohappa, respectively. He also uses the expel attack Holy Wrath occasionally. So you need at least one demon in your party void to fire. This will cause him to lose a turn, which will give you a chance to heal. Also, you want to cast something like Sukukaja, which will make it so that you may be able to dodge his attacks, which will also cause him to lose a turn. Things like Fog Breath and War Cry also help to lessen the damage he can do. Personally, I equipped the main character with a Magatama that was resistant to physical attacks, but you could ingest one that was resistant to fire or expel. Now, since Bishamon uses fire attacks, he is void to fire. Yet, as you probably guessed, he is weak to ice. So unleash your most powerful ice spells. Force and electricity attacks get to him too, but ice is the way to go as much as possible. Once I did the above, Bishamon turned out not to be too difficult. When he is defeated, he gives you the Magatama, Gundari. Also, once you have defeated him, you can fuse demons to get him in the Cathedral of Shadows, but you have to be level 72 or above. One warning though, if you use the Afterlife Bell in the fourth Kalpa, Bishmon will be replaced by Futomimi in the Cathedral of Shadows. At least this is what happened to me. I was planning on getting Bishamon, but wasn’t at level 72 yet. So I explored the fourth Kalpa. Once I got done, Bishamon was gone, and the same demons that would have made him now fused into Futomimi. But Futomimi is a good character and there’s a bit of poetic justice in putting him in your party (unless, of course, you chose the path that made it so you had to kill him…).

Muspell Magatama. If you want to get all the Magatama, then you want to get Muspell. It’s in Shibuya. So take the Amala Network back there and go up into the circular floor that is at street level. If you look on your map, you’ll notice that the northern boundary is not mapped. That’s because there’s a room up there. Go behind the central building on the right side. Once behind, you’ll be prompted to open a door. If Kagutsuchi is full, then enter. Inside, you’ll witness the summoning of a demon. If you tell them to hurry up, the demon will appear. This is Mara. And this is probably the silliest looking creature in the entire game. He (she?) resembles a large, green penis with a mouth. He’s actually not a hard boss, but he can be frustrating. Why? Because he can cast Diarama and heal over 2000 hit points at a time. That means all the damage you do to him in a round will suddenly go away. Also, every fourth round or so he will cast Dekaja and get rid of all your status boosting spells. So you have to hit him fast and hit him hard. My recommendation is to have as many demons in your party with Focus as possible. Also, have someone with Terukaja, since it ups your physical damage. Also, a Fog Breath or two helps, because even though he’s a big phallic blob, he has the frustrating tendency to dodge your attacks. So have two characters use Focus, have one cast Tarukaja, and have another cast Fog Breath or something similar (this is what I did anyway). Then he’ll attack you. He usually uses a big physical attack, Hades Blast, or a curse attack, Dismal Tune. So equip Djed Magatama to make yourself void to curse. Anyway, on your second round, let him have it. I used Tempest, then Lunge. If you’re sufficiently pumped up, both of them can do over 1000 points of damage and, if you’re lucky, land a critical, which will give you an extra turn. I also had Dante with me, who used Rebellion. But powerful physical attacks like Dark Sword or Deathbound are good, too. If everything goes well, you will defeat Mara in that second round. Then you will receive the Magatama, Muspell. But now you will dream of moaning green penises.

Etcetera. I have other secrets as well, such as a map of the invisible wall room in the second Kalpa and info on the Bandou Shrine where you get the Masakados Magatama. But I don't want to take up a lot more space with this one game. So e-mail me (nick(at)nijomu(dot)com) if you want help.


links
Ign.com- an overview of the game with links to images and a discussion board. Also, this walkthrough.
Gamespot.com- a lot of other helpful hints, such as this FAQ and this guide to the puzzle game in Asakusa.

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This game is deceptively simple and utterly engrossing. The game play is classic yet totally unique, and because of this, Rez is a game that virtually any game player would enjoy.

But what is the game?

Unfortunately, that's a hard question to answer. Let me start off with comparisons. Rez is a bit like that old console game, Space Harrier. You control a character that flies through landscapes and you shoot at objects that zoom towards you. Yet the look of Rez is actually more like an even older console game, I, Robot. Anyone out there still remember this game? I, Robot was an old Atari game that was the first to use 3D polygonal artwork. You piloted your little set of polygons over and through big polygon platforms in space in order to shoot at enemy polygons. It was actually a fun game in its time. So put these two games together and you start to get a picture of Rez. It's a shooter like Space Harrier, but the scenery is polygonal like I, Robot. Got it?